"Fadlallah, one of the world's top Shia Muslim clerics, said: "We demand that [the Pope] apologise personally"
Pope Benedict XVI was last night facing angry demands from Muslims that he apologise for a speech in which he appeared to condemn the concept of jihad as "unreasonable" and quoted a medieval ruler who said Muhammad's innovations were "evil and inhuman".Protests swept across the Islamic world and the furore threatened a scheduled visit by the Pope to Turkey.
The Vatican spokesman, Federico Lombardi, told Vatican Radio: "It was certainly not the intention of the Holy Father to undertake a comprehensive study of the jihad and of Muslim ideas on the subject, still less to offend the sensibilities of Muslim faithful."
Father Miguel Ayuso Guixot, the head of the Vatican's Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies, told the Guardian he feared the Pope's words had been "misinterpreted". He added: "The Pope has worked tirelessly for inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue and for tolerance."
In Turkey, however, where the Pope is due to visit in November, the deputy leader of the ruling party said Benedict had "a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the middle ages". Salih Kapusuz added: "He is going down in history in the same category as leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini."
Representatives of the two million Turks in Germany, where the comments were made, also expressed deep annoyance. The head of the Turkish community, Kenan Kolat, said they were "very dangerous" and liable to misunderstanding.
2 comments:
He probably wouldn't do it, but at this point I would love to hear the Pope innocently remark that he had not been aware that it was possible to insult Islam and that he's sorry to have done so inadvertently and will be more precise in his remarks next time now that he knows exactly where the right buttons are to push.
But not to criticize. He's doing pretty well on his own.
I do like the "bitch-slapped" image.
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