Wednesday 9 April 2008

The American Pope and Eelam Madhu shrine?!


Thursday, Apr. 03, 2008
The American Pope
By DAVID VAN BIEMA, Jeff Israely The Time Mag.
In 1984, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger dropped by New York City. He was heading home to the Vatican from a conference in Dallas and had saved a day to tour what
was then still regularly called the Big Apple. According to Father James O'Connor, who was acting as his chauffeur, Ratzinger sat in the front seat, the better to take
in the hustle and buzz of the city. They visited the (Episcopal) Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the medievally furnished Cloisters museum and the Metropolitan
Museum of Art. On the way to Kennedy Airport, the car stalled halfway through the Midtown Tunnel, between Manhattan and Queens. O'Connor trudged to the
Queens side, where he found a mechanic--who happened to be a Jordanian Catholic, recognized the Cardinal and rushed to his aid. O'Connor recalls Ratzinger, up
and running again, saying "There is every sort of person in New York, and they're all helpful." A few minutes later, just after he stepped out onto the curb at J.F.K.,
someone rear-ended the car, shattering the back window.
Despite such sweet and sour experiences (including one in 1988 that produced the memorable tabloid headline GAYS PROTEST VATICAN BIGGY), the Pope
likes New York and what it stands for. "I think he's really fascinated by the city and what it represents," says Raphaela Schmid, a Rome-based German with the
Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, who knows him. "It's about people being two things at once, like Italian Americans or Chinese Americans. He's interested in that
idea of coexistence."
That observation captures an often ignored side of the German-born Pope Benedict XVI, 80, on the eve of his first pontifical visit to the U.S. The trip, which begins
in Washington on April 15 and ends in New York City on April 20, will present most Americans with their first opportunity to take the "new" Pope's measure. Some
American Catholics already feel they are familiar with Benedict and his values and coexistence is not an association that immediately crops up. Benedict clearly lacks
his predecessor's charismatic affability and sense of the dramatic gesture. His conservative writings suggest a divergence from a large part of the U.S. laity, whom he
regards as victims of the moral relativism he feels pervades Western culture. Given his past role as the Vatican's enforcer of orthodoxy, he might not seem to have any
particular affinity for the democratic, pluralistic values that constitute (on our good days) the American brand.
And yet that last perception is particularly flawed. A survey of the 80-year-old Pontiff's writings over the decades and testimonies from those who know him suggests
that Benedict has a soft spot for Americans and finds considerable value in his U.S. church, the third largest Catholic congregation in the world. Most intriguing, he
entertains a recurring vision of an America we sometimes lose sight of: an optimistic and diverse but essentially pious society in which faiths and a faith-based
conversation on social issues are kept vital by the Founding Fathers' decision to separate church and state. It's not a stretch to say the Pope sees in the U.S.--or in
some kind of idealized version of it--a civic model and even an inspiration to his native Europe, whose Muslim immigrants raise the question of religious and political
coexistence in the starkest terms. Says David Gibson, author of The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World: "As he tours the
U.S., it's important to underscore that his philosophy has more consonances with our culture than meet the eye--some very profound."
What, if anything, does this American attachment mean, either about him or about how he sees America's place in the world? It does not necessarily translate into
uncritical support for the Bush Administration's foreign policies or into willingness to overlook the U.S. Catholic Church's sexual-abuse scandal. But an examination of
his lifetime of visiting and writing about the U.S. helps provide insight into what drives the Pope: his intellectual curiosity, his search for national models that can
accommodate Catholicism as the vibrant minority in a position that he feels may be its next world role and his firm commitment to combine faith with practical reason.
It is also a rather touching valentine and a testament to Benedict's surprising openness toward a very different culture that he sees us as the world's best example of
how such things can be done.
