A Good Explanation For The Pope

[Lil Red]

[url="http://www.markshea.blogspot.com/"]From Mark Shea's blogspot:[/url]

[quote]Rosemarie injects the insidious Poison of Charity into the discussion again

[i]As for the Koran-kissing incident; I've said this a zillion times so please bear with me if you've read it here before:

My husband and I have a friend who is a Coptic Catholic. He grew up in Egypt, he is no friend of Islam and knows Middle Eastern culture very well.

[b]He tells us that it is a Middle Eastern custom, when someone gives you a gift, to kiss the gift as a gesture of respect toward the giver. It does not necessarily mean you are reverencing the gift, it is just a sign of respect for the person who gave it to you.[/b]

The Koran in question was a gift, given to the Pope by a group of Iraqi Muslims. He accepted the book and kissed it, using an Eastern gesture of respect toward the givers. He did not intend to reverence or worship the Koran, just to honor the gift-givers.

Thus my Coptic Catholic friend has no problem with the Pope's action, even though he rather dislikes Islam and the Koran himself. He understands the Pope's gesture as it was intended, while we Westerners erroneously judge it based on our own cultural biases.[/i]

Exhibit A in my point about the strange relishing of anger in so many Traditionalist circles. The fascinating thing is how many "faithful orthodox Catholics" can look right at the Standard Issue Catholic Moral Imperative to take the most charitable view of any ambiguous action, spit on it, and return to this particular gesture again and again and again and again and again, full of dark relish as they moan and wail and complain and gripe and call the Pope an appeaser and a coward and every other name in the book. And when somebody like Rosemarie points out the fairly obvious--that this minor act of kindness and cross-cultural communication was not that big a deal--they will get angry and curiously disappointed. Why? Because they *want* to believe the worst, to put the worst possible construction on the Pope's gesture. They want, in a word, to be angry, not charitable.

"Stop reading minds, Shea!"

Can't read minds. Can only read email and I've read more whining ([color=red]edited by Lil Red[/color]) and griping about this incident from Chicken Littles determined to see the sky falling and the Pope selling out the Catholic faith than I care to count.

For the life of me, I don't see why people couldn't just read Rosemarie's note and say, "Oh! Well that's reasonable. Okay." and move on. But I know perfectly well that there is a certain percentage of people who don't *want* to move on because they don't, at the end of the day, want to be charitable. They want to be angry.

Update: As if to oblige me, one my comment box Inquisitors retorts to Rosemarie:

What proof do you have for the statement: "He accepted the book and kissed it, using an Eastern gesture of respect toward the givers"?

That's right Rosemarie! Just what *evidence* do you have that we should not put the absolute worst possible construction on what the Pope did? Don't tell me you are one of these pantywaists who thinks we should extend charity or presume innocence until guilt is proven! The burden of proof is on *you* Rosemarie to show why the Pope should not be condemned! The Inquisition has spoken.[/quote]


anyway, i thought this would be an interesting subject to start.

[Quietfire]

You know what chaffes my bottom?(besides a flame about three feet high)
This is the exact problem that we are supposed to fight against. So the Pope performs a charitable act in receiving a gift. And suddenly he's the bad guy?! He's let the Church down?!

Give me a break!

I saw a picture at a website showing the Pope receiving a 'dot' from a woman from India (sorry about the 'dot'-not sure what its called)
and the person who devised this stupid (yeah, I said it. So beat me up!!!) website, had all this scripture to show that what the Pope was doing was wrong.

Can someone explain this to me?!!

Has the world gone completely crazy, or did I?

[cmotherofpirl]

Well you know practicing good manners in a foreign country will always annoy somebody.

[Dave]

Recently I read somewhere (can't remember where ) that the Pope was actually not kissing the Koran but a book of the Gospels, and the people he was with weren't Muslims but Eastern Catholics. But whether it's true or not, I wouldn't know. Can anybody help me out here?

[Archangel]

The pope kissing the Koran reminds me of Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners (Luke 5:30). Like lil red's post said, it's all about being charitable.

[crusader1234]

It's even simpler than Jesus and tax collectors, it is the Pope Receiving a gift. He showed respect, it should have ended there. The dot you spoke of is called a Bindi. Gestures mean different things all the way around the world, I think that the melting pot culture in the United States has a lot to do with the misinterpretation of this. And as for why the Pope kissed the Shroud of Turin? Who knows? Who cares! It doesnt change anything!

[Dave]

Wait a minute ... the dot you're talking about ... I think you might be confusing something here ...

If you're referring to what I think you're referring to, the Pope was said to have received a "mark of Shiva" from a Hindu priestess. Well, in reality the woman was Catholic, and she was giving the Pope a traditional Indian greeting called an aarti, which is traditionally given to the principal celebrant of a Mass or to a child returning home from his first Communion. It has no more religious significance than a handshake or a bow (if you live in China or Japan).

