For those who insist that Pope Benedict XVI delivered an insult to Islam by pointing out the evil of violent conversion in the use of a single quote from a 600-year-old text, Lord Carey will send them into hysterics. The former Archbishop of Canterbury told an audience at Newbold College that Islam itself is creating a clash of civilizations and praised Benedict for his efforts to bring the conflict to the surface:

THE former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey of Clifton has issued his own challenge to “violent” Islam in a lecture in which he defends the Pope’s “extraordinarily effective and lucid” speech.

Lord Carey said that Muslims must address “with great urgency” their religion’s association with violence. He made it clear that he believed the “clash of civilisations” endangering the world was not between Islamist extremists and the West, but with Islam as a whole.

“We are living in dangerous and potentially cataclysmic times,” he said. “There will be no significant material and economic progress [in Muslim communities] until the Muslim mind is allowed to challenge the status quo of Muslim conventions and even their most cherished shibboleths.” ...

Lord Carey, who as Archbishop of Canterbury became a pioneer in Christian-Muslim dialogue, himself quoted a contemporary political scientist, Samuel Huntington, who has said the world is witnessing a “clash of civilisations”.

Arguing that Huntington’s thesis has some “validity”, Lord Carey quoted him as saying: “Islam’s borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.”

Carey's words will not have the same impact as Benedict's Regensburg speech, but Carey goes much farther than Benedict in his challenge to Islam. He notes -- correctly -- that Islam's totalitarian approach to rhetoric and debate regarding doctrine has set it in opposition to reason, and that growth will never occur until Muslims go through a Reformation process that sets their faith apart from their governance. The indictment of the status of Islamic states uses the truth of their instability and their egregious human-rights abuses gives credence, in Carey's mind, that extremism cannot explain all of the ills and all of the points of conflict with the West.

This address gives support to the much milder and less specific challenge from Benedict, which he aimed at people of all faiths. Carey's speech does not intend to engage Muslims as much as warn the West about the nature of its opposition. It does not have the same academic tone taken by the Pontiff, but instead serves as an apologia for Benedict's decision to acknowledge the intellectual and rhetorical failings of Islam.

Carey may find himself somewhat alone in the next few days, however. The Times of London reports that Benedict plans on giving another speech as a follow-up to Regensburg, and the Vatican statement hints of retreat. They announced that Benedict will explain why he has been “misunderstood”. The pontiff should explain that the misunderstanding sprang from an inability to read the entire speech, but I suspect Benedict will take a more humble approach when challenge is more appropriate to the time.

Unfortunately, the New York Times still hasn't figured it out. In its second editorial entry into this controversy, the Gray Lady demonstrates yet again its ability to get the moral issues completely incorrect:

In offering his regrets, the pope said that in its totality, his speech was intended as “an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect.” In living up to that, he and other top Vatican officials will have to accept that genuine communication cannot occur on their terms only.

Yes, because it was the Pope who demanded that no one criticize the Catholic Church and Jesus Christ, and encouraged their followers to engage in "Days of Anger" over the merest hint of dissent. It was Catholics who rioted worldwide and promised to assassinate the Mufti of Jerusalem at almost every demonstration. Have the Times' editors ever actually read their own newspaper or any newspaper?

Lord Carey should hold his next talk in the offices of the New York Times. It wouldn't do any good, but it would at least keep the editors occupied and avoid laughably inept conclusions like this for at least a day.

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