Out of the Ruins
The Pope's admiration for the U.S. has deep roots. Unlike John Paul II, who was intellectually and theologically fully formed when he met his first Americans,
Ratzinger first observed them when he was 18. As a defeated German soldier, he spent three months in a pow camp but was then allowed to return home and
witness one of the great modern acts of charity, the rebuilding of Germany by an occupying force that could just as easily have exacted revenge. Cardinal William
Levada, the Californian whom Benedict tapped as his successor at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), says, "He's of a generation that remembers,
gratefully."
Ratzinger's next American exposure came during the momentous Second Vatican Council in Rome, from 1962 to '65. Then in his early 30s, Ratzinger was a
theological wunderkind who made his name behind the scenes. The U.S. delegation, meanwhile, was embroiled in a contentious debate over religious freedom.
Conservatives opposed it: states must sponsor faith, and the faith should be Roman Catholic. The Americans argued that religious liberty was morally imperative and
--from experience--that in a multireligious state, Catholicism could best thrive when the government could not play favorites. The council sided with them, and
Ratzinger, anticipating a world composed of jostling religious pluralities, heartily approved. In a 1966 analysis, he wrote, "In a critical hour, Council leadership passed
from Europe to the young Churches of America and [their allies]," who "were really opening up the way to the future."
After Vatican II, Ratzinger embarked on a more conservative path. The embrace of religious plurality, in his view, did not extend to an acceptance that all roads to
salvation are equal or to a license for democracy within his church. During 24 years as the prefect of the CDF, Ratzinger earned the nickname "God's Rottweiler,"
savaging suspected heresies, mostly liberal ones, and ending the careers of several old Vatican II allies. Americans were not exempt.
But he also came to respect the way Catholic leaders in the U.S. went about their business. A current (non-American) CDF official notes that the U.S. church is the
only one that keeps a "serious" doctrinal office rather than an unthinking rubber stamp or an old-boys' club; when conflicts arise, its bishops are actually prepared to
discuss them. Moreover, says Levada, "he seems to recognize that we're plain speakers. We don't hide behind words."
The Pope also admires the Americans' role as, in the words of one cleric, "intellectual first responders," especially as the country's great network of Catholic hospitals
wrestles with novel problems of medical ethics. "Through the great sphere of worldly experience that the Church has in America," Benedict wrote, "as well as through
her faith experience, decisive influences can be passed on." He has shown his comfort with the direct and thoroughly American approach by appointing Americans to
the No. 1 and No. 3 spots in his powerful former office.
The most rapt expression of the Pope's enthusiasm for the U.S. came in a high-minded 2004 dialogue with the president of the Italian Senate, Marcello Pera,
published as the book Without Roots. It bemoans the European Union's refusal to acknowledge Christianity in a draft constitution, and Pera wonders about bringing
back some kind of multidenominational "Christian civil religion." In response, Ratzinger cites Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America and makes the case that
America's Founding Fathers were pious men of different denominations who wrote the First Amendment prohibiting state establishment (that is, sponsorship) of
religion precisely because sponsorship would stifle all non-established creeds--which they hoped would achieve full and varied flower.
Of course, no such bloom would occur if the American soil were not already faith-saturated. But Ratzinger believes in America's "obvious spiritual foundation," its
natural, Puritan-instilled DNA. He is well aware that this is eroding; he thinks we watch too much TV and fears that American secularization is proceeding at an
"accelerated pace." But he insists that there is a "much clearer and implicit sense" in the U.S. than in Europe of a morality "bequeathed by Christianity." He has also
given earnest thought to the mechanics of this civil religion, specifying that to affect the moral consensus, it is not enough for Catholics to rub shoulders with other
Christians; they must translate their concerns from doctrinal language into a "public theology" accessible to all.
His American Flock
It may be that Benedict, who has sometimes seemed ready to trade a larger, lukewarm flock for a small, fervent one, is studying how to be small effectively. Says a
church official whose thoughts usually reflect his boss's: "The American church has always had to live the minority experience, and that's where the universal church is
headed." In fact, the American church has not really shrunk much. At 24% of the population, Catholics remain a pivotal voting bloc, especially in swing states like
Pennsylvania, where they appear to favor Hillary Clinton by sizable margins. A recent poll by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that a quarter of the
country's cradle Catholics had left the fold. But they are being replaced by a few converts and a lot of (Mass attending!) Hispanic immigrants, and remarkably, such
churn is about par across the American religious landscape.
