An artistic response from Muslims is suggested to the Pope's expressed bigotry against Islam by using the Catholic Church's own doctrines and practices as the canvas.
HOW MUSLIMS CAN RESPOND TO THE POPE'S FAKE ''APOLOGY''
Islamic Community Net
September 16, 2006
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/islamiccommunitynet/message/10792
Assalamu aleikum.
The Pope has - through someone else - mentioned that he "regrets" that "certain parts" of his rant "could" have "sounded offensive" to the "sensitivities" of the Muslim faithful.
That's a lot like "regretting" that "certain parts" of kicking in somebody's face "could" have "sounded offensive" to that person's "sensitivities".
The Pope simply thinks he has Muslims on a rope. The reason for his smugness is that he knows that while he insults Rasulullah (S.A.W.), we Muslims cannot return the insult by defaming Jesus (A.S.) in return; for Jesus (A.S.) is a Holy Prophet and Messenger of Allah (S.W.T.) and his person is inviolable to Muslims. Indeed, christians have often expressed frustration that it is Muslims who show up to protest films that insult Jesus (A.S.) while the christians stay home.
But the Pope is wrong in thinking that effective retaliation is not possible.
There IS an effective way to respond, one that not only does not insult Jesus (A.S.), but vindicates him as a human prophet of Allah (S.W.T.) while directly contravening the "Son of God" baloney and making a laughingstock of the Pope and his cannibal cult in the bargain.
Here's how.
Islamic Community Net has often noted before that Christianity is a cannibal cult - and that the Roman Catholic church headed by the Pope is the epicenter of that cannibal cult that also includes Orthodox Christians and Anglicans as well as some Protestants.
The Pope and his christian sect believe that during the daily or weekly christian ceremony called the "Mass" that wafers of flat, white unleavened bread circles are magically converted into the "actual living flesh" of Jesus (A.S.) (yeeeechhh!). (Yes, read that again, there is no typing error). The magically transformed wafer of unleavened bread is called the "Eucharist".
For a photograph of "Eucharists", see:
http://www.catholicpeople.com/catholic/Eucharist.jpg
In addition, wine is magically converted into the "actual living blood" of Jesus (A.S.) (double yeeeechhh!). Please bear closely in mind that the Catholics don't think that this is mere symbolism at all - they truly believe that they are drinking the actual living blood of Jesus (A.S.) and eating his actual living flesh!
From the Roman Catholic Cathechism (the first article below):
"Under the consecrated species of bread and wine Christ himself, living and glorious, is present in a true, real, and substantial manner: his Body and his Blood, with his soul and his divinity"
That's rather pathetic, violent, ignorant unnatural and SICK doctrine, and as has often been explained by Islamic Community Net, this unnatural and irreligious doctrine is the source of much christian violence against the rest of the world, especially Muslims.
Anyone who is first made to voluntarily descend into the humanly debased pit of cannibalism can be made to voluntarily engage in any other depravity - including the Crusades (both Middle Ages and today).
But that unnatural christian horror (called the "Eucharist") also provides a convenient nonviolent means of effective retaliation against the Pope's insults against Rasulullah (S.A.W.), and it soes so without insulting Jesus (A.S.). Far from it - this retaliation makes clear that Muslims regard with utter disgust the christian vampire cannibal cult that insults Jesus (A.S.) by presuming to eat his flesh and drink his blood.
The bread that magically becomes the "living actual flesh" of Jesus (A.S.) is distributed free to anybody who shows up to get one at any "Mass", on Sunday or otherwise. This happens about 20 minutes or more into the "Mass". People line up and go to the front where they kneel before the priest and chow down on the "actual living flesh" of the false "God" with which they have replaced Jesus (A.S.).
But anyone could go there, accept in the mouth, and push it to the side of the mouth and remove it from the church. Once accomplished, all kinds of interesting things could happen to the "Eucharist". Stomping on the "Eucharist", nailing the "Eucharist" to a cross, sticking the "Eucharist" with needles voodoo style: the list of possibilities goes on and on. Before anyone does this, call the church to make sure that they are not one of the churches that first dips the bread wafer into the wine (the vast majority of churches don't do this and when they do it is given as a soft cube, not as a wafer).
