Stuck in the Middle with You

Pope Benedict had just wanted to retire...but, no, God had to call him to be pope.
He must have known being the shepherd of the world equated to one perpetual ulcer.

As I'm sure you know, he's in the middle of a Middle East tour. From the news, it doesn't seem to be going so well.

Certain Israelis are upset that he didn't show enough remorse for the Holocaust.
Certain Jordanians are upset that he didn't show enough remorse for medieval views of Islam.

Yesterday, he made an early exit from a conference in which a Sheik went on an anti-Israel diatribe. Today, a handful of Israelis are trying to paint him as some kind of Nazi-sympathizer.

What is most curious about today's conflict, however, is that some Israelis are complaining because the pope failed to mention Nazis and Germans while condemning the Holocaust. To me, this sounds rather akin to the problem of Mel Gibson's Passion. Some Jewish groups were upset that the film laid the blame for Christ's persecution solely at the feet of the Jews, as if cruelty and barbarism were not a universal human problem. To lay the Holocaust at the feet of Nazi Germans, to demand that the Germans' responsibility for the Holocaust be rehearsed over and over, seems a bit dangerous -- as if there was something distinctly German about genocide rather it being something horrible that hides in the shadows of all human hearts.

Of course, there is more going on than just this...

"The pope spoke like a historian, as somebody observing from the sidelines, about things that shouldn't happen. But what can you do? He was part of them," said parliament speaker Reuven Rivlin. "With all due respect to the Holy See, we cannot ignore the baggage he carries with him."

Another article quotes Rivlin as saying:

Rivlin said that "with all due respect to the Holy See, we cannot ignore the burden he bears, as a young German who joined the Hitler Youth and as a person who joined Hitler's army, which was an instrument in the extermination".

And still another article has Rivlin going further:

I came to the memorial not only to hear historical descriptions or about the established fact of the Holocaust. I came as a Jew, hoping to hear an apology and a request for forgiveness from those who caused our tragedy, and among them, the Germans and the church. But to my sadness, I did not hear any such thing

These quotes, as presented, sounds suspiciously like old and disproved arguments that the pope was himself a Nazi. The third quote also brings up the questionable claims that Pius XII was complicit with Nazi anti-semitism. Rivlin comes off sounding like an anti-Catholic conspiracy theorist.

I think (hope, really) that Rivlin is overcompensating. The complaints are not that the pope didn't express remorse -- it's that he didn't express enough remorse or the right kind of remorse. It's not so much what he said as how he said it, for Rivlin.

What's at issue here isn't merely the Holocaust but the current very tenuous political situation in the Middle East, especially as radical fundamentalist Islam being spewed out of Iran continues to deny (while simultaneously and paradoxically approving) the Holocaust.

Read in this light, Rivlin sounds a bit like the child who is upset that daddy isn't clearly taking his side in the fight. I suspect Rivlin really wants the pope to express his unquestioning, wholesale support for Israel against Islamic states. Rivlin wants the pope to express anger and hatred towards groups that express hatred for Jews, and, essentially, he wants the pope to express embarrassment and regret that he belongs to groups that once persecuted Jews.

The pope, however, doesn't want to play group politics.

He wants to condemn evil and promote love.

To reduce evil to groups denies the individual responsibility in that evil, and, perhaps more devastatingly, hinders the ability to recognize that individuals who participate in evil can change -- seek forgiveness, and become friends.

But it's a bit hard to be friends with someone if, every time you stop by their house for dinner, they make you personally apologize for a crime that members of your family committed against members of their family.