Through Force or Faith? — Page 94
?— A Reply to Pope Benedict XVI 94 use prejudice and falsehood with regard to Muslims. On the con- trary they admitted, with courage, what they saw was reasonable. Critical Review of the Objections It is quite obvious that the aforementioned excerpts, upon which is laid the foundation of the Pope’s entire lecture, were not men- tioned fortuitously but were indeed selected deliberately. The objections presented earlier bear it out that the lecture was care- fully worked on and specific references were researched to use as foundations. Dr. George Friedman, who is the director of the American institute, Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence, writes in commentary on this lecture of the Pope; It is obvious that Benedict delivered a well-thought- out statement. It is also obvious that the Vatican had no illusions as to how the Muslim world would respond. The statement contained a verbal blast, crafted in a way that allowed Benedict to maintain plausible deniability. Indeed, the Pope already has taken the exit, noting that these were not his thoughts but those of another scholar. The Pope and his staff were certainly aware that this would make no difference in the grand scheme of things, save for giving Benedict the means for distancing himself from the statement when the inevitable backlash occurred. (Faith, Reason and Politics: Parsing the Pope’s Remarks, Dr. George Friedman, https://richgibson. com/faithreason- politics. htm)