Pope Benedict slowly learns dialogue with Muslims

Branded an implacable foe of Islam after his landmark Regensburg speech in 2006, Pope Benedict has shown during his current Holy Land tour that he is slowly learning how to dialogue with Muslims.

While media attention has focused on Jewish criticism of his speech at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, Pope Benedict's speeches to Muslims have used classic Islamic terms and new arguments that resonate with Muslims and ease the quest for common ground.

This new tone may not erase the memory of the Regensburg speech many Muslims took as an insult, because it implied Islam was violent and irrational. But Islamic, Jewish and Catholic clerics told Reuters it marked a shift in his thinking that could help the world's two largest faiths get along better.

Imam Yahya Hendi, Muslim chaplain at a Catholic university in Washington, said Pope Benedict's use of Muslim terminology showed "where the Holy See is heading and where it has its heart.

"It wants to reach out to Muslims," said Imam Hendi, who also teaches Islamic studies and interfaith dialogue at Georgetown.

"He's learning the right words, the ones they can hear," said Rabbi Burton Visotzky, a professor at New York's Jewish Theological Seminary who is active in dialogue with Muslims.

Before becoming Pope in 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger thought discussing theology with Muslims was all but impossible because Islam sees the Koran as the literal word of God and rejects the scriptural analysis Christians and Jews do.

In the Regensburg speech, this view led to the suggestion that Christianity blended faith and reason while Islam didn't.

"There was an implication that Islam had no place for reason," said Ibrahim Kalin, spokesman for the Common Word group of Islamic scholars who launched a new theological dialogue between Muslims and Christians after Regensburg.

"The conclusion was that violence comes out of the Islamic tradition almost necessarily," said Prof. Kalin, of Islamic studies at Georgetown and in Ankara.

Since its start in 2007, the Common Word group has argued the two faiths share the core values of love of God and love of neighbour. It has organised several conferences to help each side see how the other understands and expresses these values.

Rev. Christophe Roucou, the French Catholic Church's liaison with Muslims, said the main shift in Pope Benedict's thinking was to drop his earlier analysis of Islam as a faith weak in reason. "Now he says Muslims and Christians can use faith and reason together," said Rev. Roucou.