Angry in the Great White North

Pope Benedict XVI is in some hot water over his comments about Islam:

Pope Benedict said on Wednesday that his use of medieval quotes portraying a violent Islam did not reflect his views and were misunderstood, but he did not give the clear apology still demanded by many Muslims.

The leader of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics, whose speech last week has provoked al Qaeda groups to declare war on the Church, Iraqis to burn the Pope's effigy and Turks to petition for his arrest, said he had not meant to cause offence.

Even sympathetic observers say the Pope was clumsy to quote 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus saying that everything the Prophet Mohammad brought was evil, "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".

But the Pope, a former theology professor, invited his listeners to re-read his speech.

"For the careful reader of my text it is clear that I in no way wanted to make mine the negative words pronounced by the medieval emperor and their polemical content does not reflect my personal conviction," he said.

He added: "My intention was very different. I wanted to explain that religion and violence do not go together but religion and reason do."

Now the Vatican is getting ready to issue another apology. Why? Because Muslims are up in arms, ironically proving the point that Islam is violent. Maybe just Islam in its current form, but then that's the one we have to deal with, so what does it matter if it is being misinterpreted. Maybe not a majority of Muslims, but enough to fill public squares from London to Indonesia with placard-waving crowds demanding the Pope's death.

Does the Catholic Church have to put up with this? What are the limits of tolerance? Thomas Aquinas has an answer:

To justify ethically tolerance towards certain religious practices of heathen subjects, medieval theologians appealed to the principle that tolerance might be always exercised wherever either its refusal would cause more harm than good, or, vice versa, whenever the granting of it ensured greater advantage than disadvantage. Thus St. Thomas teaches (Summa theol., II-II, Q. x, a. 11): "Ritus infidelium tolerari possunt vel propter aliquod bonum, quod ex eis provenit, vel propter aliquod maum, quod vitatur" (Heathen worships can be tolerated either because of some good that results from them or because of some evil that is avoided).

He was talking about whether a Catholic state should tolerate other religions within its borders (he says they should be tolerated, and other Catholic philosophers have expanded on this), but the principle applies more widely. Tolerance is a good thing because it generates a good result. Tolerance is not in of itself a good thing. If I tolerate something that results in a evil act being committed, I cannot claim that tolerance was the virtuous thing to do, and so I cannot be held responsible. Tolerance is a means to a good end, not a good end in of itself.

Of course, for liberals, tolerance is the goal. Once tolerance is achieved, anything that follows is a separate problem. That is convenient, because all that is required to be tolerant is to do nothing. Moreover, tolerance interpreted this way is a shield against moral responsibility for the consequences.

How does this apply to this situation? I fear that if the Pope goes too far along this apologetic path, he will send the message that the Catholic Church is ready to tolerate far too much from the mobs of Islam. Burned churches, a murdered nun -- and the response from the Church is an apology and a promise to be more circumspect in future speeches. How can we tolerate that sort of violence? The intolerance comes from the other side, from the Islamists and their followers.

But then what evil is avoided by being tolerant of the violence and apologizing? More violence, it is hoped. But then all indications are that many Muslims are not interested in apologies. They see an opportunity to attack the Church. Like hyenas, they have spotted a sign of weakness, and are moving in for the kill.

Tolerance of the violence will not avoid the evil or more violence. Indeed, it will encourage it. If an evil is not being avoided, then tolerance is not a virtuous act. Then the Church has a moral obligation to be intolerant, to demand that the violence stop, to offer no further apologies for whatever offence Muslims feel that they have suffered, to insist that Muslims act with tolerance of others. That too, will lead to violence, but then it's likely unavoidable. But taking such a stand will mean that the Church will have drawn a line in the moral sand, and in doing so taken sides with such others as Salman Rushdie and Naguib Mahfouz who themselves were victims of those who tolerated extremism, and who themselves represent the marriage of Islam and reason which was the point of the Pope's speech in the first place.

I would hope that clarity and inspiration that will come of it is a good thing, because with the way the Muslims are behaving, there is little chance for any other good to come of this.