West Bank churches firebombed as Islamic world condemns pontiff’s speech

REUTERS
Updated: 8:16 a.m. ET Sept. 16, 2006

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict told Muslims on Saturday he was sorry they had found his speech on Islam offensive, expressing his respect for their faith and hoping they would understand the “true sense” of his words.

“The Holy Father is very sorry that some passages of his speech may have sounded offensive to the sensibilities of Muslim believers,” Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said in a statement.

The statement came amid mounting anger from Muslims over remarks by the Pope in a speech in his native Germany on Tuesday that was seen as critical of their faith. Calls for him to apologize had spread beyond the Islamic world.

In that speech, the Pope appeared to endorse a Christian view, contested by most Muslims, that the early Muslims spread their religion by violence. Islamic fury erupted on Thursday and has cast doubt on a visit the Pope plans to Turkey in November.

But the Vatican statement said: “Confirming his respect and esteem for those who profess the Islamic faith, he (the Pope) hopes they will be helped to understand his words in their true sense.”

Before the statement, the tide of Muslim criticism of the Roman Catholic leader swelled on Saturday.

Yemen’s president became the first head of state publicly to denounce him and threatened to review ties with the Vatican unless he apologised. Ali Abdullah Saleh, campaigning for re-election, told voters at a rally Benedict had wronged Islam.

Two churches — neither of them Catholic — were fire-bombed in the West Bank, although no one was hurt.

But Chancellor Angela Merkel and other German politicians defended his comments, saying he had been misunderstood.

“It was an invitation to dialogue between religions, she told the mass-circulation Bild newspaper in an interview. “What Benedict XVI emphasized was a decisive and uncompromising renunciation of all forms of violence in the name of religion.”

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“What Benedict XVI emphasized was a decisive and uncompromising renunciation of all forms of violence in the name of religion.”
Yeah… sure… RIGHT! Like that will ever happen. Religion is the number-one exporter of violence. Always has been, always will be. Hell, religion and violence are basically synonymous!