he forgot the crusades

fish hat man stood in regensburg and
spoke to the academy there
where he'd taught theology in the 1970's and
revisited centuries of Islamic, Greek and
Christian philosophy

bavarian pope decried holy wars, forced conversions
and held up Christianity as the
"profound encounter of faith and reason"
in a long dense lecture prone
to wide interpretation

he said, "violence is incompatible
with the nature of god and
the nature of the soul" and
"not to act in accordance with reason
Is contrary to god's nature"

benedict used the word "jihad" and
chose the emotionally and
politically charged arabic word
for holy war or struggle but
never mentioned once the word crusade

it must be nice to be infallible