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I'm sure the Pope is sympathetic. But his first duty is to Catholics and other Christians who live in Islamic country around the world under conditions of low-grade persecution. That's the basic reason why he has avoided offending Muslims when possible. If he spoke out, the persecutions of Christians would only increase, and probably not much good would be accomplished.

Unfortunately the Pope doesn't have much influence on the new European antisemites, who are almost all leftists and are as anticatholic as they are antisemitic.

Ironically, it's the same predicament Pius X faced in regard to defending the Jews too publicly in confrontation with Hitler. He lacked the power to enforce demands, and his moral authority meant nothing to Hitler.

The Los Angeles-based group also presented the pope with its humanitarian award for his "lifelong friendship to the Jewish people."

Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles also happens to be the guy who has been leading a crusade against the screening of Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion" -- which means that as far as I'm concerned, the Pope should have told him to take this humanitarian award and shove it up his @ss.

I don't think the Pope is going to have much to say about Marvin's proposal to declare suicide bombing a "crime against humanity," either. Catholic doctrine does not have much room for such a concept -- people are judged before God based on their crimes, regardless of the labels that man attaches to them.

Besides, the phrase "crimes against humanity" has no meaning in a religious context. It was specifically invented to fit a secularist worldview that has no room for a Divine being, and to serve as a justification for a state to reach outside its normal jurisdictional limits to prosecute foreign citizens.