| |||||||||||||||||||
 |
| ||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Holy see Secretary of state in charge with external relations (Foreign affairs ministry), Lord Dominique Mumberti, just after his appointment in his new function, said that “the Pope didn’t meant to offend Islam but was striving, at the best of his ability, to lay solid basis for civilisations and religions dialogue. In the other hand, the German cardinal Valter Kasser, who accompanied the Pope in his last visit to Germany, rushed on reassuring Muslims saying: “I do not think that His Holiness meant to offend Islam” he added: “we should not forget that the pope merely quoted a XIII century Byzantine text, he never intended to give a value judgement of Islam”. Vatican spokesman, Pope Federico Lombardi refused to respond to Islamic world calls for apology. However, the Muslim nationals in Italy called Pope Benedict XVI to give the necessary explanation so as to calm down the crisis; they also asked him to reconsider his stand as regards Turkey accession to the EU especially that his visit to Istanbul by next November draws near. The Algerian researcher living in Rome Adnan Mokrani, among the prominent specialists of Muslim-Christian dialogue said that: “inter-religious dialogue is not scheduled in Pope’s priorities agenda”, he further said that “when the pope decided to break his careful silence by his direct statements on Islam, even if he didn’t meant an offence, is likely to annoy Muslim and Christian dialogue activists, and can be manoeuvred by the extremists who want to stress exclusion and clash of civilisations hypothesis”. The majority of the observers expressed their concern over Pope Statements implications, and his offence to the Prophet -May God’s Peace and Blessing be upon him- that he preached “evil and inhuman things”. Many warned about “Muslim world anger wave” as the case was after the Danish cartoons humiliating our Prophet. | ||||||||||||||||||
Pope attempt to “content Muslims” in Sunday Sermon