Pope's apology for 'slur' fails to quell rising Muslim fury
CHRISTIAN churches in the Middle East were attacked yesterday as an apology from Pope Benedict XVI failed to quell fury over his controversial comments on Islam.
Five churches were targeted in the Palestine territories and last night, in a chilling development, a violent Iraqi insurgent group vowed to suicide bomb the Vatican in the wake of the Pontiff's speech.
The Pope quoted a medieval ruler who said Muhammad had brought only "evil and inhuman" things to the world, sparking growing anger across the Muslim world.
The chilling statement from the Mujahadeen Army, posted on the website used by militant groups, was addressed to "you dog of Rome" and threatened to "shake your thrones and break your crosses in your home".
"We swear to God to send you people who adore death as much as you adore life," said the message, which contained links to video recordings of what the group claimed were rocket attacks on US bases.
The same group has claimed responsibility for scores of attacks in Iraq, including the April 2005 downing of a helicopter carrying 11 civilians, including six Americans.
The Muslim world will today expect a personal apology when the Pope makes his first public appearance since the controversial speech last Tuesday at the Angelus blessing in St Peter's Square, Rome.
The Pontiff spent yesterday in his country retreat outside Rome with his closest advisers as security was stepped up at the Vatican in readiness for today's appearance in which he usually discusses current affairs.
The Vatican was forced to issue a statement yesterday in a bid to defuse the affair. The move was a clear sign of the growing fears within the church that the crisis was spiralling out of control.
"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 the statement.
But while the apology from the Vatican was welcomed by most of Britain's mainstream Muslim groups, those in the Middle East were less forgiving. More protests were held in Karachi, in Gaza and in Turkey.
Lebanon's most senior Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, said: "We do not accept the apology through Vatican channels and ask him to offer a personal apology - not through his officials - to Muslims for this false reading [of Islam]".
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said the statement did not go far enough and called on the Pontiff to apologise in person.
"We feel he has committed a grave error against us and that this mistake will only be removed through a personal apology," the Brotherhood's deputy leader Mohammed Habib said.
Iran also condemned Pope Benedict XVI, calling his comments "a big mistake" and demanding an apology.
But the most worrying turn of events took place in the Palestinian territories where gangs wielding guns and firebombs turned their anger on churches. Four churches were targeted in the West Bank town of Nablus, while gunmen opened fire at a fifth in Gaza, leaving the walls pocked by bulletholes and scorched by firebombs.
Only one was a Catholic church. In one of the attacks, five firebombs struck an Anglican church, setting fire to the door. In the attack on the Catholic church, four gunmen doused the doors with lighter fluid before setting it alight. A group calling itself the Lions of Monotheism claimed responsibility.
In Iraq, the government asked Muslims not to take their anger out on the small Christian minority, after the door of a church in Basra was attacked.
Benedict's worst crisis since he was elected in April 2005 was sparked by a speech at the University of Regensburg in his native Germany last Tuesday that appeared to endorse a Christian view, contested by most Muslims, that early Muslims spread their religion by violence. The Pope's speech quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th-century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and an educated Persian on the truths of Christianity and Islam.
"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war," the Pope said. "He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Muhammad 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 he preached'."
The Pope described the phrases on Islam as "brusque", while neither explicitly agreeing with nor repudiating them. In his statement yesterday, Cardinal Bertone said the 79-year-old Pope had confirmed in the speech "his respect and esteem for those who profess the Islamic faith" and hoped his words would be understood "in their true sense".
The academic speech was meant as a "a clear and radical rejection of religiously motivated violence, wherever it comes from," he added.
Church insiders said the Pope, a theologian who has led a sheltered life in the Vatican for more than two decades, may not have understood the potential implications of his remarks. The backlash has cast doubt on a planned visit to Turkey by the Pope in November.
However, despite the continuing fury across the Middle East, Britain's mainstream Muslim groups said they accepted the Vatican's apology.
Dr Mohammed Abdul Bari, general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "It's certainly a welcome step that the Pope recognises the hurt his speech caused. He quoted the words of the emperor who made very derogatory remarks about the Prophet."
Representatives of Scottish Muslims said the "damage had been done" but they also welcomed his apology. Former Glasgow councillor Bashir Mann, a member of the Muslim Council of Great Britain, said: "Relations are already strained. It is important for the Pope to realise what can happen after such a slip."
