Measuring words.

YES, the pope blundered. In discussing the relationship between reason, violence, and Islam, Benedict XVI referred to a Byzantine emperor's comments on the subjects from around 1391. The pope noted that the emperor had raised the question of compulsion in religion "somewhat brusquely," with these words: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." Benedict then expanded on why the emperor rightly believed this command "unreasonable" and "incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul."

The pope did not endorse the emperor's view that everything distinctive to Islam is "evil and inhuman." His principal error was in failing to say explicitly that he was not endorsing it. We take it that he wasn't, both because he subsequently said so and because the official teaching of his church, which he had a hand in drafting, is somewhat philo-Islamic. (Nor were the offending words necessary to his argument.) His secondary error came elsewhere: He implied that Muhammad had said that there should be no compulsion in religion only because, at the time he said it, Islam was weak. It had actually solidified its position by then.

But these were pretty minor mistakes. The pope's thesis concerning Islam--that it has a troubled relationship with reason and with peace and religious freedom--is obviously true. It has been amply demonstrated by the reaction to his speech, which has included the murder of a nun, calls for his own death, and the firebombing of churches.

We should not pretend that what is going on in the Muslim street is an exercise in textual exegesis. The New York Times takes just this otherworldly approach in its rebuke of Benedict. It presents the pope as a sower of interreligious "discord" who "needs to offer a deep and persuasive apology." (That tinny noise you just heard was the sound of editorial verb inflation.) "For many Muslims," the Times explains, "holy war--jihad--is a spiritual struggle, and not a call to violence. And they denounce its perversion by extremists, who use jihad to justify murder and terrorism." Well, as long as it's just a fringe, then. Clearly the pope is the real aggressor here. About some things, American liberals are evidently more pious than the pope.

We are sure that many Muslims do reject violence in the name of their religion. But their denunciations of it do not seem to be very thick on the ground. Perhaps they should be louder. As for the pope, he has apologized exactly as much as he should.