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Pope Benedict XVI's refusal to address the European parliament for fear it is becoming "militantly secularist" initially struck me, a humanist MEP, a triumph of equality and rationality for the EU.

But on deeper reflection, I think it's a cop-out of the grandest scale, setting a dangerous precedent for other cultural and religious leaders to "opt out" of EU proceedings if they are dissatisfied with their values and methods. By refusing to take part in the parliament's Year of Intercultural Dialogue, the pontiff is effectively holding the EU to ransom. Declining to speak to MEPs, giving the excuse of other commitments and his age, sends out a very clear message: "Unless you play by my rules, I'm not taking part." (His age has not, incidentally, stopped him visiting Australia and America this year.)

I read the Vatican's contention that the EU has become increasingly "secularist" over recent years to mean less Christian. In some respects this is true. The EU refused to mention "God" in the now moribund constitution and has permitted the use of EU funding for research involving stem cells...

Such compromises are required to continue the development and expansion of the EU so that, in the words of Pope John Paul II in the last papal address to the EU in 1988, human society and civilisation can be preserved.

What greater purpose can a parliament have than this? And what other parliament is working so fast to achieve it across multinational borders? Despite the loosening of religious ties within the EU, the Pope is wrong to call the EU "militantly secularist". Since Jaques Delors' time the European commission has met regularly with religious leaders of all denominations. In a meeting of European religious leaders five days after the 2005 terrorist attacks on London, commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said: "More than ever Europe must show it is united in its religious diversity to reject and condemn terrorism on its soil." He went on to add: "Spiritual movements have an important role to play in helping us keep this at the forefront of our minds."

Pope on the ropes

...Logically speaking, there's no particular reason why the clergy of obscure dioceses in the Alps ought to be proxies for Catholics everywhere in the pope's most substantive annual exchange on the state of the faith. The Alto Adige region of northern Italy just happens to be, however, where Benedict XVI takes his summer vacation, and he's adopted the custom of sitting down with local pastors during his break. These are wide-ranging and remarkably candid conversations, basically the only regular occasion where the rank-and-file has the chance to put questions to the shepherd-in-chief.

To be sure, this is not the prime minister facing back-benchers in the House of Commons. Prior to Benedict's encounter on Aug. 6 in Bressanone, the local bishop, a Capuchin by the name of Wilhelm Emil Egger, asked his priests, deacons and seminarians to submit proposed questions for the pope. Egger then chose six questions -- attempting, according to Vatican spokesperson Fr. Federico Lombardi, to pick themes that drew the most interest and that also responded to the different backgrounds of the participants. Egger passed the questions on to Benedict in advance, giving the pope time to think about what he wanted to say. (For the record, this is basically the same procedure employed for press conferences aboard the papal plane.)

In other words, these are not really unscripted affairs; the pope has advance knowledge of the topics, and theoretically could avoid any question he doesn't want to take. That said, the sessions nevertheless offer a rare opportunity to probe the pope's mind on matters of keen interest at the grass roots...
I'll offer four highlights from this year's edition.

Benedict and the Environment

Generally the questions in these get-togethers come from pastors out in the trenches. This time, however, Benedict also decided to take one from an activist and theologian: Fr. Karl Golser, who directs the Institute for Justice, Peace and Care of Creation in Bressanone. A former official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith during the early years of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's tenure, Golser publishes and speaks widely on environmental topics.

Setting up his query, Golser asserted that too many believers fail to see a connection between their faith and questions such as climate change or pollution. He then asked Benedict what can be done to bring these matters more into the Christian mainstream. Given the controlled nature of the event, the pope's decision to take the question in the first place was, in effect, one way of responding to that concern.

Benedict minced no words in condemning what he termed the "brutal consumption of creation," and he called for an urgent renewal of the theology of creation. Beyond that, Benedict made four points that, together, could be said to represent the heart of his environmental message....

A collegial tone

Fr. Franz Pixner, a dean in the Bressanone diocese, asked the pope a sort of omnibus question. Starting from the premise that today's priests are stretched too thin, Pixner managed to wrap the issues of mandatory celibacy, the ordination of viri probati, the role of women in the church, and the use of lay people to administer baptisms and give homilies into a single 200-word query.

To be honest, Benedict didn't even try to respond to most points; instead, he restricted himself to a few words about striking the right balance between the singular role of the priest and appreciation for other charisms. In passing, he reaffirmed the value of priestly celibacy, saying that it provides a "great reminder" of the priest's total gift of himself to God and to others.

