George Weigel: The Pope was Right

From the LATimes.

Good article also engaging the whole subject at hand... the pope's use of the quotation was not meaningless...

By quoting from a robust exchange between a medieval Byzantine emperor and a learned Islamic scholar, Benedict XVI was not making a cheap rhetorical point; he was trying to illustrate the possibility of a tough-minded but rational dialogue between Christians and Muslims. That dialogue can only take place, however, on the basis of a shared commitment to reason and a mutual rejection of irrational violence in the name of God.

And the reaction to the quotation also demonstrates this point. It is the confrontation, if you will, of dialogue between those who treat faith and reason as complimentary, and those who do not. Somewhere from that, dialogue must proceed. Reducing the lecture down to a quotation soundbite, as the press has done, does not even touch on the point of the lecture. I firmly believe that the primary cause of this violence has been because the press has so actively aimed to distort the lecture's point, first and foremost by deliberately taking this quotation out of context and waving it for the world to see.