Although the Catholic priest shortage continues in the U.S., the priest-abuse scandals have not sparked a massive parishioner exodus. (Benedict is expected to
address the topic on this trip, but there have been no leaks as to how.) Perhaps out of relief that he has been writing encyclicals about love and charity rather than
heresy, U.S. Catholics seem to be treating him a lot like former Pontiffs: handing him a 70% approval rating while continuing to ignore church teaching on birth control
and abortion.
In any case, Benedict often seems less interested in scolding American Catholics than in talking up "new religious communities ... being formed who quite consciously
aim at a complete fulfillment of the demands of religious life." In the U.S., that could mean schools like Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, Calif.; Christendom
College in Front Royal, Va.; and Ave Maria University in Ave Maria, Fla. The numbers are tiny--the three colleges combined claim some 1,200 undergrads--but
they are precisely the kind of eruptions of non-state-related religious vitality at which he thinks we excel.
There are times when Benedict's love affair with American religious pluralism seems a bit naive, especially when it clashes with his nonnegotiable doctrinal stands.
Without Roots had wonderful things to say about Protestantism as the genius of American religiosity and burnished the alliance between Catholic conservatives and
American Evangelicals against abortion. But in 2000 and more acidly in 2007 (after he became Pope), the Vatican released documents describing Protestant
churches as suffering from ecclesiastical "defects," adding that "it is difficult to see how the title of 'Church' could possibly be attributed to them." Some of Benedict's
new allies were a bit stunned.
When Benedict zings the Protestants or his proxies zap scientific atheists, he is actually engaging in cultural pluralism American-style, which resembles a political talk
show more than a stately seminar on the Bill of Rights. The desire to keep talking while airing real differences may also be influencing his policy toward Islam (which,
as the Vatican noted in March, has just replaced Catholicism as the world's most populous faith). After a startling 2006 speech in which he quoted a source calling
Muhammad evil, prompting enraged extremists to burn churches and kill a nun in Somalia, Benedict entered into a dialogue with Islamic clerics who sent an open
letter expressing a more conciliatory if sometimes critical response. None of the parties are departing from their theology, but out of frankness, a tenuous bridge
seems to have been built.
This may hold some implicit lessons about how Benedict feels the U.S. and its allies should interact with Islam. The Pope has refused to accept pre-emptive war as
just, and a confidant recalls him shaking his fists and shouting "Basta!"--Enough!--back in the early days of the Iraq war. He may be trying to model a clash of
civilizations without bloodshed. As Roberto Fontolan, the Vatican-savvy spokesman of the lay group Communion and Liberation, puts it, "Let's not talk about
dogma. Or whether my God is better than your God. Let's talk about reason that we both have as a gift from God. What does it tell us?"
Benedict's Quest
Reason is a word that surfaces repeatedly in conversations about the Pope and the U.S. Benedict's critics regularly accuse him of Vatican II revisionism--of
downplaying the idea that Catholics may legitimately balance church teaching against the demands of their conscience. More broadly, they accuse him of minimizing
the degree to which the Holy Spirit led the council to make substantial changes in the faith. But he remains true to the Vatican II precept of complementing blind piety
that prevailed in the church before the 1960s with the rationalism of the Enlightenment and thus with modernity.
He is hardly the first: John Paul II described faith and reason as the twin wings that lift the church. And yet a balanced takeoff has remained elusive. The U.S. is one of
the few places where it seems to happen regularly. "America is simultaneously a completely modern and a profoundly religious place. In the world, it is unique in this,"
says a senior Vatican official. "And Ratzinger wants to understand how those two aspects can coexist." Almost all the things the Pope likes about us--our faith in the
real value of plainspokenness, our pluralistic piety and even our wrangles around applying religiously grounded moral principles to increasingly abstruse science--can
be understood in light of this quest. If he finds answers in the U.S., they could help define his papacy.
