I think I have written about this subject before.  Because time passes and new actors strut on the stage of life, some subjects recur.  This time it is the repot in the newspapers that Pope Benedict will try to use his influence to play a part in settling the ugly age old war in the "Holy" land.

 A great many people believe this ruler of a tiny piece of Rome, Italy is the spokesman for the Christian world in religious matters.  Popes have, in the past, involved themselves as mediators in non-religious conflicts and it seemed just that they do so.  But, what makes Benedict a part of settling the "two-state" solution or other possible peaceful and sensible ending of strife between Israel and "Palestine"? I do not think it is because he represents anything other than that tiny piece of Rome.  There were times when religious wars were fought as struggles between different interpretations of the role of Jesus in the worship of God.

I don't think there is any one entity that can claim the ownership of the right to speak for God.  Let's see; there are some major religions that are deeply involved with the Jewish concept of One God, be it Adonoi, Jehovah or Jesus with the sub deity, Mary, the Mother of God.  This involves the "Western" world of which we are a part.  Then there is Allah, the one God of Mohammad who did not accept all of the teachings of the Jews and their various sects of Christians.

The Buddhists, Taoists and other Eastern religions are concerned with manners and steps towards achieving a good life in this life with little hope of living in an after life.  I may be wrong about this, but definitely the Christians and the Islamic sects agree that if you live a proper life in this "mortal" life, you will be rewarded in, say, "heaven", a very nice forever place.  This picture is conflicted with the notion that there is a side of living beholden to an "Anti-Christ" or a "Satan" representing evil as the flip side of good.  Who speaks for negative power?

But, this essay deals with the introduction of Benedict's presence into the struggle between Jews and Moslems in what used to be Palestine (owned by whichever military power had sway over the Middle East).  Benedict is just a man.  He is the present day representative of the Catholic Church which owns this tiny piece of Rome but exerts an enormous moral power throughout the world and affects not just Catholics but people of good faith everywhere; even Protestants?

Our problem is still: Who speaks for God?  The ownership of that right also includes the ownership of God, an enormous moral power to invest in one person, this time a celibate churchman who rarely ventures out into the real world.  I do not mean to offend, but I do think that Benedict neither owns nor speaks for God.