Pope upset over hurt sentiments of Muslims

(Saturday, 16.09.2006) The Vatican said on Saturday that Pope Benedict XVI is “extremely upset” that Muslims have been offended by some of his words in a recent speech in Germany. The new Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, said that the pope's position on Islam is unmistakably in line with Vatican teaching that the Church “esteems Muslims, who adore the One God.” Thus, the pope is “extremely upset that some portions of his speech were able to sound offensive to the sensibilities of Muslim believers and have been interpreted in a way that does not at all correspond to his intentions,” Cardianl Bertone said in a statement.
The words, in a speech the Pontiff gave to scientists and intellectuals at Regensburg University, in Germany on Tuesday, angered many in the Islamic world and raised doubts over whether a planned trip to predominantly Muslim Turkey in late November would go ahead. Leaders across the Muslim world in the last few days have demanded the pope apologize for his remarks on Islam and jihad, or holy war, despite earlier Vatican's assurances that he meant only to emphasize the incompatibility between faith and war. In his speech Pope Benedict had quoted Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus who explained why the ‘so-called holy war’ or spreading the faith through violence was something unreasonable and hence “evil and inhuman”. Rferring to the emperor's assessment, Cardinal Bertone, said that “the Holy Father absolutely didn't intend nor intends to make it his own assessment but has only used it as an occasion to offer, in an academic setting and, as can be seen from a complete and careful reading of the pope's text, some reflections on the subject of the relationship between religion and violence in general and to conclude with a clear and radical refusal of religious motivation for violence, from whatever side it comes from.”