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Pope Benedict’s Provocative Utterances !
Timely blessings for George Bush’s Anti Muslim Crusade?
By Latheef FarookOctober 18, 2006
As we all know Pope Benedict XVI is the revered head of the world’s most powerful, very well organized and extremely influential Roman Catholic Church with around a billion followers worldwide. Not only Catholics even others look to him for better understanding among followers of all religions to make the world a better place for all.
Thus every word he speaks out, and that too in public, has always been watched carefully not only by Catholics but even by others. During a personal visit to his native Bavaria in Southern Germany, Pope Benedict addressed the staff and students at his former University of Regensburg on Tuesday 12 September 2006. What was supposed to be a boring theological lecture turned out to be an explosive one triggering off a worldwide controversy. In an extremely inflammatory speech Pope Benedict dropped a bombshell when he denounced the connections between Islam and violence, particularly with regard to jihad, or “holy war”. Citing an obscure medieval text, recounting a conversation between 14th-century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and a Persian scholar on Islam’s beloved Prophet Mohammed ( PBUH) that characterizes some of the teachings of Islam as “evil and inhuman “, Pope Benedict asked ‘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 he preached”
When the Pope described Islam which the Muslims believe as the final version of revealed religions-Judaism and Christianity-as “evil and human” he knew very well that he was triggering off an unnecessary controversy and harm relations between Christians and Muslims.
And that too this irresponsible and deliberately provocation comes at a time when Muslims all over the world were seething with anger with the Christian West over the brutal global campaign waged by the United States President George W Bush, a Born Again Christian, and his British poodle Tony Blair to dehumanize Islam, justify killing Muslims and destroy Muslim societies and Muslim countries .
In other words the pope gave Vatican’s blessings to President George Bush’s devastating anti Muslim crusade, unleashed on behalf of corporate conglomerates and religious fanatics such as Born Again Christians and Zionist Jews, which turned the planet earth into a killing field and graveyard
One should not forget that under this vicious Judeo-Christian campaign anything and everything related to Islam and Muslims have become objects of hatred and calls for their elimination by the Western media in servitude to corporates. As a result, today every Muslim man with a beard and Muslim women with headscarves are afraid to move freely in the West where the hatred has become very widespread.
Hundreds of Muslims from all corners of the world were often illegally arrested and detained in many unknown prisons all corners of the world. Some of them, with no access to family members or lawyers, were tortured for years and already details started to emerge of the sufferings many innocent Muslims were subjected to with no valid reason. This is not the first time that Pope Benedict made anti Muslim utterances. During a visit to a Jewish synagogue in Cologne in Germany in August 2005; the second ever such visit by a Catholic Pontiff to a Jewish Synagogue, he called for Muslims to combat
“cruel fanaticism of terrorism” as if all Muslims were involved in terrorism. What is strange is that Pope Benedict made this appeal while Western Christian forces occupied Muslim countries and kill Muslim men, women and children in hundreds of thousands. Later, on the same day, he called for “trust and mutual respect between Christians and Jews, hall marks of a relationship between equals”, but there was no mention of trust, respect and equality with Muslims.
Pope Benedict, as Cardinal Erst Ratzinger, never called upon the entire Catholic community to shed terrorism when the IRA bombs killed more than 3,500 people, or all Protestants to shed violence when a few white Anglo-Saxon Protestants detonated a truck bomb that destroyed the federal building in Oklahoma city in 1995, killed 168 people, wounded more than 800 people, and destroyed or seriously damaged more than 300 buildings. He never called upon Jews to wash their souls of crimes nor suggested that Judaism, as a religion, was responsible for the state-sponsored murder and mayhem as Israel uses the Torah to justify its existence, killing Palestinians, dispossesses them of their land, their dignity and deprive them of means of earning a decent living to feed their families.
