November 27, 2006 -- WHEN Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Turkey tomorrow, he will be flying into a storm both religious and political.
An estimated 20,000 Turks demonstrated against the papal visit in Istanbul's central square yesterday. They brandished banners with slogans borrowed from old-fashioned jokes about phrase books: "Don't Come, Insidious Pope" and "Inquisition: No Comment!"
Neither the Catholic church nor the Turkish security authorities can ignore or downplay the signs that this visit might offer a genuine threat to Benedict's life. After all, Mehmet Ali Agca, who came frighteningly close to assassinating Pope John Paul II in 1981, has been warning from his prison cell that Benedict faces mortal danger this week.
Agca is probably just seeking attention for his plight. But no one feels entirely confident about that. Radical Muslim extremists have stepped up terror attacks throughout Turkey the last few years, with some recent assaults directed specifically at Christian and Catholic targets. And the street protests have included threats against the pope.
On top of all this, Benedict is flying into a grumbling political crisis between the governing Justice and Development party (which wants public life to be more Islamic) and the Turkish military (which sees itself as the guardian of Turkey's 20th-century secular constitution established by Kemal Ataturk.)
Rumors of a military coup to prevent the "creeping Islamicization" of Turkish life by the governing party periodically sweep the bazaars. They are probably baseless: The general staff knows a coup would ruin its international reputation and Turkey's chances of joining the European Union.
But such rumors create a fertile field for extreme Islamists such as Necmettin Erbakan, who was ousted by military pressure as Turkey's first Islamist prime minister in 1998 and now leads a small breakaway Islamist party. Yesterday, he warned the pope that the descendants of the Muslims who had conquered Constantinople would not tolerate this visit.
Erbakan is cleverly exploiting the visit to win over the supporters of the more moderate governing party. By contrast, the moderates have dithered. Prime Minister Reccip Erdogan, for one, has said at times that he'll be away at a NATO meeting during the visit and at other times that he might just run into the pontiff in the airport VIP lounge.
These tensions create a minefield of difficulties for the pope. Respectful words about Islam, meant to calm Islamist passions, might be interpreted as hostile to the Army; on the other hand, the pope's planned laying of a wreath at Ataturk's tomb, intended to soothe secular Turks angry at his reported opposition to their membership of the European Union, might be seen as support for the Army and secularism. He can't even bless himself in the Blue Mosque lest it be interpreted as a covert consecration.
In short, Pope Benedict has to walk a very fine diplomatic line to advance his objectives in this visit.
What objectives? Largely, to clear up unfinished business left by Pope John Paul II. The late pope's three great disappointments were 1) that he had failed to establish a close rapprochement with the Orthodox Christian churches; 2) that a united Europe was becoming not merely secular but godless, and 3) that his reaching out to the Islamic world had not met with the success.
The first goal will be the easiest to advance. On his visit, Benedict will meet with Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople. On Nov. 30, the feast of St Andrew (the patron saint of Constantinople), they'll join in a liturgical celebration, then sign a statement calling for renewed dialogue between the two Christian faiths. (The prospects for such dialogue have improved: The challenge of Islam, now clearly recognized, is pushing both major Christian churches toward greater cooperation.)
The second objective is more complex. If Islam is a religion of peace, as its adherents often say, then it would be a natural ally of the Vatican against the extreme secularism (a k a godlessness) of the European political elites. An alliance might well slow down and even reverse Europe's drift to becoming a post-Christian and post-religious society. John Paul's second great disappointment would then be addressed.
Benedict has effectively repudiated his pre-papal opposition to Turkey's membership in the EU. As a Vatican spokesman pointed out yesterday, this is a political rather than a religious matter.
The Turks will be happy with such statements. But the underlying question in the pope's mind will be the character of the Islam that Turkey would bring into Europe. Which brings us to John Paul's third objective: establishing a warm fraternal relationship with Islam.
Benedict can only achieve that if the great majority of Muslims and Muslim religious authorities demonstrate by word and deed that their religion is one of peace and reason. This was the meaning and intention of the pope's great speech at the University of Regensburg. There, he asked Muslims to abandon any interpretation of jihad as a legitimate war against other religions and to re-examine their view of the proper relationship between God and Reason.
Christians believe that God is Reason and cannot act against His nature in that regard, any more than he can act in contradiction to Love. Given that the Christian God appeals to reason, He rejects forced conversions, holy wars and the murder of apostates.
That understanding has not always marked the history of Christianity, but it describes the Church of today - and as such it provides non-Christians with reassurance and safety.
Benedict was inviting Muslims to consider whether their own faith might not benefit from a re-examination of the relationship between God and Reason. For non-Muslims would certainly be reassured by such a theological development. His words were misunderstood as hostile - and evoked a hostile reaction.
In visiting the secular state of Turkey, Benedict is visiting the Muslim nation where such a message has the best hope of being understood and responded to. If it is rejected amid expressions of hatred, that too will be a sign - a sign that a rapprochement between Islam and Christianity will be a long, hard and winding road. As we are often reminded, however, the longest journey begins with a single step.
John O'Sullivan is a Hudson Institute senior fellow. His new book "The President, the Pope and the Prime Minister" just hit the stores.
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