c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Pope Benedict XVI is in the midst of a four-day trip to Turkey, and adherents to the religion of peace _ as Islam is sometimes called _ are being watched carefully. Carefully enough, most would hope, that the pope will survive all four of his days in a country often held up as an example of moderate Muslim rule.

Some immoderate Muslims are still feeling just a wee bit homicidal over the pope’s reference a couple of months ago to a 14th-century Byzantine emperor’s description of Islam as “evil and inhuman.” The quotation he used took note of the Prophet Muhammad’s “command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

So a 14th-century Byzantine emperor’s criticism of conversion by force is cause for death threats, but Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s unabashed quest for nuclear weapons to use on Israel is acceptable? The religion of peace is confusing.

The pope tried to calm the uproar with an explanation of his choice of dusty quotations, but immoderate Muslims found that unacceptable as an apology. He expressed a desire to open a dialogue with Muslims, and that’s part of what he’s doing now.

With its comparatively secular outlook and its well-trained military, Turkey provides a safer setting for that dialogue than a lot of Islamic countries would. Still, I give the pope a lot of credit for guts for going where he so clearly is not wanted. My dialogue expectations, however, are low.

The pope was to spend some time Wednesday with Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of Eastern Orthodox Christians. A probable discussion topic: how a country with a comparatively secular outlook is methodically strangling Bartholomew’s church and treating nonadherents to the religion of peace as second-class citizens.

And he’s going to visit Haghia Sophia, once Byzantium’s great church, then a mosque, now a museum. Adherents to the religion of peace are angry because they suspect that Benedict might feel inspired to pray while on the premises.

I wouldn’t put it past the wily old pontiff to fire one off silently. But I doubt that he’ll face Rome, prostrate himself and wrap up with a spirited, “The Trinity is great!”

Anything short of that, and he will have been better behaved than the six imams who spooked the passengers and crew of a US Airways flight out of Minneapolis last week. According to a host of witnesses, they prayed ostentatiously in the terminal, asked for seat belt extenders that they didn’t need and made no attempt to use for their only legitimate function, shouted “Allah” repeatedly as they boarded the plane and did not sit where they were assigned. In short, they scared everyone else enough to force the authorities to take them off the plane in handcuffs.

That led to the inevitable news conference in which they were presented as victims who had done nothing provocative, followed by stern finger-wagging by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, about “racial profiling, harassment and discrimination of Muslim- and Arab-Americans.”

The clear message was, when we push you, it’s wrong for you to push back.

Now non-Muslims get a turn in the dialogue here at home, and our answer ought to be this: Our treasured heritage of broad tolerance and our Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom offer a place in this country for any peaceable religion. They do not, however, require us to tolerate violence or ignore provocations.

I’m sure a lot of Muslims in this world _ and especially in this nation _ want nothing more than to practice their own religion in peace and with practical deference to local custom, and would be willing to accord the rest of us the same latitude.

But we don’t hear nearly enough from them.

And we certainly don’t see acceptance of other religions playing out in places where Muslims are in the majority _ even places that are comparatively secular.

People who want peace don’t threaten the pope’s life over a 615-year-old quotation, don’t openly yearn to nuke Israel and _ since Sept. 11, 2001 _ don’t shout “Allah!” in a crowded airport.

(Kevin O’Brien writes for The Plain Dealer of Cleveland.)

KRE/RR END O’BRIEN