In the search for clues about Pope Francis’s commitment to interreligious dialogue, much has been made about Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s friendship with Rabbi Abraham Skorka, the rector of the Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano in Buenos Aires. Less well known, but in some respects equally revealing, is Bergoglio’s response to Pope Benedict’s infamous lecture at Regensburg University in 2006. Benedict’s remarks, which included a gratuitous and unflattering reference to Muhammad by a Byzantine emperor, led to wide-spread protests, riots, and even deaths. Benedict quickly apologized, but seemed somewhat bemused that these obscure observations by a former university professor could cause such an uproar. There were protests in places as widely separated as London and Jakarta. Muslims protested in Buenos Aires as well.
Bergoglio’s response was not bemusement. He gave a surprisingly strong statement to Newsweek Argentina through his press secretary, Fr. Guillermo Marcó. The archbishop wanted to communicate his “unhappiness” with the pope’s address. Then Marcó, speaking for the archbishop, said, “These statements will serve to destroy in twenty seconds the careful construction of a relationship with Islam that Pope John Paul II built over the last twenty years.” Bergoglio even asked other bishops to offer criticisms of their own. There are reports that high officials in the curia were intent on having him sacked for this insolence. As a shot across his bow, a suffragan bishop, who had also criticized Benedict’s lecture, got the axe. Bergoglio handled the situation by begging off from the upcoming meeting of the synod in Rome and inviting local Muslim leaders to gather with him in Buenos Aires. Although he had called the meeting, he insisted on not presiding. The archbishop thought it was time for the church to listen.
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