Pope's backwards Easter message

One of the many things whites often don't understand about discrimination is the concept of us and them.

Blacks, Hispanics and Asian Americans in America feel discriminated against when they're portrayed as other, as an aberration from the norm, as the object rather than the subject, as acted upon rather than the actor, as supporting actors important only for what they bring out in the main character.

It's often language-based; whites see themselves as the arbiter, with a natural right to pass judgment and define the terms for everyone else. Their worldview is always at the center, with all the paternalism that comes with that often-subconscious assumption.

You see this skewed perspective at its most naked in media articles that consistently use variations of 'us' to refer to whites/'mainstream', 'them' to non-whites/'non-maintstream'.

It's especially obvious when it comes to religion--Christianity is us, Judaism sometimes when it's deemed convenient; Islam/Hinduism/Buddhism are other.

I was struck by this recently when reading media accounts of two incidents that illustrate how profoundly divisive Pope Benedict is, and how he's a relic of another age that while past, certainly isn't dead.

German Jewish leader criticizes Pope over prayer

Reuters: The leader of Germany's Jewish community said on Friday she was surprised Pope Benedict could have allowed a new version of a Good Friday prayer for the conversion of Jews.

Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, told Reuters Television she could not fathom Pope Benedict putting forward the new decree because he experienced discrimination against Jews in Germany as a young man.

"I would have assumed that this German pope, of all people, had got to know first hand the ostracizing of Jewry," she said. "I could not have imagined that this same German pope could now impose such phrases upon his church."

Jewish groups complained last year when the Pope issued a decree allowing wider use of the old-style Latin Mass and a missal, or prayer book, that was phased out after the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, which met from 1962 to 1965.

They protested against the re-introduction of the old prayer for conversion of the Jews and asked the Pope to change it.

The Vatican last month revised the contested Latin prayer used by a traditionalist minority on Good Friday, the day marking Jesus Christ's crucifixion, removing a reference to Jewish "blindness" over Christ and deleting a phrase asking God to "remove the veil from their hearts".

Jews criticized the new version because it still says they should recognize Jesus Christ as the savior of all men. It asks that "all Israel may be saved" and Jews say it keeps an underlying call to conversion that they had wanted removed.

Knobloch said that she could not envision a continuation of the inter-religious dialogue as long as the old prayer stands.

"The inter-religious dialogue has suffered an enormous setback because of this version and I assume that one will find a way very soon to continue the dialogue, but at the moment I don't see it happening," she said.

"As long as the Catholic Church, that is to say Pope Benedict, does not return to the previous wording, I assume that there will not be any further dialogue in the form that we were able to have in the past," Knobloch said.

That came out Friday; today, we have this in the NYTimes: Pope Prays for Peace on Easter Sunday

Pope Benedict XVI led prayers for peace on the holiest day of the Christian year at a rainy outdoor mass here Easter Sunday, exulting conversions to the faith hours after the Vatican highlighted the baptism of Italy’s most prominent Muslim.

In a prayer before thousands of soaking pilgrims and tourists on St. Peter’s Square, the pope noted that the disciples had spread the message of Christ’s resurrection — celebrated on Sunday — and as a result “thousands and thousands of persons converted to Christianity.”

“This is a miracle which renews itself even today,” he said.

Days after Osama bin Laden issued a threat against Europe that mentioned the pope specifically, Magdi Allam, an Egyptian-born writer protected by Italian bodyguards for his criticism of radical Islam, was baptized by the pope Saturday night and received his first communion. The news about Mr. Allam, a secular Muslim married to a Catholic, was accented by a Vatican press release an hour before the baptism ceremony.

“It was the most beautiful day of my life,” Mr. Allam, 55, a deputy editor at Italy’s largest daily newspaper, Corriere della Sera, wrote in a column on Sunday. “The miracle of the resurrection of Christ reverberated in my soul, freeing it from the shadows of a preaching where hate and intolerance toward he who is different, toward he who is condemned as an ‘enemy,’ prevailed over love and respect for your neighbor.”

Mr. Allam said that he would take the new middle name of “Cristiano.” ...

Imagine if the Pope had made the centerpiece of his Easter address the conversion of a Jew to Christianity.

What are the odds the Times story wouldn't mention that in the headline, wouldn't quote any Jewish leaders, wouldn't present this as in any way problematic, and wouldn't even question who has annoited this man Italy's most prominent Muslim (the fact that a man who's said repeatedly he doesn't follow any Muslim practices can be said to hold that position is itself a commentary on how divided Italian society is).

It sounds ridiculous, but often these biases become obvious if you just substitute the world jewish for muslim, or christian for muslim. Imagine the Pope on Easter trumpeting the conversion of someone like George Soros to Christianity--he'd be laughed at, derided, condemned.

It's especially problematic given, as the Reuters article points out, the anti-Semitic and hateful basis of Christianity's emphasis on conversion.

It's impossible to talk about Christian conversion in a vacuum--Christians may present it positively as evidence of God's love/etc., but the subtext historically and currently is always negative.

Unless you become one of us you are worse, to be pitied, to be acted upon--to be killed, to be jeered, to be shunned, to be rulued, to be evangelized to, to be seen as not fully human.

I have no problem of course with people converting to any religion. But it's ridiculous as Pope Benedict does to use someone's choice to push an agenda and try to beat home a larger political goal.

He's really eroded Pope John Paul's progress in inter-religious dialogue--probably because he doesn't believe he's speaking with peers.