Perhaps you will choose to retaliate this way. Or perhaps you'll pass on this message to someone else who might do so. But if you do, here's the most important part:
Don't forget - make ABSOLUTELY SURE that you don't forget, because this is the main point of this particular exercise - that when you're done, you ask someone else to describe exactly what you have done and express on your behalf to the Roman Catholic Church your "regret" that "certain parts" of your activities "could" have "sounded offensive" to the "sensitivities" of the christian faithful.
Please note that 2 articles follow:
*Catechism of the Catholic Church (Sacrament of the Euchrarist) (In Brief)
*Pope sorry his Islam speech found offensive
---
(1)
Excerpted from:
Catechism of the Catholic Church
"In Brief"
PART TWO
THE CELEBRATION OF THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY
SECTION TWO
THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH
CHAPTER ONE
THE SACRAMENTS OF CHRISTIAN INITIATION
ARTICLE 3
THE SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST
The presence of Christ by the power of his word and the Holy Spirit
The Vatican
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a3.htm
IN BRIEF
1406 Jesus said: "I am the living bread that came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; . . . he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and . . . abides in me, and I in him" (Jn 6:51, 54, 56).
1407 The Eucharist is the heart and the summit of the Church's life, for in it Christ associates his Church and all her members with his sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving offered once for all on the cross to his Father; by this sacrifice he pours out the graces of salvation on his Body which is the Church.
1408 The Eucharistic celebration always includes: the proclamation of the Word of God; thanksgiving to God the Father for all his benefits, above all the gift of his Son; the consecration of bread and wine; and participation in the liturgical banquet by receiving the Lord's body and blood. These elements constitute one single act of worship.
1409 The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ's Passover, that is, of the work of salvation accomplished by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, a work made present by the liturgical action.
1410 It is Christ himself, the eternal high priest of the New Covenant who, acting through the ministry of the priests, offers the Eucharistic sacrifice. And it is the same Christ, really present under the species of bread and wine, who is the offering of the Eucharistic sacrifice.
1411 Only validly ordained priests can preside at the Eucharist and consecrate the bread and the wine so that they become the Body and Blood of the Lord.
1412 The essential signs of the Eucharistic sacrament are wheat bread and grape wine, on which the blessing of the Holy Spirit is invoked and the priest pronounces the words of consecration spoken by Jesus during the Last Supper: "This is my body which will be given up for you. . . . This is the cup of my blood. . . ."
1413 By the consecration the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is brought about. Under the consecrated species of bread and wine Christ himself, living and glorious, is present in a true, real, and substantial manner: his Body and his Blood, with his soul and his divinity (cf. Council of Trent: DS 1640; 1651).
1414 As sacrifice, the Eucharist is also offered in reparation for the sins of the living and the dead and to obtain spiritual or temporal benefits from God.
1415 Anyone who desires to receive Christ in Eucharistic communion must be in the state of grace. Anyone aware of having sinned mortally must not receive communion without having received absolution in the sacrament of penance.
1416 Communion with the Body and Blood of Christ increases the communicant's union with the Lord, forgives his venial sins, and preserves him from grave sins. Since receiving this sacrament strengthens the bonds of charity between the communicant and Christ, it also reinforces the unity of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ.
1417 The Church warmly recommends that the faithful receive Holy Communion when they participate in the celebration of the Eucharist; she obliges them to do so at least once a year.
1418 Because Christ himself is present in the sacrament of the altar, he is to be honored with the worship of adoration. "To visit the Blessed Sacrament is . . . a proof of gratitude, an expression of love, and a duty of adoration toward Christ our Lord" (Paul VI, MF 66).
1419 Having passed from this world to the Father, Christ gives us in the Eucharist the pledge of glory with him. Participation in the Holy Sacrifice identifies us with his Heart, sustains our strength along the pilgrimage of this life, makes us long for eternal life, and unites us even now to the Church in heaven, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and all the saints.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a3.htm
---
(2)
Pope sorry his Islam speech found offensive
By Stephen Brown
Reuters
Sat Sep 16, 2006
http://today.reuters.com/misc/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-09-16T162002Z_01_L16121346_RTRUKOC_0_US-POPE-ISLAM.xml
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican said on Saturday the Pope was sorry Muslims had been offended by a speech whose meaning had been misconstrued, but Morocco withdrew its ambassador as anger at his words flared on.
