Turducken

This week, the Pope has gone to Turkey. This is supposed to be a momentous occasion. The Roman Pope and the Ecumenical Patriarch worshipping together, visiting ancient Ephesos, rebuilding bridges with the Muslim community, picking up where JP2 left off, while standing up for the Christian community in Turkey. But when it came down to it, like that famous frankenbird the Turducken, inside Benedict there lurks a chicken ducking Turkey.

Ratzinger was reviled for years by moderates and liberals inside and outside the Roman Catholic Church as the “inquisitor-general”, the man who was going to take the church back to the dark ages (apparently figuratively, since the “dark ages” produced some of the greatest Christian leaders in history, including the greatest Roman pope, Gregory the Great). He was billed as the fearless, dauntless defender of orthodoxy again the hordes of the dictatorship of relativism. So what happened?

Turkey’s laws anti-religious are so oppressive they would make a Frenchman blush. No seminaries, no religious schools, the Ecumenical Patriarch only recognized as having jurisdiction over about 3,000 people, Orthodox, Kurds, Armenians and other minorities being subject to severe oppression at best and attempted genocide at worst.

So what does Benedict XVI, lion of traditionalism, do when he arrives in Turkey? Wears a simple white suit without a cross as he gets off the plane, doesn’t kiss the ground but does spend the whole time kissing Turkish ass running about like Michael Richards. What kind of Pope is this?

John Paul II was a masterful politician but he did not hesitate to call a spade a spade. When he was in Cuba, he let Castro know how he felt. When he was in Poland he let the commies know how he felt. This outspokenness almost cost him his life, too. But John Paul was under no illusions as to the consequences for speaking out against the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.

For all his bluster with a pen and his zeal in battling university professors, Benedict has shown himself a coward on the world stage. Instead of going to Turkey and standing up for the rights of minorities there, and standing to prevent the entry into the European Union of a country that won’t even ADMIT its genocide(s), he reverses his previous opposition to Turkey’s EU bid, makes a few token gestures and leaves, his staff terrified that something bad may happen, even to the point where he leaves his cross in his pocket. That speaks volumes.

“No cross, no crown”; any man who is unwilling to take up the cross is unworthy of wearing the triple tiara. Turducken anyone?