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Muslim World Angrily Demands Papal Apology

The fallout from Pope Benedict XVI?s comments last week, which included a quote from a discussion held between a 14th century CE Byzantine Emperor and a ?learned? Persian Muslim, continued as churches were firebombed by Muslims protesting allusions by the Holy Father that Islam was a religion of violence. Despite repeated assertions by the Vatican that the pope was merely trying to show that violence is irreconcilable with the nature of God, Muslims around the world responded angrily nonetheless and demanded a full, personal apology for the pope having spoken his mind freely.

Five churches in the Gaza Strip were attacked by men wielding firebombs and guns in response to the pope?s speech at a university in his native Germany, with a group calling itself the ?Lions of Monotheism? claiming responsibility. There have also been reports of church doors being burned in Basra, Iraq, and the upcoming visit by Pope Benedict XVI to Turkey ? it would be the first by a pope ? was called into question in the wake of the controversy. One newspaper in Turkey characterized the pope as being in the same mould as Hitler and Mussolini.

One Muslim group released an announcement on the internet threatening suicide bombings against the Holy See, while a minority of other Muslim religious figures have said that violence in response to the pope?s comments was inappropriate. The New York Times went so far as to call on the pope to apologize for his speech (in which he made clear that the quotes he was stating were the opinion of a Byzantine emperor, and not his own), thus aligning that esteemed newspaper?s position with imams known to have spread hateful rhetoric about Jews and Christians in such religiously-intolerant and human-rights-devoid nations as Saudi Arabia and Libya.