"The Holy Father thus sincerely regrets that certain passages of his address could have sounded offensive to the sensitivities of the Muslim faithful," Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said in a statement.
Pope Benedict's first big crisis since his election 17 months ago was sparked by a speech in his native Germany on Tuesday that seemed to endorse a Christian view, contested by most Muslims, that early Islam was spread by violence.
The backlash has cast doubt on a planned visit to Turkey by the Pope in November. In an early reaction to the Vatican statement, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said it was not enough.
"We feel he has committed a grave error against us and that this mistake will only be removed through a personal apology," the Brotherhood's deputy leader, Mohammed Habib, told Reuters.
Morocco's King Mohammed recalled his ambassador to the Vatican in protest.
"Ali Achour is recalled for consultations as from Sunday following offensive remarks by Pope Benedict about Islam and Muslims," the official MAP news agency quoted a foreign ministry statement as saying.
The Pope's next scheduled public appearance is his Sunday Angelus blessing, when he often comments on current affairs.
Bertone, walking into the crisis only a day after taking over as "deputy pope", said the 79-year-old Pope confirmed "his respect and esteem for those who profess the Islamic faith" and hoped his words would be understood "in their true sense".
The academic speech was meant as a "a clear and radical rejection of religiously motivated violence, wherever it comes from", said the statement, which came as criticism of the leader of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics swelled.
TURKISH DISPLEASURE
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan of Muslim Turkey said on Saturday before the Vatican statement that the Pope's comments were "ugly and unfortunate" and should be withdrawn.
"The Pope spoke like a politician rather than as a man of religion," he said in televised remarks. Asked if the Pope should cancel or postpone a planned trip to Turkey in November, he said: "I do not know."
Yemen's president publicly denounced the pontiff and five churches -- only one of them Catholic -- were attacked in the West Bank, although no one was hurt.
Egypt's foreign ministry summoned the Vatican envoy to Cairo to express "extreme regret" at Benedict's speech.
But Chancellor Angela Merkel and other German politicians defended his comments, saying he had been misunderstood.
"It was an invitation to dialogue between religions," she told the mass-circulation Bild newspaper in an interview.
CALLS FOR APOLOGY
The New York Times said in an editorial the Pope must issue a "deep and persuasive" apology for quotes used in his speech.
"The world listens carefully to the words of any pope. And it is tragic and dangerous when one sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly," it said.
In the speech, the Pope referred to criticism of the Prophet Mohammad by 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything Mohammad brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".
Using the terms "jihad" and "holy war", the Pope said violence was "incompatible with the nature of God".
But Bertone said the Pontiff "had absolutely no intention" of presenting Emperor Manuel's opinions on Islam as his own.
Vatican insiders and diplomats say the Pope may have mixed up his new role with his former posts as a theologian and head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, when as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger he was known as a disciplinarian.
Angry Muslim leaders flung what they saw as allegations of violence back at the Christian West.
"How can (the Pope) imply that Muslims are the creators of terrorism in the world while it is the followers of Christianity who have aggressed against every country of the Islamic world?" prominent Saudi cleric Salman al-Odeh said. "Who attacked Afghanistan and who invaded Iraq?"
In Libya, the General Instance of Religious Affairs said the "insult ... pushes us back to the era of crusades against Muslims led by Western political and religious leaders".
Turkish paper Vatan quoted a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party saying Benedict "will go down in history in the same category as leaders like Hitler and Mussolini".
Catholic bishops in Turkey feared the angry local reaction, led by the Grand Mufti, could show public opinion was shifting against the Pope's planned visit. But Turkish officials said they hoped the row would blow over and the visit would go ahead.
In Iraq the government asked Muslims not to take their anger out on the small Christian minority, after the door of a church in Basra was attacked. The foreign ministry summoned the Vatican's top diplomat there to explain the Pope's remarks.
http://today.reuters.com/misc/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-09-16T162002Z_01_L16121346_RTRUKOC_0_US-POPE-ISLAM.xml
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/islamiccommunitynet/message/10792
Assalamu aleikum.