When he arrives on U.S. soil on April 15, we in the press will no doubt be parsing Benedict's every sentence for his opinions on U.S. policy or remonstrance of
American morals. But the most important waves emanating from this contact may reverberate well beyond tomorrow's news cycle. John Paul II and the U.S. played
as anticommunist co-leads on the 20th century stage. This Pope, more a student of global drama than an eager protagonist, knows that rising religious conflict may be
the 21st century's great challenge. He also appears to sense that American power alone won't solve it--but that the power of American values still might. In
rummaging through our founding precepts for a path for his own purposes, he might find something important for us to remember too.
LTTE urges Norway to take steps to end military assault on Madu shrine
[TamilNet, Monday, 07 April 2008, 15:52 GMT]
Liberation Tigers Political Head B. Nadesan on Monday sent an urgent letter to Norwegian International Development Minister Erik Solheim, placing a request to the
Royal Norwegian Government to take steps to immediately end the military assault of the holy Madu shrine in Mannaar district. "The international community together
with the international institutions that are concerned about protecting the historical treasures of the world must be brought together and we hope the Royal Norwegian
Government together with them will take the necessary actions to end the attacks on the church," Mr. Nadesan urged Norway.
The full text of the letter follows:
Protecting the Madhu church – a revered historical shrine for the entire Tamil nation
LTTE's Political Head B. NadesanWe write to share with you our view about the zeal exhibited by the Sri Lankan State to destroy the Madhu church, a historically
significant shrine revered by the entire Tamil nation.
You are, of course, aware of the Sri Lankan State's year long, large scale military onslaught against us with the view to occupy Vanni. The world is also aware that
the Sri Lankan State's military onslaughts are targeting the historical Madhu church in the Mannar district, the western region of Vanni.
The Madhu church is a centuries old shrine revered by the Tamil people of all religions. That is why the Madhu church complex has been a place of refuge for people
of all religions. This church has become a symbol of inter religious amity and goodwill among the Tamils.
The Sri Lankan State armed forces have directed their artillery fire incessantly towards this church over the last few weeks. Such a revered church that symbolizes
inter religious tolerance was identified as a military target by the Sri Lankan State and it is being subjected to military onslaught. Yet, the international community has
failed to stop or even condemn this atrocity. Tamil people are shocked by this silence of the international community.
The Sri Lankan military is using Multi-Barrel-Rocket-Launchers, artillery, mortar, and tanks to assault this holy shrine. Tragically, due to this indiscriminate military
assaults, thousands of people who took refuge in the holy shrine complex and the church priests were forced displace from the complex together with the statue of
Mother Mary of the Madhu church.
Part of the shrine is already damaged by the Sri Lankan military attacks. There is continued danger that the church will sustain further damage because the Sri Lankan
military is persisting with its onslaught.
We would like to place a request through you, who is looked upon by the Tamil people as a peace envoy, to the Royal Norwegian Government to take steps to
immediately end the military assault of the holy Madhu shrine.
The international community together with the international institutions that are concerned about protecting the historical treasures of the world must be brought
together and we hope the Royal Norwegian Government together with them will take the necessary actions to end the attacks on the church. The Sinhala State, which
shows great keenness to protect Buddhist symbols and Buddhist temples, which shows great keenness to build new Buddhist temples in the Tamil areas that they
occupy, is also vehement on destroying the religious symbols of other religions, thus hurting the feelings of people who follow other religions.
As far as our movement and our people are concerned we continue to accept the facilitation role of the Royal Norwegian Government. As such we believe that we
have a right to place such a request to them.
We, therefore, ask you to urge the Royal Norwegian Government, with the help of the international community to stop the Sri Lankan State's military assault on a
revered shrine of the people of Tamil Eelam.

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