Free Republic

Muslims in Hamas-controlled Gaza have formed an ad hoc terrorist group promising to attack Christian targets to avenge the Pope’s use of quote insinuating that Islam is prone to violence. The group, which calls itself the “Army of guidance,” sent an announcement to news agencies based in Gaza saying that “every place relevant to Christian will be a target until the cursed infidel – the Vatican – apologizes to Muslims.” Hardline Islamic groups were offended by the Pope’s citing of a Byzantine emperor who criticized Islam’s founder Mohammad’s command to spread Islamic faith by the sword. Last Friday, the 1,400...

We Love and Support our Pope “This week the Catholic Church has been on the receiving end of evil and inhumane threats and acts of violence. We must meet these challenges with prayer and strength in solidarity with our pope....’ states prominent Roman Catholic Priest. (Front Royal, VA)—The Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, president of Human Life International, issued the following response to the recent torrent of hostility directed at Pope Benedict XVI by Mohammedan jihadists. “Human Life International has launched a new website to bring all Christians together in pray for our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI in our moment...

Let's begin with the obvious: Benedict's words were purposely chosen. The quotation of Manuel II was not a one-liner, accidentally blurted out. The pope was giving a prepared lecture that he may have written himself -- and if it was written for him, it was one that he carefully read. Moreover, each of the pope's public utterances are thoughtfully reviewed by his staff, and there is no question but that anyone who read this speech before it was delivered would recognize the explosive nature of discussing anything about Islam in the current climate. There is not one war going on...

Benedict's meaning in his Regensburg speech has been misinterpreted by almost everyone -- by those who condemn him, but also by his defenders... "They sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind." --Hosea 8:7 "Ich hätte mir ein paar Worte der Differenzierung gewünscht. Zwei, drei Zeilen hätten viel bewirkt." ("I would have wished for a few words of clarification. Two or three lines would have accomplished a great deal.") -- Prof. Theodore Khoury, editor and translator of the book containing the dialogue of the Emperor Manuel II Paleologus with the Persian Muslim which Pope Benedict cited in his Regensburg speech September...

CAIRO, Egypt — The head of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church on Saturday became the first top Christian leader to join the Muslim world in denouncing comments made by Pope Benedict XVI's about Islam and jihad, as religious and political leaders warned of impending sectarian violence despite the Vatican's insistence that the Roman Catholic leader's words were misinterpreted and he didn't intend to be offensive. Coptic Pope Shenouda III said in published remarks that he didn't hear Benedict's exact words but that "any remarks which offend Islam and Muslims are against the teachings of Christ." Christians, mostly Coptic, make up about...

Why would it be so difficult to find clarity on the absurd Islamic reaction to the Pope's recent speech? Muslims have proven the Pope's point. Many have become angry and violent precisely because of being accused of being violent. And their violence is slowly but surely convincing more and more people in the West that Islam has a serious problem (my empirical analysis of Midwesterners). I have been almost amazed at the clarity of reporting on this subject, even from the Associated Press. Today, the Washington Post was willing to publish an ostensibly decent editorial on the Pope controversy, written...

Jeff Israely, in TIME, September 13, 2006), headlines his story:THE POPE TAKES ON FAITH AND TERRORISM: In a provocative speech citing the concept of jihad and referencing the Muslim prophet by name, Benedict sends the world a signal that it's time for hard-questions - not hugs and handshakes. Then in a highly-laudatory piece, Israely notes:There is little doubt left that Benedict is indeed highly attuned to the risks of fundamentalist terrorism . . . This is indeed Benedict doing it on his own terms. Rather than tackling the challenge of fundamentalist terrorism with a pithy remark packaged for the 9/11...

THE former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey of Clifton has issued his own challenge to “violent” Islam in a lecture in which he defends the Pope’s “extraordinarily effective and lucid” speech. Lord Carey said that Muslims must address “with great urgency” their religion’s association with violence. He made it clear that he believed the “clash of civilisations” endangering the world was not between Islamist extremists and the West, but with Islam as a whole. “We are living in dangerous and potentially cataclysmic times,” he said. “There will be no significant material and economic progress [in Muslim communities] until the Muslim...

Searching For Moderate MuslimsBy David Keene September 20, 2006 The Islamic world, along with the politically correct world, is in a snit because Pope Benedict had the bad judgment in an academic forum to quote a Byzantine emperor's criticism of Islam's justification of forced conversion during his time. Islamic spokesmen reacted quickly, asserting that theirs is a religion of peace, condemning the Pope and blaming him as their followers began a new round of torching Christian churches around the world and killing those who attend them. I am agnostic on the question of whether Islam is at its heart peaceful...

.... The Muslim protesters are actually being highly ungrateful. When the embassies of Denmark were being torched earlier this year, Rome managed a few words of protest about … the inadvisability of profane cartoons. In almost every confrontation between Islam and the West, or Islam and Israel, the Vatican has either split the difference or helped to ventriloquize Muslim grievances. Most of all, throughout his address to the audience at Regensburg, the man who modestly considers himself the vicar of Christ on Earth maintained a steady attack on the idea that reason and the individual conscience can be preferred to...