The Pope has - through someone else - mentioned that he "regrets" that "certain parts" of his rant "could" have "sounded offensive" to the "sensitivities" of the Muslim faithful.
Tha's a lot like "regretting" that "certain parts" of kicking in somebody's face "could" have "sounded offensive" to that person's "sensitivities".
The Pope simply thinks he has Muslims on a rope. The reason for his smugness is that he knows that while he insults Rasulullah (S.A.W.), we Muslims cannot return the insult by defaming Jesus (A.S.) in return; for Jesus (A.S.) is a Holy Prophet and Messenger of Allah (S.W.T.) and his person is inviolable to Muslims. Indeed, christians have often expressed frustration that it is Muslims who show up to protest films that insult Jesus (A.S.) while the christians stay home.
But the Pope is wrong in thinking that effective retaliation is not possible.
There IS an effective way to respond, one that not only does not insult Jesus (A.S.), but vindicates him as a human prophet of Allah (S.W.T.) while directly contravening the "Son of God" baloney and making a laughingstock of the Pope and his cannibal cult in the bargain.
Here's how.
Islamic Community Net has often noted before that Christianity is a cannibal cult - and that the Roman Catholic church headed by the Pope is the epicenter of that cannibal cult that also includes Orthodox Christians and Anglicans as well as some Protestants.
The Pope and his christian sect believe that during the daily or weekly christian ceremony called the "Mass" that wafers of flat, white unleavened bread circles are magically converted into the "actual living flesh" of Jesus (A.S.) (yeeeechhh!). (Yes, read that again, there is no typing error). The magically transformed wafer of unleavened bread is called the "Eucharist".
For a photograph of "Eucharists", see:
http://www.catholicpeople.com/catholic/Eucharist.jpg
In addition, wine is magically converted into the "actual living blood" of Jesus (A.S.) (double yeeeechhh!). Please bear closely in mind that the Catholics don't think that this is mere symbolism at all - they truly believe that they are drinking the actual living blood of Jesus (A.S.) and eating his actual living flesh!
From the Roman Catholic Cathechism (the first article below):
"Under the consecrated species of bread and wine Christ himself, living and glorious, is present in a true, real, and substantial manner: his Body and his Blood, with his soul and his divinity"
That's rather pathetic, violent, ignorant unnatural and SICK doctrine, and as has often been explained by Islamic Community Net, this unnatural and irreligious doctrine is the source of much christian violence against the rest of the world, especially Muslims.
Anyone who is first made to voluntarily descend into the humanly debased pit of cannibalism can be made to voluntarily engage in any other depravity - including the Crusades (both Middle Ages and today).
But that unnatural christian horror (called the "Eucharist") also provides a convenient nonviolent means of effective retaliation against the Pope's insults against Rasulullah (S.A.W.), and it soes so without insulting Jesus (A.S.). Far from it - this retaliation makes clear that Muslims regard with utter disgust the christian vampire cannibal cult that insults Jesus (A.S.) by presuming to eat his flesh and drink his blood.
The bread that magically becomes the "living actual flesh" of Jesus (A.S.) is distributed free to anybody who shows up to get one at any "Mass", on Sunday or otherwise. This happens about 20 minutes or more into the "Mass". People line up and go to the front where they kneel before the priest and chow down on the "actual living flesh" of the false "God" with which they have replaced Jesus (A.S.).
But anyone could go there, accept in the mouth, and push it to the side of the mouth and remove it from the church. Once accomplished, all kinds of interesting things could happen to the "Eucharist". Stomping on the "Eucharist", nailing the "Eucharist" to a cross, sticking the "Eucharist" with needles voodoo style: the list of possibilities goes on and on. Before anyone does this, call the church to make sure that they are not one of the churches that first dips the bread wafer into the wine (the vast majority of churches don't do this and when they do it is given as a soft cube, not as a wafer).
