*The Pope, the Vatican, Act II by Jamil Shawwa

I never have a problem with any divine religion or any religion for that matter. See, I am nobody to have a problem with a religion, but I am somebody that could have a problem with the practices and practitioners of any divine religion or any religion or faith for that matter. A leak from Wikileaks was, among other things of course, a correspondence from the Pope and the Vatican objecting to consider Turkey or to accept Turkey to the European Union. The leaks revealed, no one denied anything thus far, that the Pope's objection- the Pope is German and we know that Germany has a challenge with the Turkish- German population , not that this statement has anything to do with the Pope’s decision but I thought it might be worth mentioning- to Turkey’s request is because Turkey is an Islamic country. I’m not sure if the Pope knows history or not or if he knows geography or not or if he remembers that Turkey is part of Nato and part of the overall American strategy in the Middle East and Europe or not, or if he knows that Bosnia Herzegovina and parts of the former Yugoslavia are also Islamic societies or not, but it seems that the Vatican again is swimming against the tide and against logic as it did in many stations through out it’s history from denying Martin Luther, the 16th century reformist and the war against arts and cultures during the enlightenment age and until now, in addition to the dubious role of the Vatican during world war II. I have not been fond of Turkey’s stupidity when it sent a ship to Gaza but I’m with the Turkish request, it is a European country, Eurasian and it seems that it met all the qualification; the only thing waiting is a political decision to include it in the EU. The Greek objection is fading and the American position as far as I am concerned is not objecting. You want those that represent the real, the regular, or the normal Islam, as the majority of Muslims believe, to be represented where they originally must be represented; otherwise, you leave the field to the murderers of Al-Qaeda and the mercenaries the Taliban to fill in the space. I have few issues with Turkey’s role in the Middle East but that does not prevent me from asking that Turkey be part of the EU, it is its natural place by the way and not the Middle East. I hope some sort of an Asian entity would also find a place for Iran and this way the real Middle East, as I see it, would consist only of the State of Israel, the State of Palestine, and the Arab countries surrounding them. On the other hand, if that scenario does not materialize, I can go to my original new Middle East, which would include Iran and Turkey as part of it. Maybe, I do not know, Turkey would be a major player in the Middle East and that is why it has not joined the EU, maybe. In the same time, The Pope and the Vatican really need to do house cleaning first and this house cleaning is the most serious challenge to the moral and theological authority of the Catholic Church. The house cleaning is regarding the cover up of those priests from all over the world molesting children and doing abnormal sexual acts with minor boys. So the Pope needs to focus on cleaning his house first. He also needs to bring transparency to the Church and seriously have a zero tolerance against any priest or affiliates with the Catholic Church that use the divine magic that is called the religion to manipulate people to their subhuman acts.

* Read also " The Pope and Islam" from 2006 here on http://arabamericanwire.blogspot.com/