Ankara, Turkey – His predecessor was famous for his peripatetic globetrotting, but Pope Benedict XVI is about to embark on a journey that is as fraught with risk as any undertaken by John Paul II.
The pontiff is scheduled to land in the Turkish capital today, the first stop on a four-day visit to this overwhelmingly Muslim nation on Europe’s doorstep.
Although the trip was scheduled months ago, it arrives at a particularly delicate moment in the Vatican’s relations with the Islamic world – a moment so laden with political peril that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan decided only Monday that he would greet the pope after planning to be out of town.
Blunt words about Islam and violence and the 79-year-old pontiff’s strong views on Turkey’s unsuitability for European Union membership are sure to guarantee him a chilly, if not openly hostile, reception.
On Sunday, more 20,000 protesters gathered in Istanbul to demonstrate against the papal visit. They chanted “No to the pope!” and carried posters that depicted the pontiff as a fork-tongued serpent.
A pulp thriller called “Attack on the Pope: Who Will Kill the Pope in Istanbul?” has suddenly become a minor best seller in Turkey’s largest city. Mindful that the last person who actually tried to assassinate a pope was a Turk working for the Bulgarian secret police, the Vatican said there would be no “popemobile” parades on this visit.
There will, however, be 20,000 policemen on the streets of Istanbul.
In September, during a lecture at the University of Regensburg in his native Bavaria, Pope Benedict ignited a furious controversy when he quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor who said that most of the Prophet Muhammad’s contributions to religion were “evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
The pope’s use of the quote was roundly condemned by leaders of Muslim nations, including Erdogan, who called the words “ugly and unfortunate.” At least two Muslim clerics called for the pope’s death.
