Popes and Reason

I recently reviewed the Wikipedia article on Pope Benedict's controversial statements on Islam. The Pope's topic was on the relationship between faith and reason, and was apparently mostly targeting the secularity (I use the less-loaded term instead of "secularism") of some societies. It is worth noting, however, that Pope Benedict appears to consider elements of Islam to consider reason as subordinate to the will of God, and that such a consideration is a metaphysical crisis point in terms of any urge to violence that arises out of extremist subpopulations of Islamic societies.

What makes this noteworthy to me is that The Pope seems to support the idea that Christianity and reason are fully compatible, or at least that they are more compatible than Islam and reason. Now I don't want to grab the easy fruit of historical criticism of this perspective, but instead am trying to envision how the Vatican builds compatibility between "reason" and some of their social perspectives like antagonism to contraception. Is it a reasonable position? Or is it one that emerges from a policy choice that is historically and, perhaps, liturgically consistent, but that is at odds with reasoning on public health and safety?

The compatibility of reason and faith must, at some level, involve cherry picking elements of each. The Pope accepts The Big Bang because it offers some metaphorical consistency with Biblical descriptions, but considers principles over public health on procreation-related matters. In these matters, I believe we are seeing the kinds of pragmatism that has made Christianity survive into modernity: syncretize traditional religious elements (from Black Madonnas to Pagan Holidays), become a partner with secular government, focus on social charity, become compatible with reason as necessary.

We can only hope that Pope Benedict is proved wrong by moderate Muslims.