A German newsman has made a news item over Peter Seewald's disclosure to an Il Foglio journalist earlier this week that Benedict XVI admits he did not expect the reaction to his Regensburg lecture... Which incidentally also provoked a lengthy essay in Il Foglio yesterday looking back at the Regensburg ruckus... On Thursday, I mentioned the Pope's hindsight on Regensburg in noting that Il Foglio had published a 7-page interview with Seewald (which I did not proceed to translate because except for the Regensburg 'disclosure', he was very careful not to anticipate any answers from the interview-book, so the interview ended up being about him.)
Author says Pope regrets uproar over
Regensburg lecture but stands by it
By HANNS-JOCHEN KAFFSACK
ROME, Nov. 13 (dpa) — Four years later, Pope Benedict XVI says he regrets the controversy caused by remarks about Islam in a speech, although he still would not retract them, an Italian newspaper reported Friday.
[Thursday, actually!]
The daily
Il Foglio cited German journalist and writer Peter Seewald in describing how the Pope now looks back on his September 12, 2006 speech in Regensburg, Germany, which caused an uproar in the Muslim world.
Seewald is to unveil a book about the Pope and the Church on Nov. 24 titled
Licht der Welt. Der Papst, die Kirche und die Zeichen der Zeit ("Light of the world. The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times").
In the Regensburg speech, the Pope had cited from a 14th-century text by a Byzantine emperor linking violence and Islam, with the text describing how the Prophet Mohammed did not shy away from spreading his faith "by the sword."
Now, Benedict says he would not retract his speech, which he had meant to be "primarily scholarly" in its aim to discuss views on Islam, but acknowledges he underestimated the impact his words would have.
Seewald, the
Il Foglio report said, cites the Pope as saying that at the time he was not clearly aware that, in the end, any speech by a Pope is going to be regarded as political.
Seewald's book is based on conversations he said he conducted with Benedict, with the Pontiff speaking openly about such topics as pedophilia, divorce, married priests, birth control, church reforms and Islam.
According to the Italian news magazine Panorama, not even Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone has read the upcoming book.
In the controversy in the aftermath of Benedict's speech, the Pope held meetings with high-level representatives of Islam to clarify his remarks and to apologize for what he insisted was a misunderstanding.
