The Real Outrage

A careful reading of the Pope's speech reveals that his insult to Moslems has been radically misunderstood. In fact the heart of his argument is this:

Only thus do we become capable of that genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today. In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world's profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions.

To paraphrase: if the West wants to be able to talk to irrational Moslem fundamentalists, its going to have to embrace its own irrational Christian fundamentalists to do so.

It seems to me that this is a good deal more insulting than his choice to introduce the discussion by quoting a couple of lines from a debate between a 14th century Byzantine emperor and a Persian nobleman.