16/09/06, Michael Valpy, Pope's quote kindles Islamic rage
Post
Fury compared to that over Danish cartoons.
Pope Benedict XVI was damned throughout the Muslim world and likened to Hitler and a blood-lusting medieval crusader yesterday after he linked Islam to violence in a speech to a German university.
The Pope, quoting a 15th-century Byzantine emperor, told his audience at the University of Regensburg: "Show me just what Mohammed 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."
He used the words to illustrate that violence is contrary to the nature of God. Vatican officials insisted he meant no disrespect to Muslims and that the quotation was taken out of context. But the defence failed to mute Muslim anger.
Instead, reminiscent of the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that fuelled rage this year, for the third straight day since Benedict's speech, there were demonstrations, furious rhetoric and demands from Muslim groups around the world for him to apologize.
Pakistan's parliament passed a unanimous resolution calling on him to retract his "derogatory remarks" and the Pakistani government called in the Vatican's representative to make a formal protest. Religious and political leaders in Turkey said his scheduled visit to the country in November should be cancelled.
The Muslim Brotherhood, the leading opposition force in the Egyptian parliament, said the Pope's comments were more serious than the Danish cartoons because they come from a leader who represents hundreds of millions of people.
Britain's Ramadan Foundation said Benedict was tearing down the bridges built between Christianity and Islam by his predecessor, John Paul II. The Canadian Islamic Congress called him "ignorant."
The prevailing theory among scholarly Vatican observers is that the Pope, rather an unworldly scholar, simply goofed and used the wrong example from religious history to make his point that violence is contrary to God's nature and therefore unreasonable.
He could have referred to Christian authorities forcibly converting Jews in the Middle Ages, or to the Crusaders savagely sacking Constantinople in 1204 -- one of the low points in Christianity, as Michael Higgins, president of Fredericton's Roman Catholic St. Thomas University, observed in an interview.
Instead, because he apparently had just finished reading a scholarly treatise on a religious dialogue between "an educated Persian" and the 15th-century Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, he cited the emperor's words about "evil" Islam spreading faith "by the sword" without indicating whether he thought the emperor was right or wrong.
An alternative to the goof theory is the explanation that Benedict intended, and has intended for some time, to make a tough, provocative statement on fundamentalist Islamic terrorism and violence.
Vatican scholars and bureaucrats interviewed in April on the first anniversary of Benedict's papacy thought he was showing signs of taking a harder position on Islamic violence than John Paul II.
A senior Vatican official said every pope eventually has a "defining event" land in his lap. Asked what he thought Benedict's "defining event" would be, he replied: "It might be Islamic, but I don't know. There's got to be an event that provokes."
Dr. Higgins, a leading scholar on the Vatican, acknowledged that it is "really surprising" that the Palaeologus words got by the Pope's aides without someone thinking they might be controversial. "But I can't see that he would be deliberately provocative," he said.
Pope Benedict XVI was damned throughout the Muslim world and likened to Hitler and a blood-lusting medieval crusader yesterday after he linked Islam to violence in a speech to a German university.
The Pope, quoting a 15th-century Byzantine emperor, told his audience at the University of Regensburg: "Show me just what Mohammed 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."
He used the words to illustrate that violence is contrary to the nature of God. Vatican officials insisted he meant no disrespect to Muslims and that the quotation was taken out of context. But the defence failed to mute Muslim anger.
Instead, reminiscent of the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that fuelled rage this year, for the third straight day since Benedict's speech, there were demonstrations, furious rhetoric and demands from Muslim groups around the world for him to apologize.
Pakistan's parliament passed a unanimous resolution calling on him to retract his "derogatory remarks" and the Pakistani government called in the Vatican's representative to make a formal protest. Religious and political leaders in Turkey said his scheduled visit to the country in November should be cancelled.
The Muslim Brotherhood, the leading opposition force in the Egyptian parliament, said the Pope's comments were more serious than the Danish cartoons because they come from a leader who represents hundreds of millions of people.
Britain's Ramadan Foundation said Benedict was tearing down the bridges built between Christianity and Islam by his predecessor, John Paul II. The Canadian Islamic Congress called him "ignorant."
The prevailing theory among scholarly Vatican observers is that the Pope, rather an unworldly scholar, simply goofed and used the wrong example from religious history to make his point that violence is contrary to God's nature and therefore unreasonable.
He could have referred to Christian authorities forcibly converting Jews in the Middle Ages, or to the Crusaders savagely sacking Constantinople in 1204 -- one of the low points in Christianity, as Michael Higgins, president of Fredericton's Roman Catholic St. Thomas University, observed in an interview.
Instead, because he apparently had just finished reading a scholarly treatise on a religious dialogue between "an educated Persian" and the 15th-century Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, he cited the emperor's words about "evil" Islam spreading faith "by the sword" without indicating whether he thought the emperor was right or wrong.
An alternative to the goof theory is the explanation that Benedict intended, and has intended for some time, to make a tough, provocative statement on fundamentalist Islamic terrorism and violence.
Vatican scholars and bureaucrats interviewed in April on the first anniversary of Benedict's papacy thought he was showing signs of taking a harder position on Islamic violence than John Paul II.
A senior Vatican official said every pope eventually has a "defining event" land in his lap. Asked what he thought Benedict's "defining event" would be, he replied: "It might be Islamic, but I don't know. There's got to be an event that provokes."
Dr. Higgins, a leading scholar on the Vatican, acknowledged that it is "really surprising" that the Palaeologus words got by the Pope's aides without someone thinking they might be controversial. "But I can't see that he would be deliberately provocative," he said.
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