[cmotherofpirl]

Some people keep forgetting we are a universal Church and embrace all cutures.

[Dave]

Can anyone answer my question about Pope John Paul kissing the Gospels rather than the Koran? Anyone?

[Hananiah]

1) The Koran blasphemes the Trinity and claims that on the day of judgment Jesus will condemn as idolaters all who worshipped Him as God. It is antithetical to Christianity.

2) Most Catholics do not have the cultural background of that Copt, and naturally interpret kissing a religious object as a gesture of religious veneration.

Well intentioned or not, just being polite or not, kissing the Koran was an extermely imprudent action on the part of the Holy Father. Given the contents of the Koran he probably should not have accepted the gift in the first place, and moreover he definitely should not have kissed it since he knows how most Catholics interpret that action.

[the lumberjack]

you all claim that physical things we do directly affect our spiritual walk...

how can this NOT affect the pope's spiritual stand with God?

if kissing the "holy book" of a foreign religion and receiving the mark from another?

[crusader1234]

hey, i may be confused here but hannaniah are you saying that he was wrong to do this? showing respect to a gift or receiving a dot is hardly a sin. showing respect to other cultures is something that we should all commend rather than shake our fists at. we cannot expect the pope to do any sort of evangelization by disrespecting other cultures. and obviously... people you have to quit challenging the pope. unless you are a cardinal, a priest, or someone who has devoted their life to the intricacies of the church... dont challenge him. its as simple as that. as usual, the pope knows better than you and he is obviously not stupid OR a blasphemer, otherwise he wouldnt be pope now would he?

[Hananiah]

[quote]hey, i may be confused here but hannaniah are you saying that he was wrong to do this?[/quote]
Yes.

[quote]showing respect to a gift or receiving a dot is hardly a sin.[/quote]
I have no problem with the dot, if Dave's information is correct. However, when you are the leader of a world religion, and someone gives you a book which says that that religion is a lie, giving a gesture which the majority of your followers interpret as a gesture of religious veneration to that book is highly imprudent.

[phatcatholic]

here's [url="http://www.catholicapologetics.net/pope_kissed_koranor_did_he.htm"][b]another article[/b][/url] on the subject....

Most of the Protestant sites I visited said:

[i]"Here is a photo of the Pope at the end of an audience with Patriarch Raphael I of Iraq where "the Pope bowed to the Muslim holy book the Qu'ran presented to him by the delegation and kissed it as a sign of respect". [/i][or something similar click here for some examples [b][url="http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/popekiss.html"]1[/url][/b], [b][url="http://www.garykah.org/html/popekoran.htm"]2[/url][/b], [b][url="http://www.crusadeforcatholics.com/pope.htm"]3[/url][/b],]

First, there is question as to whether Patriarch Raphael I was present at the time, second the picture is not of him but of a member of the the Iraqi delegation.

When I first saw these articles, I thought it was a mistake, they could not have been right. It was when I saw everyone reference Patriarch Raphael I of Iraq, that the pieces of the puzzle fell in to place.

The Chaldean Patriarch of Iraq, Raphael I Bidawid is the spiritual guide of the majority of Iraq's Christians -- who still celebrate their liturgy in Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus. Of the 20 million Iraqi citizens, some one million are Christians. Of these, 80% are Catholics belonging to either the Chaldean or Latin Rites. This was reported by Raphael I Bidawid, Patriarch of the Chaldeans in an interview with the FIDES News Service, as follows:

[i]“On May 14th I was received by the Pope, together with a delegation composed of the Shiite imam of Khadum mosque and the Sunni President of the council of administration of the Iraqi Islamic Bank. There was also a representative of the Iraqi ministry of religion. I renewed our invitation to the Pope because his visit would be for us a grace from heaven. It would confirm the faith of Christians and prove the Pope’s love for the whole of humanity in a country which is mainly Muslim. At the end of the audience the Pope bowed to the Muslim holy book the Koran presented to him by the delegation and he kissed it as a sign of respect. The photo of that gesture has been shown repeatedly on Iraqi television and it demonstrates that the Pope is not only aware of the suffering of the Iraqi people, he has also great respect for Islam.” [/i]

The Patriarch of the Chaldeans tells us the intention of John Paul II in kissing the Muslim book, It was not to show acceptance of this book, the kiss was to show his "aware of the suffering of the Iraqi people" and his respect for the Muslims of Iraq. Unlike most of Muslim nations, Iraq (at the time) had, like us, the separation of Church and State. This meaning that in the predominantly Muslim Iraq Christians were granted the freedom to worship publicly.

[phatcatholic]

another one can be found [b][url="http://www.catholicexchange.com/css/answers.asp?cat=23&quest=713"]here[/url][/b]