The carefully crafted talk represented a shift in the church’s position from that put forward by the previous pope, John Paul II, who pointed to the dispossession of the Palestinians as the key source of problems facing Christians in the region.

Pope Benedict instead emphasized in his September 12 speech that the real source of danger for Christianity in the Middle East is Islamic jihadism.

In his talk the pope made his point by quoting from a book recounting a conversation on Christianity and Islam between 14th century Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologos and a Persian scholar. “The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad holy war,” the pope said. He then quoted the emperor as saying, “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 preached.” He further quoted the emperor: “God is not pleased by blood—and not acting reasonably…. To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death.”

Most of the pope’s speech was devoted to opposing “dehellenization” of the church, that is, favoring restoration of the logic of Greek philosophers like Aristotle as part of religious doctrine; appealing to practical- and scientific-minded people to include Christian theology as part of the rationale for “Western” civilization; and arguing that Catholicism, combining “faith and reason,” and having taken “its historical character in Europe” while having today a foothold in much of the semicolonial world, is the church best poised for a “dialogue” with other religious beliefs, and, thus, an indispensable part of the “West’s” reach.

It was the pope’s remark on Islam, however, that caught the attention. An editorial in the September 15 Investor’s Business Daily noted, “We have to assume that the pope knew exactly what he was doing when he put those lines into his carefully crafted speech. The emperor’s words are harsher than those that a modern-day pope would use.”

The pope’s comments provoked the intended response. Some 2,000 people organized by the Palestinian group Hamas, which runs the Palestinian National Authority and seeks an Islamic Republic, marched in Gaza September 15 to protest Benedict’s remarks. Seven churches were firebombed September 16-17 in the West Bank and Gaza. Aljazeera reported that in Gaza City “four small makeshift bombs exploded at a youth center run by the city’s oldest Christian church.” In Basra, southern Iraq, 150 protesters attacked a church and burned an effigy of the pope. A similar effigy burning took place in India. In Mogadishu, Somalia, a 65-year-old Italian nun was shot dead by two gunmen at a children’s hospital September 17 “in an attack possibly linked to worldwide anger toward Pope Benedict,” reported the New York Sun.

Pakistan’s parliament unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the pope for making “derogatory” comments, and demanding an apology. “Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence,” Tasnim Aslam, a Pakistani foreign ministry spokeswoman, told Associated Press. The government of Turkey took a similar stance.

Protests took place in Lebanon and Egypt and the government of Morocco recalled its ambassador to the Vatican.

A statement issued by the Mujahideen Shura Council, an umbrella group led by Al-Qaeda in Iraq, said, according to Reuters, “We tell the worshipper of the cross (the Pope) that you and the West will be defeated, as is the case in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya. We shall break the cross and spill the wine…. God will (help) Muslims to conquer Rome…. (May) God enable us to slit their throats, and make their money and descendants the bounty of the mujahedeen.”

On September 17 the pope issued a “statement of regret,” which did not contain an apology for what he said. “I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address… which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims,” the pope said. “These, in fact, were a quotation from a medieval text which does not in any way express my personal thought.”

Many Muslim figures initially said the pope’s statement was insufficient. Within a day, however, many Muslim religious leaders took their distance from the violent protests. “The pope has apologized, and that’s enough, so let’s calm down,” said Hasyim Muzadi, head of Indonesia’s largest Islamic organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, according to the September 18 New York Times. “If we remain furious the pope will be proved correct.”  
 
 
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