All entries for Saturday 16 September 2006

Pope's lecture creates disturbance

I’m sure everyone will have seen the reaction to the remarks by the pope which have been continuing since he made an academic speech to a limited audience in Germany on Thursday. What has amazed me has been the sheer idiocy of the reaction by many people, and especially by some extremist Muslims. According to the BBC ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5351324.stm ) there have already been fire bombs on Orthodox and Anglican churches in the West Bank city of Nablus. Great. A double whammy of idiocy; firstly neither Orthodox or Anglican churches accept the authority of the pope, secondly this is tantamount to them saying “I’ll show you that Islam isn’t a violent religion by threatening you and committing acts of terrorism”.

Other worrying things which have been said included comments from the chief cleric of New Delhi’s historic Jama Masjid, India’s largest mosque. The cleric claimed Muslims should “respond in a manner which forces the Pope to apologize”. I do sincerely hope that this doesn’t lead to any more violence than has already happened.

I’ve not heard the whole lecture and what has been reported were not the pope’s words. On Channel 4 news an Islamic scholar claimed that he had not been offended by what was said so I can only assume that when the whole lecture was heard it was perfectly reasonable.

: 16 Sep 2006 11:37 |  Tags: Pope |  Comments (12) |  Close comments |  Report a problem