Why are the Catholics so quiet?

It is perplexing, this deafening silence by Roman Catholics in face of continued demands by Muslims the world over for the pope to apologize for remarks he made about Islam that Muslims found so offensive.

In fact the demands for an apology are the least worrisome of what the Muslims are doing. Some have actually engaged in violent protest, attacking Christian churches and even killing an elderly nun. One cleric has gone on to issue a fatwah against the pope, urging that he be killed.

The threats of more violence cannot be ignored. The Italian government has tightened security around the Vatican and in Rome itself. Yet, aside from bland statements by the Vatican or some tepid analysis from sources interviewed by network television, not a peep is heard.

What immediately comes to mind are two things. Either Catholics are not saying anything because they in fact believe the pope erred in making those remarks, or they secretly fear Muslim reprisals, a fear that grows more valid everyday in this terror-threatened world.

There is a third thing. It is possible Catholics are keeping mum to needle the Muslims by pretending to ignore the whole thing. But I do not think this is so. Being adherents to the more tolerant religion, Catholics are necessarily fractious, difficult to shepherd in one direction.

Even if Catholics had wanted to needle the Muslims by remaining oblivious to the furor generated by the offensive papal remarks, the ploy would have collapsed from lack of cohesion.

This third thing that comes to mind is just not possible.

So back to the previous two. Of the two, I am more inclined to go for the former. The latter, about Catholics secretly fearing Muslims, just does not add up in a world where actual conflicts are taking place, even if no one has been straightforward enough to admit real causes.

The former, which is that Catholics believe the pope had erred despite the belief in his infallibility, has more strength in reason and probability. The pope may not have intended to offend Muslim sensibilities. But for Christ's sake, he should have looked before he leaped.

I do not believe that a person thrust into such a high position of sensitive authority should not at least try to consider all possible scenarios that could materialize as a direct consequence of every word he utters.

We are not living in a world of cotton candy make-believe. The world is increasingly spinning toward a feared clash of civilizations even if that is not the tomorrow we want. The pope, instead of trying to delay that eventuality, may only have succeeded in hastening it. How could the pope not have foreseen the consequences of what he said? Even if he was merely quoting the words of some forgotten Byzantine emperor, he was the one who revived those words. And those words, even I as a Catholic must admit, can clearly hurt Muslim sensibilities.

Whether or not the pope believes those words to be true, believes those words to be as real today as they were then, the decision to say them or not obviously carried a tremendous weight of responsibility that should not have been borne in a dangerously polarized world.

We Catholics are no fools. We can see that there are some in the Muslim world who are clearly agitating that this polarization not only takes place but takes place in a final violent confrontation now or in the very near future.

But for as long as the agitation has not taken a sweeping hold, there is still a great chance that a final lasting peace will instead supplant age-old animosities that date back to old family squabbles in the deserts of the Middle East.

Osama bin Laden, that hateful hated sonafabitch, I will agree with on one thing, that the fundamental difference between Muslims and Christians is that they love death while we love life. I do not agree, however, that either be prevented from finding the difference for themselves.