When the Pope Kissed the Koran By Stephen Hand Back in 1999, on the 14th of May, according to the Patriarch of the Chaldeans, at the end of an audience between the Pope and some delegates of the Islamic Shiite and Sunni factions, the Pope bowed as “a sign of respect” toward a copy of the Koran which was presented to him as a gift. When the book was officially “presented to him,” the Pope, perhaps a bit perplexed concerning the appropriate protocol for such an official gesture, kissed it; again, as a “sign of respect toward the 34 million...