So why does he now, as Pope Benedict, burden Muslims around the world with collective, guilt-ridden responsibility for acts of few individuals which were outcome of Western Judeo- Christian atrocities. As rightly asked by a righteous Christian writer: “are we still living in the age of the crusades? In the time of the “Holy Inquisition”? In the period of the Christian pogroms against the Jews who, upon being expelled from Spain, found refuge amidst Muslim communities around the Mediterranean and in Mesopotamia? Before associating Islam with violence Pope should know who is committing violence against whom. Of course he knows that very well! It was the Christian West, hand in glove with Jews, committing these crimes against Muslims all over the world. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims were simply slaughtered only because they are Muslims under the guise of fighting terrorism in Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo, Albania, Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan and lately in Lebanon by whom? Isn’t it the Christian West? If at all if the Muslims resort to violence it is only because all other means to highlight their sufferings, oppressions, killings and destruction of their societies by the Christian West were closed for them! One should not also forget that Muslims all over the world always suspected the Vatican of being hand in glove with Western governments in instigating political crisis and destabilize Muslim countries in their drive to spread of Catholicism and crush the rising tide of Islam. One of the best examples was the role of Christian missionaries in Indonesia under General Suharto who was brought to power by a US backed coup which killed around half a million Muslim intellectuals there. In 1960’s respected African leader Sir Abu Backer Tawefa Balewa said “Africa should be made an Islamic continent”. What happened to him? He was overthrown and later shot dead tied to a tree. Now what happened in Iraq after the US invasion of March 2003? Christian missionaries flooded there to exploit the chaos to spread Catholicism while the American and British troops raped, ravaged and plundered Iraq. Though aware of these conspiracies yet Muslims always maintained friendly ties with the Vatican in the larger interest of religious harmony and peace. It is common knowledge that the Pope’s speeches were prepared taking into very careful consideration the implications and repercussions of each and every word he speaks out. If the Pope had stated this out of ignorance then it only displays his ignorance of Islam, the religion of peace, which describes Jesus Christ as one of its very important prophets. No Muslim can be a Muslim unless he accepts Jesus also as one of Islam’s most important prophets. In fact unlike Christians who simply refer to Jesus as Jesus or Christ, Muslims always refer to Him with respect as Isa Alai his-salaam.
Therefore if this is the view of the Pope on Islam and Muslims what could the world expect down the line in the Vatican hierarchy and beyond. On the other hand if these utterances were deliberate then certainly it is not worthy of a Pope as he has come down to the level of Bush and Blair, described as war criminals by Dr Mahathir Mohamed, former Prime Minister and the architect of modern of Malaysia. The last outpouring of Islamic anger at the West came in February 2006 over the ridiculous cartoons on Islam’s Prophet (PBUH) first published in a Danish newspaper. But the Pope’s statement seems to be more dangerous than the cartoons as he is the most important Christian authority in the world. Some feared the perceived provocation by the spiritual leader could leave even deeper scars. As expected the Muslim reaction was swift and fierce with a torrent of rage being unleashed. They accused the Pope of seeking to promote Judeo-Christian dominance over Islam and demanded immediate apology from Pope himself and not from his spokesman.
In Egypt while veteran author Gamal al-Banna said Pope Benedict had "carried out a pre-meditated act as he detests Islam.” demonstrators gathered in an anti-Vatican protest outside Al-Azhar mosque i. Britain's Muslim Council, which represents 400 groups in Britain, described Pope’s statement as "ill-informed and frankly bigoted." "One would expect a religious leader such as the pope to act and speak with responsibility and repudiate the Byzantine emperor's views in the interests of truth and harmonious relations between the followers of Islam and Catholicism," said Muhammad Abdul Bari, the council's secretary-general. Accusing the Pope of trying to revive the mentality of the Crusades, Salih Kapusuz, deputy leader of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party, said “Benedict’s remarks were either “the result of pitiful ignorance" about Islam and its prophet, or worse, a deliberate distortion of the truths. He has a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the Middle Ages. He is a poor thing that has not benefited from the spirit of reform in the Christian world “Another Turkey's ruling party official said that the pontiff would go down in history "in the same category as leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini" for his words. But few in Turkey picked up, and thereby failed to understand, the dangerous implications, on the Pope’s reference to Istanbul as Constantinople — the city's name more than 500 years ago — before it was conquered by Muslim Ottoman Turks. In Iraq Shiites and Sunnis found unity in their anger and Shiite cleric Sheik Abdul-Kareem al-Ghazi said that “ the Pope and Vatican proved to serve the Zionists and that they are far from Christianity, which does not differ from Islam. Both religions call for forgiveness, love and brotherhood,"Describing the statement as the latest link in the chain of crusade against Islam launched by George Bush, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused the Pope of committing the world's biggest Christian church to this "crusade". The Iranian leader's words represented a setback to more than 25 years of Vatican diplomacy aimed at distancing Roman Catholicism from the west many Muslims regard as hostile and decadent.
