VATICAN: ANOTHER STORY ABOUT THE PONTIFF & HIS VISIT TO TURKEY

Pope's words on Islam have sometimes angered Muslims
The Associated Press
November 28, 2006 1:32 PM

Pope Benedict XVI's statements on Islam and Turkey since he became pope in 2005 and earlier as a cardinal at the Vatican:

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ON ISLAM AND VIOLENCE: In a Sept. 12 speech in Germany exploring the relationship between faith and reason, Benedict quoted Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus as asking an educated Persian ''Show me 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 Vatican sought to cool Muslim anger over the speech. On Sept. 25, Benedict told ambassadors from largely Muslim countries ''I should like to reiterate today all the esteem and profound respect that I have for Muslim believers.''

On Oct. 9, the Vatican released a more complete version of Benedict's speech in Germany. In it, the pope said the emperor spoke with ''a brusqueness that we find unacceptable.'' In a footnote, Benedict stressed he was not expressing his own views. ''I hope that the reader of my text can see immediately that this sentence does not express my personal view of the Quran, for which I have the respect due to the holy book of a great religion.''

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ON THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD CARTOONS: Benedict criticized expressions of disrespect for religious symbols but also warned against a violent response.

''It is necessary and urgent that religions and their symbols are respected, and that believers are not the object of provocations that harm their progress and their religious feelings,'' the pope said this year. ''However, intolerance and violence can never be justified as responses to offenses.''

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ON TURKEY'S BID TO JOIN THE EU: As the Vatican's doctrine chief before becoming pope, Benedict made several comments on multiculturalism and Turkey's aspirations to join the European Union. Many Turks feared that as pope, Benedict would become a powerful ally of opponents of their country's EU bid.

In his 2005 book, ''Values in a Time of Upheaval,'' written before he became pope, Benedict said ''multiculturalism'' amounted to ''fleeing from what is one's own.''

In a 2004 interview French magazine Le Figaro, he suggested Turkey's EU bid conflicted with Europe's Christian roots, which the Vatican has been trying to invigorate. ''Turkey has always represented a different continent, in permanent contrast to Europe,'' he said.

But in Turkey on Tuesday, the pope called the country ''a meeting point of different religions and cultures and a bridge between Asia and Europe.'' He wrote the message in a guest book at the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey.



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1) Pope's words on Islam have sometimes angered Muslims