"Recruiting the Pope as a leader in the War on Terror"?!?

"Americans warm to Benedict—but they won't like everything he says" -- so says The Economist ("Don't all hug him at once" April 3, 2008), referring in particular to "Catholic conservatives":

But is it the real Benedict conservative Americans are hugging tight, or a caricature of him that they have sewn together? People are arguing already about the meaning of his appearance at the United Nations on April 18th. For liberals, this may be the time when the visitor gives right-wing admirers a cold shower by reminding them of the Vatican's opposition to the Iraq war.

Moreover, they point out, Benedict is a defender of a Catholic social doctrine, and an economic world-view, that in American terms sound quite socialist. And he will surely use his UN address to affirm his support for the world body, and more generally for multilateral diplomacy. “It's a stretch for the neoconservatives to recruit the pope as the leader of the war on terror, and it's also a stretch to associate him with the uncritical acceptance of capitalism,” says Paul Baumann, editor of Commonweal.

Trust me, conservatives like George Weigel and Fr. Neuhaus are well aware that Ratzinger, along with his predecessor, has disagreed with them on going to war with Iraq. However, conveying an appreciation for Benedict's emphasis on respect for religious pluralism by Muslims and denunciation of religious violence hardly constitutes an attempt to "recruit the Pope to head the war on terror."

Among the views which the Economist perceives as being offensive to Catholic conservatives is Benedict's hope for "a reformed Islam as a potential ally in challenging the 'dictatorship of relativism'".

The Economist might be suprised to learn that leading "Catholic neocons" Fr. Neuhaus, George Weigel and Michael Novak are no strangers to this hope. On the idea of Islamic renewal, Fr. Neuhaus has stated:

Yet more troubling is the message that Islam, in order to become less of a threat to the world, must relativize its claim to possess the truth. That plays directly into the hands of Muslim rigorists who pose as the defenders of the uncompromised and uncompromisible truth and who call for death to the infidels. If Islam is to become tolerant and respectful of other religions, it must be as the result of a development that comes from within the truth of Islam, not as a result of relativizing or abandoning that truth.

While some have posited the need for a "Muslim Luther", Weigel envisions someone along the lines of the Muslim equivalent of Leo XIII: "... a religious leader who reaches back into the deeper philosophical resources of his tradition in order to broker a critical agreement with Enlightenment political thought, and to shape his tradition's encounter with the economic and political institutions of modernity" (see Faith, Reason & The War Against Jihadism). And Michael Novak has entertained similar idea in The Universal Hunger For Liberty: Why the Clash of Civilizations Is Not Inevitable (2004).

Related

• George Weigel, Micheal Sean Winters and the "McBrien Prize in Really Inept Vaticanology" April 1, 2008.

Iraq -- Between Pope and President

Bush meets Benedict 2007

For Pope and president, a chasm over Iraq, by Tom Feeney. New Jersey Star-Ledger March 18, 2008:

On social issues like abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research, the conservative Pope Benedict XVI and the conservative President Bush find much common ground.

But a month from now, when Benedict makes his first visit to the U.S., his meeting with Bush is likely to underscore an issue where there remains a deep divide between the Vatican and the White House -- the war in Iraq.

The war began five years ago tomorrow, and from the start, the pontiff and his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, have spoken out against it. "Nothing positive comes from Iraq," Benedict said during his Easter message last year.

Benedict will be greeted by Bush when his plane lands April 15, the Vatican announced yesterday. The pair will meet the next day to kick off the Pope's six-day U.S. visit that includes a Mass at Yankee Stadium and a speech at the United Nations. Observers expect the Iraq war will come up during the White House visit.

"If it doesn't, I'd be disappointed in the pope," said the Rev. Richard P. McBrien, a professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame. "If it does, however, I would expect Benedict XVI to be a bit softer in his approach than John Paul II. But the effect will be the same, namely, the war will continue through the remainder of the president's second term."

President Bush and Pope Benedict last met each other in June of 2007, when the President visited the Vatican for the first time.