Pakistan's parliament unanimously adopted a resolution condemning pope’s "derogatory" comments about Islam, and sought an apology from him. "Anyone who describes Islam as an intolerant religion encourages violence," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said. Khurshid Ahmed, head of the Institute of Policy Studies in Islamabad, said: "It is very unfortunate that a religious leader of his stature, instead of bringing Islam and Christianity closer, is straining relations between the two religions. In the present political atmosphere such views can be exploited by those who are trying to malign Muslims and Islam”. Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, a leader of the Jammiat Ulema-e-Islam party urged the Pope not to take inspiration from George Bush. Trying to defuse the growing anger Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said” pope did not intend to offend Muslim sensibilities and insisted Benedict respects Islam.
Pope Benedict XVI But Muslim leaders said” We do not accept the apology through Vatican channels ... and asked Pope Benedict to offer a personal apology — not through his officials," Vatican-watchers expressed pessimism about the consequences of the affair. Marco Politi, of the daily La Repubblica, said the policy towards the Islamic world would need to be "rebuilt from scratch". The Vatican launched a damage limitation exercise. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, its secretary of state, sought to quell protests when he said: "We have instructed the nuncios [papal ambassadors] in Muslim countries to explain to the political and religious authorities." Finally, responding to growing outcry Pope Benedict who invited diplomats from 20 Islamic countries at his summer residence in south of Rome on Sunday September 17 said he was “deeply sorry for his comments on Islam”. But according to BBC the Pope has not apologized but only regretted “. Regretting or apologise. What is the use? The damage was already done. Meanwhile Bombay based well known Muslim scholar on comparative religions Dr Zakir Naik who described the Pope’s statement as pre-planned and his apology was simply putting salt on the wounds, invited him for an open inter-faith dialogue.
Expressing his willingness to go to Vatican to meet the Pope and discuss any topic as long as they are focused on Quran and the BibleDr Naik said “Pope Benedict seems to be toeing the same line of neo-cons as that of President George Bush. “Let the 1.3 billion Muslims and 2 billion Christians around the world listen to the debate based on equal slot of time allotted to both sides and open the debate for a question and answer session allowing the people to take part. But Dr Naik is not in favor of closed-door meeting with the Pope, as suggested by his predecessor Pope John Paul II, when South African-based Islamic scholar Ahmed Deedat invited him for open dialogue. "Pope John Paul asked Shaikh Deedat to come to his cabin for a debate," .Why does the inter-faith dialogue be held behind closed doors? Asked Dr. Naik. If September was a month of controversy for Pope Benedict, October turned out to be a month of turmoil as a BBC documentary implicated him in the systematic cover-up of child sex abuse allegations against Catholic priests. The program disclosed that before becoming head of the church, the then cardinal Joseph Ratzinger enforced church doctrinal orthodoxy and imposed an oath of secrecy on victims, witnesses and those probing abuse claims and said that anyone breaking this would be excommunicated. The program was presented by Colm O'Gorman, who was abused by a priest as a boy and is now director of One In Four, an Irish charity which supports people who have been sexually abused.
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