What was noteworthy was less the substance of the response than its spirit. Benedict readily conceded that the points raised by Pixner "worry pastors and all of us in this time," and stressed that "no one has a ready recipe" in terms of what to do. Rather than providing definitive answers, Benedict called for a "dialogue among ourselves, a responsible dialogue of the faith, in order to find the right path."

"We are all searching together," Benedict said. In that context, he said, his own remarks should be understood simply "as part of a much larger dialogue."

It's worth recalling that the pope was not caught off guard by the question. He knew in advance what was coming, and still replied in this decidedly non-oracular fashion. His intent seemed to be to invite, rather than to close, conversation.

Of course, what Benedict has in mind is not a dialogue without limits; his brief remarks are enough to suggest, for example, that a reconsideration of mandatory clerical celibacy is not in the cards. Nonetheless, Benedict's tone throughout the session was strikingly modest and collegial. Later, in response to another question, the pope jokingly said he couldn't supply an "infallible answer," but could only "respond based on what I see." When Golser asked his question about ecology, Benedict modestly began by saying, "You could certainly respond better than me."

In part, that tone reflects the personality of Benedict XVI, the humility which has charmed audiences in Rome and abroad. In part, however, it also is a deliberate ecclesial act, a choice to foster collegial conversation rather than settling every matter by diktat. It's a case in which a pope leads not only by what he says, but by how he says it - and by what he chooses not to say...

A round of questions for the 'shepherd-in-chief'

France, after all, has the largest Muslim population in Europe, and it continues to struggle with how to reconcile its commitment to laïcité with the religious sensitivities of this burgeoning Muslim presence. Moreover, Benedict spoke yesterday on the second anniversary of his famous Regensburg address, and his audience at the Collège des Bernardins included a small delegation of Muslims.

Further, it's not as if inter-faith commentary was simply impossible or inappropriate. Earlier in the day, Benedict gave an address to a group of Jews which included a strong denunciation of anti-Semitism and interesting, albeit brief, theological comments on the importance of the Abrahamic covenant.

Yet Benedict's lone reference to Islam came in what was almost a throw-away line at the beginning of his speech yesterday evening at the Collège des Bernardins: "I thank the delegates of the French Islamic community for having accepted the invitation to participate in this meeting," he said. "I convey to them my best wishes for the holy season of Ramadan already underway."

Efforts to find other allusions to Islam in the pope's words were not altogether convincing. Some, for example, read a reference to "fundamentalist fanaticism" as an indirect allusion to Islamic radicalism, but in context it seemed clear the pope was talking about fundamentalisms of all sorts as a reaction against secularism. Similarly, Benedict referred in his speech at the Elysèe Palace to young people "testing the limits of religious communitarianism," which is certainly a challenge in many French Muslim communities, but this too was a fleeting and indirect point.

Equally striking is that Benedict never mentioned the subject of immigration while in Paris, which was billed by spokesperson Fr. Federico Lombardi as the segment of this trip specifically addressed to France. (Once Benedict arrives in Lourdes later today, the focus becomes more universal.) Immigration is a subject the pope has addressed several times in other contexts, and it's a theme of obvious importance in France, above all for recent Muslim immigrants.

(To be fair, Benedict did refer at the Elysèe to the need for efforts "to protect the weak and promote their dignity," bit without connecting that point specifically to immigration.)

Given all that, one could perhaps forgive French Muslims for feeling a bit slighted. Dali Boubaker, rector of the mosque of Paris, said, "We would have liked to hear some emphasis on interreligious dialogue, between Islam and the church, and about shared values."

How to explain the papal reticence on what is, by all accounts, a matter of enormous import both for the Catholic church and for France?

Several possibilities suggest themselves.

First, Benedict XVI is a figure legendarily indifferent to the canons of political correctness and to popular expectations about what he "should" say or do. Perhaps Benedict simply felt that during his day and a half in the French capital he wished to deliver a clear message to French culture about laïcité, and on this occasion didn't want to muddy the waters with a laundry list of other points.

Second, Benedict may well have felt that he's said enough in other settings about Christian/Muslim relations, and that he will have another opportunity for a major address on the subject in early November when the first session of the new "Catholic-Muslim Forum," launched in the wake of his Regensburg address, meets in the Vatican to discuss the themes of "Love of God, Love of Neighbor", "Theological and Spiritual Foundation", and "Human Dignity and Mutual Respect".

Explaining Benedict's discretion on Islam