Mustafa Akyol, in The Turkish Times, writes an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI about the Catholic Church and Islam, as seen by a sympathetic Turkish Muslim. Akyol, whose articles on intelligent design have attracted recent attention, here offers a carefully weighed analysis of the situation that faced the pope in Turkey. Christians should be so fortunate as to have many such Muslims as Akyol with whom they can engage in dialogue.
Meanwhile, George Weigel of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (and an adjunct fellow of Discovery Institute) writes a rather different sort of piece about the significance of the visit for Newsweek. Weigel, official biographer of Pope John Paul II and a long time friend of the current pontiff, sees the main purpose of the trip as the building of closer ties between Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, whose Ecumenical Patriarch resides in Istanbul (nee, Constantinople). He also points out what few observers of the visit have noticed; namely, that Christians are discriminated against seriously in Turkey. Perhaps, as Akyol says, the hostility comes more from the ardent secular nationalists (as well as the Islamists) rather than the ordinary Muslims, but it is real nonetheless. If Turkey hopes for a spot in the European Union it might address the issue of religious liberty and show its good will, first of all, by allowing the Orthodox to reopen their one seminary in the country.
But Weigel thinks (and so, he intimates, does the pope) that the main opportunity stemming from the papal journey was to create greater synergy of Catholics and Eastern Orthodox world-wide. The ecumenical seeds were planted in large part by John Paul II, and his successor wants to cultivate the new growth. There are signs that Christians in the traditional liturgical churches that split in 1054 have increasing cause to unite in an age when they are not foes but allies who face the new millenium's threats: expansionist secularists in the West and radical Islamists in the East.
Catholics and Orthodox have relatively few theological differences and these days many practical reasons to collaborate more closely. Taken together, the developments toward reunion that have taken place in the past few years surely are historic, though of an as yet unrecognized level of significance. To me there seems to be a grand strategy in play.