19 September 2006
The Pope's remarks on violence in Islam have sparked widespread anger in the Muslim world. Al-Qaeda militants in Iraq have declared war on "worshippers of the cross", and protesters burned a papal effigy on Monday following Pope Benedict's comments on Islam, while churchmen and statesmen tried to calm passions. Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called the Pope's remarks "the latest chain of the crusade against Islam started by America's Bush." Speaking in New York, George Bush said that Benedict had been sincere in his apology. The pontiff of the Catholic Church said on Sunday he was deeply sorry Muslims had been offended by his use of a medieval quotation on Islam and holy war but stopped short of retracting a speech seen as portraying Islam as a religion tainted by violence. In a speech in Germany last week, Benedict referred to criticism of the Prophet Mohammad by 14th century Byzantine emperor Manuel II, who said everything the Prophet brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
While some Muslims were mollified by the Pope's explanation, others remained furious. "We tell the worshipper of the cross that you and the West will be defeated, as is the case in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya," said a statement by the Mujahideen Shura Council, an umbrella group led by Iraq's branch of al-Qaeda. "We shall break the cross and spill the wine," said the statement, posted on Sunday on an Internet site. Attackers hurled firebombs at seven churches in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the weekend, and an Italian nun was shot dead in Somalia.
In Iraq's southern city of Basra, up to 150 demonstrators chanted slogans and burned a white effigy of the Pope. "No to aggression!," "We gagged the Pope!" they chanted in front of the governor's office in the predominantly Shi'ite city. In Egypt, a parliamentary committee called for the expulsion of the Vatican envoy if the Pope did not apologize, and in Kuwait Muslim clerics said the Pope's Sunday address "does not amount to an apology because he said Muslims had misunderstood his speech…He must declare frankly he made a mistake and must pledge not to repeat such false accusations against Islam." Meanwhile, the Holy See has instructed its diplomatic envoys in Muslim countries to explain Pope Benedict's words on Islam.
