are secular govts which have NOT been popularly elected. Any time there is real popular participation in govt. in the Islamic world there is always some (a lot of) theocracy with it.

there aren't ANY Islamic ones, yet.

Anon,

what about bosnia, malaysia, indonesia, singapore? don't confuse "islam" with "middle east."

Look up the passages? Sorry, I don't think they exist. The fact that you instruct me to find them while neglecting to cite them yourself ought to be evidence enough that you haven't any idea what you're talking about. Off the top of my head, however, I can think of that famous magna carta of humanity offered in Paul's epistle to the Galatians: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Even in the Old Testament, the male anthropomorphized Yahweh is attributed female characteristics as a nursing mother, a midwife, and a female housemaker (In Isaiah and the Psalms, I believe). When Jesus visits the home of Martha and Mary in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus applauds Mary for learning theology from him, taking the 'male' role of the intellectual, while Martha goes about her domestic duties. In a society which considered women to be too unreliable to be witnesses in a court of law, who are the first people to witness Jesus's resurrection?

Show me a passage where Jesus treats a woman poorly and I will show you a poor, noncontextual interpretation of the Bible. Jesus was an advocate of women, and far ahead of his time. Get your facts straight.

As for your so-called critique of Christianity, I have to say it's sad that you haven't met any Christians who are actually, well, Christian. Until just this past year I was an atheist, until I met someone who completely defied all the conventions for what the hated, conservative, fanatical "Christians" were supposed to be. I know very well what it's like to despise Christianity. In fact, becoming Christian has made me more, not less, resentful towards the fundamentalist conservatives who so poorly represent my faith to the world.

But I digress. Your oversimplification of the Christian faith does not advance your argument. You really ought to read some feminist liberation theologians. Dorothea Soelle comes to mind.

singapore? I still don't think you've given an example of a society where: Muslisms are a majoirty, the majority rules, and members of minority religions are granted full civil and political rights. Maybe Bosnia.

Bangladesh, Bahrain, Burkina Faso, Cocos Islands, Comoros, Turkey (it's in their constitution), Kazakhstan (in spite of Borat).

I'm not sure how it works in places like Syria and Lebanon. There are lots of christians in both.

I think the situation is very different from what you think.

Freedom of religion is a spectrum. You won't find freedom of religion like in the US almost anywhere else. In the UK, the head of state is also the head of the anglican church. In germany and denmark, there are laws against blasphemy. French, spanish and italian governments have some serious interaction with the Catholic church.

Syria:

The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the Government generally respects this right in practice; however, it imposes restrictions in some areas. read more:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/relsyria05.html

Lebanon:

The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the Government generally respects this right in practice; however, there are some restrictions. read more:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/rellebanon01.html

And so on.

maybe???? in a few, and you're right it's a spectrum but that doesn't mean all spectra are alike. Turkey was a military dictatorship with forced secularization from 1920 until very recently (it's constitution) and even now when it is allowing more democracy there is creeping Islamization in govt.

Europeans have, in practice, more religious freedom than here. Which brings up the point that even in secular Islamic societies there is lots of pressure to conform to the religion, which just reinforces the point that there isn't real secularism i.e freedom anywhere in the Muslim world.

Pope Benedict didn't even use the quote to malign Islam, but to prove a point about faith and rationality: that what might seem self evident to one person from one background is not necessarily evident to another person from another background. I haven't read one article that gave the context from which Benedict was using the statement, or even what he said afterward:

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry.

(taken from the Pope's speech)

What I find frightening is that no one in the media has bothered to read the entirety of the Pope's speech; That the Pope is trying to reduce the prominence of rationality; and that it's acceptable for a group of people to take words out of context and react violently.

Ms. Bunting,

Many thanks for a well written article.

However, I don't share your respect for Pope John Paul II because in a very real way he is the one who caused so much of what is going on in America then and now (our society is very deeply fractured by the Bushists) and in the entire world especially in Iraq. How did PJP II cause this.

Pope John Paul II doesn't deserve elevation to sainthood, ever. Mother Teresa most certainly does and she should , must be the standard by which we judge all popes especially John Paul II and Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. These two popes do not believe in the teachings of the real Jesus Christ (not George Bush, the false or antichrist) 'to render to cesaer... and render to God... which is a clear statement that church and state MUST be kept separate.

Pope John Paul II committed his act of violence by aligning the papacy, the USCCB and the catholic voter with the Republican party a group of very corrupt politicians who have no values or moral compass and do not care for the American people. The PEOPLE of America ARE AMERICA.

This wedding of the catholic church to the republican party is what allows them to get away with the crimes that they all commit on an almost daily basis.

This alignment between the catholic church and the republican party is in violation of our american constitution but the previous and current pope care nothing about causing this enormous damage to our constitution, and one which may never be repaired.

This alignment continues to this very day and is stronger than ever. So Pope John Paul II is not a saint or deserving thereof but in fact is a criminal. Both popes bear the responsibility for the killing of America by the Republican Party, the killing of American troops and above all else the killing of many, many tens of thousands of Iraqi and afghani citizens.

How can either pope ever absolve themselves of this guilt and this stain on their souls and the immense damage done to the catholic church. They are equally guilty of the immense damage done to the very fabric of our fast fading democracy, it's values and democratic institutions.

Clearly, these popes and some previous popes have an agenda that endorses killing of innocents be they muslims now or jews during WWII when the pope at that time (one of the Pius' can't remember exactly which one) protested the holocaust almost not at all.

Catholics have aways had an arrogance that catholicism is the one true religion. Only God can determine if there is such a thing as a 'one true religion', sounds just like the Islamic jihadist fundamentalists. The catholic church and their close allies the white southenr Baptists are equally fundamentalist and responsible for killing and maiming of Afghanis, Iraqis and our troops.

I am a lifelong catholic but not that kind of catholic.

I believe in 'thou shalt not kill', love God and love thy neighbor, and that ALL, ALL, ALL human beings were created in the image and likeness of God and all are equal in his sight and humility; except for the nazis, Richard Nixon and George Bush and Benedict XVI because they are all really just all nazis who will kill for domination and power.

Pope Benedict can never undo the damage he has done to American, middle east arabs/muslims or jews.

We should all remember that the two previous popes are/ were ardent supporters of the Republican party and this pope being an ardent supporter of George Bush (who has claimed on four occasions to be the christ(small a) and this pope has plced himself in the slime with the Bushists.

Both popes must be totally crazy or evil to support Bush, the false christ, the antichrist. What they are doing and have done in the name of God is totally unforgiveable.

How will the pope ever get my forgiveness and that of tens of millions of Americans, jews and muslims who have and will die as a result of his deliberate choice of his words and for the destruction he has done to my beloved America and so many other countries in the world.

When will the killing supported by the catholic church ever stop, I am truely sick at heart. I hope I don't live much longer because this never ending killing is way beyond being just criminal, satanic is more like what it truly is.

Bob DAmico

Cleve, Oh