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Posted on 11/02/2007 6:51:52 AM PDT by NYer
Pope Benedict XVI is to meet King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia next week in the first talks between a Saudi monarch and a Pope.
The Vatican said the uprecedented meeting would take place at the Vatican on Tuesday. King Abdullah has been paying a visit to Britain as part of a European tour. The Pope has sought to promote Christian-Muslim dialogue, and last month October opened a three day inter faith conference at Naples which included Muslim representatives.
The Vatican does not have formal diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia, and relations have been strained, with the Holy See demanding "reciprocity" in religious observance. While Muslims are free to practice their faith in the West Christians are not given the same rights in Saudi Arabia. Bibles and crosses are confiscated at the border.
From the Muslim point of view tensions were increased by the Pope himself last year after Benedict, speaking at Regensburg University in his native Bavaria, quoted from a Byzantine Emperor who had suggested Islam was inherently violent. He said he was misunderstood and later expressed his esteem for Muslims. Last month the Pope met the Saudi Foreign Minister at Castalgandolfo, his summer residence outside Rome, to discuss the Middle East and the "defence of religious and moral values".
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Maybe this will signal some loosening up on the anti-Christian laws in Saudi Arabia?
Looks like this could be a postive developement in many different ways.
If nothing more, the King will be surrounded by crucifixes. Satan hates the cross.
Think they will move them or cover them up like here?
No! Where is here that they cover them up?
If Christians would be allowed to openly practice their faith in Saudi Arabia and build churches, just as mosques are allow in the West, then THAT would be worth meeting and discussing. Otherwise, the mudslimes can go pound sand.
If only King Abdullah allows Xtian practice in Arabia he will be condemmned as APOSTATE of Islam by some FATWA by whosoever HATE-DRENCHED MULLAH...Then ASSASSINATED
The most recent was the removal at Duke and them moving it out of display to hide in another area.
I think he is going to ask the Pope to install a mulsim foot bath in the Vatican.
I own a great bridge in Brooklyn. I would be willing to sell it to you for only $100,000. Are you interested?
You’ll take Confederate dollars, right?
No.
I only take riyals or oil barrels.
Something is moving inside KSA. It is well known that king Abdullah is leading a moderate reform movement inside his kingdom. It is not easy for him, and nobody is absolutely sure of its success. I pray that Benedictus stays firm in his positions. This might help the king curb the fundamentalist pro-Qaeda oppositon to the reforms.
As a post-scriptum, we watched an increase (huge) of Saudi acquisition of real-estate in Lebanon in the recent years. This might be a move by the royal moderate reformists to assure a safe retreat in case..........
Of course, you can find absolute radical reformists refusing the monarchy AND the fundamentalists,and the monarchy is jailing them. That is another story.
Hmmmm.
I suspect the Pope will whip out a bottle of holy water at the last second and bless the King...which will throw him into a tidy fit...and he’ll go running out of the Vatican.
What utter rot... Abdullard is *no* reformer, nor never has been. He is now, and has always been aligned with the more fundamentalist of the Wahhabi clerical establishment in "the Magic Kingdom". This is a fact that I've known personally since 1980, when I was living there.
At that time, Khalid was old, and in ill health, and the American community there were looking long and hard at who would replace the King. There were only two in the strong running, and they were Fahd, who *did* become king after Khalid died, and Abdullah. Fahd had the regular military, and a majority of the the royal family as backing, while Abdullah had the Saudi National Guard, and the majority of the Wahhabi clerical establishment as his backing. Bearing in mind that the *real* retrograde force against *any* "reform" in the Kingdom is the Wahhabi clerical establishment, how can anybody say that Abdullah is a reformer?
the infowarrior
100% right.
What I mean by “reforms” is internal reforms, things that might give a one-a-day vitamin pill to an ailing system of government. These reforms are necessary for the system to stay alive with minor changes. For example he put in place a process that would institutionalize the succession of the throne given that it goes from brother to brother not from father to son. The brothers issued from Abd-el-Aziz are becoming rare to find. But nobody guarantees this process will be respected when needed. Wait (a few years) and see.
Of course pope Benedictus should stay firm in his positions. Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran was very clear in this interview:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1919233/posts
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