The man dubbed "God's rottweiler" is fanning religious passions in Egypt once again, writes Gamal Nkrumah = "The current flows fast and furious," wrote Virginia Wolf in her celebrated Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid, way back in 1940. These foreboding words ring true today -- and especially so in Egypt. "It issues in a spate of words from the loudspeakers and the politicians," she explained. She ought to have mentioned and religious leaders, too. There is not much point she concluded, to try and "discover the seeds of truth". This week, Benedict XVI managed to outrage Orthodox Christians and Protestants, not to mention liberal secularists, with two contentious decrees -- the restoration of the ata vistic Mass of the Council of Trent and the resuscitation of the outdated Roman Catholic exclusivism. The only true church, Benedict XVI insisted, was the Roman Catholic Church that is sanctioned by "apostolic succession". All other churches, he claimed, are inadequate and erroneous -- much to the consternation of Christians of other denominations the world over. Coptic Orthodox of Egypt issued a statement denouncing Pope Benedict's judicious reasoning. "He managed to offend Muslims around the world by uttering similarly offensive statements, now he has offended Orthodox and Protestant Christians as well," Pope Shenouda lamented. Benedict XVI's statements inadvertently served to fully expose the deepening rift and cultural chasm between East and West. Egyptian Catholics downplayed the Pope's controversial statements. "Egypt is one of the few countries that is preoccupied with the recent papal statement that Christian denominations other than Roman Catholic Church are "defective" and "not proper churches," complained Father Rafiq Greish, a Catholic Egyptian priest wrote in the weekly magazine Rose Al-Youssef. Coptic commentators debated the theological and ecclesiastical self- definition of the Roman Catholic Church in conjunction with Orthodox churches and other Christian denominations. "The ultimate goal of the Vatican is to subjugate the Orthodox churches to the hegemony of the Pope of Rome," thundered Abdel-Nassih Bassit, a Coptic priest. The Reverend Safwat El-Baiady of the Anglical Church in Egypt issued a more conciliatory statement. "The Church is Christ's body, which has many members and is characterised by pluralism and mutual respect and acceptance of the other, because we are all part of the whole. No church has an exclusive monopoly of the truth," he stressed. Others viewed Pope Benedict XVI's statement as an affront to the Orthodox and Protestant churches. The pundits picked up on the subject and the Egyptian media has been obsessed with what it views as the disquieting utterances of the head of the Roman Catholic Church, the world's largest and most politically weighty Christian institution, or world body. It is precisely its numerical and consequential nature as the first among equals of world religious bodies that make it an especially threatening institution to the millions of non-Catholics beyond the pale. When the Catholic Pope issues an edict, or even extrapolates a religious point in passing, his saying has great import. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was head of the controversial, but highly influential, Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith -- once known as the Inquisition -- for 23 long years before he became Pope Benedict XVI. He relentlessly condemned the ideology of "Liberation Theology" espoused by Catholic activists who championed the cause of social justice and poverty eradication among the poor and disfranchised of the Americas. Ratzinger, however, sought to distance the Roman Catholic Church from its advocates in Latin America, a continent where Catholicism is the predominant religion. Pope Benedict XVI's views found resonant chords with America's rising Christian Right. Totalitarianism and authoritanianism were tolerated as long as social conservatism prevailed. John Allen's The Rise of Benedict XVI: The Inside Story Of How The Pope Was Elected And Where He Will Take The Catholic Church is a veritable eye- opener. Was not the Pope the author of the Ratzinger Report? In his capacity as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he was a steady voice for strengthening reactionary sentiments in the face of the growing exposé of sexual scandals and financial irregularities among Catholic clergy. Members of the Roman Catholic Church and clergy were even accused of participation in the Rwandan genocide of 1993/94 -- or at least instigating and fomenting ethnic tensions in the Great Lakes region of Africa. According to Jewish historian Yaakov Wise, Benedict's predecessor and patron, John Paul II, was of Jewish descent. His mother Emilia Kaczorowski (Emily Katz) and his maternal grandmother Anna Scholz, and great- grandmother Zuzanna Rybicka, were Jewish. Perhaps that explains why he was the first Roman Catholic pope to recognise Israel in 1993. "Our two communities [Christian and Jewish] are connected and closely related at the very level of their religious identities," Pope John Paul II, told an interfaith meeting. He was cementing a tradition, so prevalent in America's Bible Beltway and among the Christian Right in the United States of aligning global Christian and Jewish interests. And, it is this particular Judeo-Christian agenda that arouses grave reservations among the Muslims and Christians of this part of the world, and which is being energetically pursued by the present pope. However, Benedict XVI is no John Paul II. On the face of it, Pope Benedict XVI and Adolf Hitler have little in common, one is Bavarian and the other was Austrian. And, I suppose it would be sacrilege to compare Theodor Herzl with either the current head of the hugely influential Roman Catholic Church or the now much discredited leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party. Herzl, the seminal Zionist, of course, was a child of the German Jewish Enlightenment. Herzl's Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), published in 1896, became the bible of Zionists the world over. Hitler, too, had his infamous Mein Kampf (My Struggle). Benedict XVI in much the same vein has his Introduction to Christianity (1968) and Dogma and Preaching (1973). When he walked onto the balcony of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome on 19 April 2005, he was a man on a mission. "Examine his position on the European Constitution. He clearly stated that Christianity was an integral facet of the European cultural identity," Nabil Abdel-Fattah, editor of the annual State of Religion in Egypt report, told Al-Ahram Weekly. "We should not be surprised at the attitudes of this particular Pope," Abdel-Fattah explained. "The danger is that he has his disciples and a powerful constituency. The Vatican supported the military takeover that toppled the democratically-elected leftist government of late Chilean leader Salvador Allende and it supported the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. The Vatican is not a progressive institution. It is both a conservative religious and political entity. Benedict XVI as pope was the natural choice of such an institution," Abdel-Fattah the told the Weekly. Coptic commentator Samir Morcos concurred. "I am interested in the role religion plays in international relations, and I am deeply disturbed by the ferocity with which Pope Benedict XVI fought liberation theology in South and Central America. His zealotry earned him the dubious accolade 'God's rottweiler'." The Ratzinger Report of 1985 outlined his right-wing worldview. "It is imperative for us in this part of the world to be aware of these far-reaching dynamics. The Vatican is not a monolith, but we in the Arab world must understand that the Vatican can play an instrumental part in the Middle East process, in the fight against international terrorism and in the fate of Jerusalem, Palestine, Sudan and Lebanon," Marcos explained. Whether or not this Pope is up to the task is not something I would place any bets on. The Vatican, alas, has been letting the people of the region down since the days of the Crusades.
