A professor pope wields some rhetorical jiu-jitsu

Sep. 27, 2009
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Prague

In the Japanese martial art of jiu-jitsu, the key to success is turning your opponent’s strength into a weakness. If your opponent is bigger or hits harder, you deflect his energy rather than directly opposing it, turning the blows back upon the guy delivering them.

In effect, Pope Benedict XVI has been practicing some rhetorical jiu-jitsu this weekend in the Czech Republic. Time and again, the pontiff has taken charges that secularists commonly level at Christianity and turned them back around – so that they become indictments of, rather than an apologia for, a secular worldview.

The pope’s address this evening to a group of academics at Prague’s Charles University offered a classic case in point. the rest

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