More on the pope and Islam

[jackofallgeeks]

The only thing that I really want to say about This Article is that Stevens-turned-Islam seems to voice a popular misconception about papal infallibility. It is not the case that the pope is never wrong or that every word he says holds the weight of the church. The pope is only infallible when he speaks as the pope on matters of faith and morals. He can't pick winning lotto numbers and he can hold incorrect opinions as easily as anyone else; he is a human person, after all.

Of course, I'm not sure exactly what choosing a politically-unfavorable quote has to do with infallibility, particularly when his actual speech was very much more criticizing the West for losing their sense of religion, something I expect the Muslim world would agree with.

Comments

[uhlrik.livejournal.com]

Way back when I spent a semester studying terrorism, its causes, strategies and possible mitigation (for the record, it was in the year 1999 or 2K, not after 9/11), one of the very interesting things I found as I read the writings of middle-eastern thinkers was that a major criticism of America (at the time) on the part of muslims was that the US is a nation that started out on supposedly Christian principles but has failed to follow through on them. They didn't hate it for being a christian nation, but for being a failed christian nation (plus a lot of other factors...).