Benedict's Boo-Boo

The pope has been travelling and giving some words of wisdom as to attitudes of the Vatican towards various topics ... he began a speech at Regensburg University with what he conceded were “brusque” words about Islam: He quoted a 14th Century Byzantine emperor as saying, “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

But Muslims quickly responded. Aiman Mazyek, president of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, told the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, “I don’t think the church should point a finger at extremist activities in other religions," and recalled the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and the Vatican’s relations with Nazi Germany.

Uh, huh. But read on from the New York Times:
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"In Kuwait, the leader of the Islamic Nation Party, Haken al-Mutairi, demanded an apology for what he called “unaccustomed and unprecedented” remarks.

“I call on all Arab and Islamic states to recall their ambassadors from the Vatican and expel those from the Vatican until the pope says he is sorry for the wrong done to the prophet and to Islam, which preaches peace, tolerance, justice and equality,” Mr. Mutairi told Agence France-Presse.

In Pakistan, Muslim leaders and scholars said that Benedict’s words widened the gap between Islam and Christianity, and risked what one official called greater “disharmony.”

“The pope’s statement is highly irresponsible,” said another ranking Muslim, Javed Ahmed Ghamidi, an Islamic scholar. “The concept of jihad is not to spread Islam with the sword.”

The criticism from Mr. Bardakoglu, the Islamic leader in Turkey, was especially strong, and carries with it particular embarrassment if Benedict is forced to cancel or delay his visit to Turkey. Many Turks are already critical of Benedict, who as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had in 2004 opposed Turkey’s entry into the European Union.

The official, Mr. Bardakoglu, demanded an apology, saying that the remarks “reflect the hatred in his heart — it is a statement full of enmity and grudge.”

In Morocco, the newspaper Aujourd’hui questioned whether Benedict’s call for a real dialogue between religions was made in good faith.

“Pope Benedict XVI has a strange approach to the dialogue between religions,” the paper wrote in an editorial. “He is being provocative.”

The paper also drew a comparison between the pope’s remarks and the outcry in the Muslim world over unflattering cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published around Europe beginning last year.

“The global outcry over the calamitous cartoons have only just died down and now the pontiff, in all his holiness, is launching an attack against Islam,” the newspaper wrote."
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Now is there a word(s) in Arabic (the language of the Holy Quran) for frikkin hypocrites? While Muslims are screaming for the blood of unbelievers, blowing up trains, buildings, nightclubs, subway cars etc., the Pope is being provocative? The Pope is being unfair to a group of people who have had their religious leaders call for the assasination or ritual killing of the authors of cartoons? In fact that episode puts into context how intolerant widespread Islam is of those who would criticize it and why the Pope is now on their poop list. And who shot JP2? A Christian, or Mehmet Ali Agca? Remember him?

And yes the Muslims are totally correct in pointing out the various excesses of the Catholic Church throughout history, although I think delving into the past as far as the Crusades is a little far off of the mark and ignores the reglious conquest of the region some 300 years earlier by the Muslims themselves (but presumably that does not count, nor does the fact the Jews were already there?).