Cole on Benedict on Islam

At Michael's suggestion, I read Juan Cole's "Pope Gets it Wrong" essay.  Of course, I am not a historian.  Still, for what it's worth, it does not seem to me that Cole really engages, let alone refutes, the Pope's speech.  Assuming that, as Cole reports, Benedict was mistaken about the timing of "Surah 2" with respect to Muhammad's time in power, I still do not see how the Pope's speech itself -- which struck me, again, as learned, charitable, sincere, and important -- warrants an apology, or "better advisors."  And, I still think that it is the overreaction to the speech -- and the reactions to the overreaction to the speech -- that are troubling, not the speech.

By the way, I do not think this matter takes us off our blog's "Catholic legal theory" focus.  I take it that prominent in any Catholic legal theory will have to be a confidence in reason and its capacity to apprehend truths -- truths about who we are, what we are for, and even who God is.  It seems to me that the point of the Pope's speech was to re-assert this confidence, and call others to it. 

Checking back on Cole's blog, after thinking about his post on Benedict's speech, I came across this post, in which Cole contends that the "sensitivities" which, apparently, the Pope has ruffled by using a half-millennium-old quote in an academic speech, are "a feature of postcolonialism."

Muslims were colonized by Western powers, often for centuries, and all that period they were told that their religion was inferior and barbaric. They are independent now, though often they have gained independence only a couple of generations (less if you consider neocolonialism). As independent, they are finally liberated to protest when Westerners put them down.

An interesting take.  How, I wonder, does the Siege of Vienna, or the Battle of Lepanto fit in?  Or, the murder of Sr. Leonella Sgorbati, in front of a children's hospital in Somalia?

Cole also advises the Pope, saying ""[a]ll he has to do is quote Vatican II on Islam, which is still Catholic doctrine last I knew, and the whole issue would blow over."  Not likely, I'm afraid.  But, we can hope.