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| What do you think about the visit of the pope to the Middle East? |
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The pope’s visit to Jordan, Israel and Palestinian Territories was an opportunity to talk about these countries, their population and especially about the Christians who encounter increased living difficulties. Benedict XVI was coming for a pilgrimage of peace to help Eastern Christians and improve the relationship between Israel and Islam. |
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| After the Ratisbon affair with the Moslems and the revisionist bishop with the Jews, I found that this very conservative pope has changed. He has gone much further into the inter-religion dialogue, not only in words but also in visiting Jewish and Islamic religious sanctuaries. He went to the Mosque esplanade of Jerusalem, the third in the rank of the Islamic sanctuaries; he was the first pope to walk into the dome of the Rock. |
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| According to Benedict XVI, the understanding between religions is a path towards peace. |
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| However I regret that the pope did not visit the Gaza territories, the population of which suffered so much in the last war and are presently deprived of essential needs due to the closing of their boundaries by Israel. A word from the pope in the middle of the ruins would have rendered some justice and given hope to the Palestinian people. |
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| His visit to Israel was not well seen by most of the former deported Jews, in fact because of the re-integration of the revisionist bishop Mgr. Williamson. Do you understand this? |
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Yes I do. There is a problem. During his visit to Auschwitz in May 2005, Benedict XVI rendered a group of criminals as responsible of the Holocaust without speaking of the collective responsibility of the Germans. Then later he expressed the wish to beatify Pius XII although his attitude towards the Jews during the Holocaust is still controversial. Then came the affair of the revisionist bishop. When the pope came to the Yad Vashem, the memorial of the Holocaust, I was expecting that he, a German pope, would make excuses and ask for forgiveness. This would have been well appreciated. |
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| We should now speak about the family… In France the Council of State refused to make legal for a woman to be a surrogate mother for another woman. The government would be favourable with some limitations, when for instance the woman is sterile. What do you think? |
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In practice if a woman needs that service from another woman and she can afford the expenses she goes to another country where the laws are more liberal. If a French law forbids this practice, that will change nothing for her. On the ethical ground it is not that simple. The Council of State (the Supreme Court in France) recalls rightly that to be “a surrogate mother for another woman” is not without a danger for that woman. The gift of a child to another couple can be seen by the child as to have been abandoned. The respect of human dignity has to be always considered. |
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| The Council of State wants to be prudent but does not close a possible change in the future. A law on “surrogate mother”, even with limitations, is not without risk. Perverse effects are always possible. But will it be possible in the long term to refuse a woman the possibility to have a child? |
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| Interview by Olivier Galzi |
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