The Pope and his remarks against the Prophet
Why an apology will not do
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
Even in the best of circumstances, Cardinal Ratzinger now Pope Benedict, is known as a tough and erudite theologian. Not withstanding his contropversial membership of the Hitler Youth during his early years, Ratzinger grew in stature during the heady days of the Vatical Council II which oversaw a few doctrinal and liturgical reforms. Pope Benedict has earned a reputation for himself as a conservative upholder of the rights and privileges of the Papcy in the manner of a medieval pope and therefore it is not surprsing that he made the outrageous remarks for which he has apologised not once but thrice in the last few days. Like the case of the Danish cartoons publised incidentally last September, the Pope's remarks have made a tense situation even worse. And he apologises after a fashion: I am sorry that you misunderstood my words etc etc.
The Byzantine monarch who was quoted by the Pope was engaged in a whole series of wars with the Turks in Anatolia in the thirteenth century a full century and a half before Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453. And by appovingly quoting that medieval monarch who spewed out venom against Propher Mohammad, peace be on his name, Pope Benedict has shown not just lack of wisdom but worse an absolute ignorance of history. Even Edward Gibbon who published his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in the eighteenth had a far deeper and in retrospect a richer academic understanding of Islam than this pope.
The unsophisticated and ignorant utterances of Pope Benedict has now ignited a flame that is spreading across the Islamic world. As it is the relationship between the Christian and Islamic worlds is full of problems and now the pope has stireed up the waters true and fast.
The Byzantine monarch who was quoted by the Pope was engaged in a whole series of wars with the Turks in Anatolia in the thirteenth century a full century and a half before Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453. And by appovingly quoting that medieval monarch who spewed out venom against Propher Mohammad, peace be on his name, Pope Benedict has shown not just lack of wisdom but worse an absolute ignorance of history. Even Edward Gibbon who published his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in the eighteenth had a far deeper and in retrospect a richer academic understanding of Islam than this pope.
The unsophisticated and ignorant utterances of Pope Benedict has now ignited a flame that is spreading across the Islamic world. As it is the relationship between the Christian and Islamic worlds is full of problems and now the pope has stireed up the waters true and fast.
