Christianity,  Islam,  Pope Benedict XVI,  Religion

Pope Benedict XVI Watch: Pope To Address Muslim FLAP

Pope Benedict XVI waves farewell from the gangway of the Munich international airport September 14, 2006. The Pope is sorry Muslims were offended by a speech on Islam that provoked fury around the world and led to calls for the leader of the Catholic church to apologise, an aide said on Saturday.
CNN: Pope to address Muslim furor

In the wake of an enraged response to his comments about Muslims, Pope Benedict XVI planned to address the controversy when he gives his regular Sunday blessing, or Angelus, from his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, southeast of Rome, sources told CNN.

It will be Benedict’s first public appearance since Tuesday, when he quoted 14th-century Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus in a speech in Germany.

Pope Benedict XVI has said he is “very upset” that his speech on Islam offended Muslims and expressed his respect for their faith, according to the Vatican.

Vatican spokesman Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said in a statement on Saturday the pope’s position on Islam was unmistakably in line with Vatican teaching that the Church “esteems Muslims, who adore the only God.”

The pope is “very upset that some parts of his speech could have sounded offensive to the sensibility of the Muslim faithful and were interpreted in a way that does not correspond at all to his intentions,” Bertone added. (Full statement)

The Pope’s address will be at 3 AM Pacific Daylight time.

Flap will report on it in the morning.

Stay tuned…….

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Pope Benedict XVI Watch: Taliban Demands Pope Apologize for Speech

Pope Benedict XVI Watch: The Speech at the University of Regensburg

Pope Benedict XVI Watch: Pope Sorry Muslims Have Found Speech Offensive

Pope Benedict XVI Watch: The Papal Islamic Comment FLAP


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2 Comments

  • Jeha

    I hope he stands his ground.

    Non-muslims deserve “reciprocity”; the Pope and the Catholic church certainly have a point when they consider “that a meaningful dialogue with the Muslim world is not possible while Christians are denied religious freedom in Muslim states”.

    In his argument, the pope was drawing a contrast here, and setting the stage for a debate; he does clearly acknowlege that the “The emperor […] expressed himself so forcefully” as a rethoric move. In a university setting, all ideas are exposed as they are, with no self-censorship; the pope was using this to “serve as the starting-point for [his] reflections on this issue”.

    His assertions that “Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul” and that “God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably is contrary to God’s nature”, are not essentially incompatible with ancient Islamic thinking.

    Ibn-Rush/Averroes, clearly demonstrated the supreme value of Reason over Revelation. Thus, “when revelation entered into contradiction with reason as constituted by the philosophers, it must be reinterpreted until that contradiction was resolved”…

    Having once saved the great texts of Greek philosophy, expanded on it, and used the great thinkers to enrich Islamic though, the Arabs today are now rejecting it.

    Welcome to the Dark Ages