Christian churches in the Middle East are vandalized, a Catholic nun in Africa is killed and Muslims have demanded that the pope convert to Islam – all because he read a quote from a medieval text that described Islam as "evil and inhuman." The pope has issued an apology for even referencing the historic text, emphasized that those views are not his, but still many in the Islamic world are demanding blood. A new group called "The sword of Islam" contacted reporters and said it had fired gunshots at a Christian church in the Middle East during a demonstration over...

What the pope really said: Placing history and theology into context By John David Powell on Sep 20, 2006 Chaos reigns today from the hands of madmen, Muslims who hear but do not listen, and who react with a passion devoid of reason. One can make a similar statement regarding journalists covering the case of Pope v. Muslim Mob. The mainstream media failed to provide balanced reporting and cogent commentary. Instead of placing into context last week’s Faith and Reason lecture by Pope Benedict XVI to an academic audience at the University of Regensburg and the violent and murderous responses...

Muslims, Islam, Pope Benedict Religion of Peace Dying to Kill Again Al Qaeda terror commander hints at big attack on N.Y., Washington... The new al-Qaeda field commander recently interviewed in Afghanistan, is calling for Muslims to leave the U.S. -- particularly Washington and New York -- in anticipation of a major terror attack to rival Sept. 11, says the Canada Free Press story. Like most peace loving free people of the western world, I'd like very much to believe that Islam is indeed a peaceful religion seeking a peaceful coexistence with all peaceful peoples of the world. It's just hard...

Pope Benedict XVI, the "Panzer pope," has done the unusual in modern discourse: he has jumped into the war on terror with armored facts from six centuries ago that refute a deal of the appeasement from 21st-century Europeans and their American fellow travelers. You will recall that Pope Benedict recently spoke, auf Deutsch, at Regensburg University, where he once enjoyed a professorship. The speech was dry, mechanical, unappetizing, a predictable German exercise in theology, with much attention to how reason and faith are compatible. In Calvinist seminary we used to call this a Roman disquisition on epistemology. Yet in the...

About 1,000 clerics and religious scholars at a meeting in eastern Pakistan demanded the removal of the Pope for making “insulting remarks” against Islam, and warned the West of severe consequences if it didn’t change its stance regarding Islam. “Pope Benedict XVI should be removed from his position immediately for encouraging war and fanning hostility between various faiths and making insulting remarks” against Islam,” said a joint statement issued by the clerics and scholars at the end of their one-day convention in the eastern city of Lahore. “The Pope, and all Infidels, should know that no Muslim, under any circumstances,...

If you call me a killer one more time, I'm gonna kill ya http://moonagewebdream.blogs.com/moonage_political_webream/2006/09/if_you_call_me_.html September 20, 2006 If you call me a killer one more time, I'm gonna killa ya. `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." Those are the words Pope Benedict uttered that has caused quite a stir. Those words were originally uttered in the 14th century by the Byzantine Emporor Manuel II. Now, contrary to the replies from Muslim fanatics, Byzantine was...

THE Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, entered the row over the Pope’s comments on Islam yesterday when he questioned whether Turkey should be admitted to the European Union. Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, spiritual leader of the four million Catholics in England and Wales, echoed concerns shared by the Pope when he argued that the predominantly Muslim state was not culturally part of Europe. The Cardinal played down the controversy over the Pope’s address in Regensburg, Germany, last week, in which he quoted the words of a Byzantine emperor who described Islam as “evil and inhuman”. But the Cardinal did say that...

Funny, isn't it, how certain experts and leaders of other religions are so eager to explain to Pope Benedict XVI how to really be a pope? A shining example is this piece in today's Baltimore Sun. [Quotes from:] (America magazine's Thomas Reese)...(St. John's U history professor Frank Coppa)...(CAIR's communications director, Ibrahim Hooper)(a Dr. Gillis, chairman of Georgetown "theology" department)(Rabbi Jack Bemporad, Center for Interreligious Understanding) To summarize so far: • Benedict doesn't realize he is pope...Whether this is due to excessive stupidity or humility is not clear. • Benedict doesn't have "street smarts." • He's not political enough, and is...

Choudary: Refuses to discuss his dissolute youth At 39, Anjem Choudary should be a symbol of success for his peers. Born into the working-class family of a market trader in Welling on the outskirts of London, he has risen - thanks to the opportunities offered by the British education system - to become a qualified lawyer. But it is unlikely his old school will be inviting him to be guest speaker on prize-giving day. Their former pupil is not famous for his elegant oratory in court. Instead, the articulate Mr Choudary preaches hatred and murder in the streets of Britain...

From the Vatican to the Pentagon, goodwill gestures offered to the Muslim world too often blow up in the West’s collective face. The nicer we are to them, the harsher they are to us. The olive branch Pope Benedict XVI extended to Muslims is obscured by the smoke that has billowed since his address at Bavaria’s Regensburg University. The pope cited a conversation between “an educated Persian” and the 14th-century Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologus. They discussed, the pope said September 7, “the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both.” He then quoted Paleologus who said: “Show...