Perhaps you will choose to retaliate this way. Or perhaps you'll pass on this message to someone else who might do so. But if you do, here's the most important part:
Don't forget - make ABSOLUTELY SURE that you don't forget, because this is the main point of this particular exercise - that when you're done, you ask someone else to describe exactly what you have done and express on your behalf to the Roman Catholic Church your "regret" that "certain parts" of your activities "could" have "sounded offensive" to the "sensitivities" of the christian faithful.
Please note that 2 articles follow:
*Catechism of the Catholic Church (Sacrament of the Euchrarist) (In Brief)
*Pope sorry his Islam speech found offensive
---
(1)
Excerpted from:
Catechism of the Catholic Church
"In Brief"
PART TWO
THE CELEBRATION OF THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY
SECTION TWO
THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH
CHAPTER ONE
THE SACRAMENTS OF CHRISTIAN INITIATION
ARTICLE 3
THE SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST
The presence of Christ by the power of his word and the Holy Spirit
The Vatican
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a3.htm
IN BRIEF
1406 Jesus said: "I am the living bread that came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; . . . he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and . . . abides in me, and I in him" (Jn 6:51, 54, 56).
1407 The Eucharist is the heart and the summit of the Church's life, for in it Christ associates his Church and all her members with his sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving offered once for all on the cross to his Father; by this sacrifice he pours out the graces of salvation on his Body which is the Church.
1408 The Eucharistic celebration always includes: the proclamation of the Word of God; thanksgiving to God the Father for all his benefits, above all the gift of his Son; the consecration of bread and wine; and participation in the liturgical banquet by receiving the Lord's body and blood. These elements constitute one single act of worship.
1409 The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ's Passover, that is, of the work of salvation accomplished by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, a work made present by the liturgical action.
1410 It is Christ himself, the eternal high priest of the New Covenant who, acting through the ministry of the priests, offers the Eucharistic sacrifice. And it is the same Christ, really present under the species of bread and wine, who is the offering of the Eucharistic sacrifice.
1411 Only validly ordained priests can preside at the Eucharist and consecrate the bread and the wine so that they become the Body and Blood of the Lord.
1412 The essential signs of the Eucharistic sacrament are wheat bread and grape wine, on which the blessing of the Holy Spirit is invoked and the priest pronounces the words of consecration spoken by Jesus during the Last Supper: "This is my body which will be given up for you. . . . This is the cup of my blood. . . ."
1413 By the consecration the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is brought about. Under the consecrated species of bread and wine Christ himself, living and glorious, is present in a true, real, and substantial manner: his Body and his Blood, with his soul and his divinity (cf. Council of Trent: DS 1640; 1651).
1414 As sacrifice, the Eucharist is also offered in reparation for the sins of the living and the dead and to obtain spiritual or temporal benefits from God.
1415 Anyone who desires to receive Christ in Eucharistic communion must be in the state of grace. Anyone aware of having sinned mortally must not receive communion without having received absolution in the sacrament of penance.
1416 Communion with the Body and Blood of Christ increases the communicant's union with the Lord, forgives his venial sins, and preserves him from grave sins. Since receiving this sacrament strengthens the bonds of charity between the communicant and Christ, it also reinforces the unity of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ.
1417 The Church warmly recommends that the faithful receive Holy Communion when they participate in the celebration of the Eucharist; she obliges them to do so at least once a year.
1418 Because Christ himself is present in the sacrament of the altar, he is to be honored with the worship of adoration. "To visit the Blessed Sacrament is . . . a proof of gratitude, an expression of love, and a duty of adoration toward Christ our Lord" (Paul VI, MF 66).
1419 Having passed from this world to the Father, Christ gives us in the Eucharist the pledge of glory with him. Participation in the Holy Sacrifice identifies us with his Heart, sustains our strength along the pilgrimage of this life, makes us long for eternal life, and unites us even now to the Church in heaven, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and all the saints.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a3.htm
---
(2)
Pope sorry his Islam speech found offensive
By Stephen Brown
Reuters
Sat Sep 16, 2006
http://today.reuters.com/misc/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-09-16T162002Z_01_L16121346_RTRUKOC_0_US-POPE-ISLAM.xml
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican said on Saturday the Pope was sorry Muslims had been offended by a speech whose meaning had been misconstrued, but Morocco withdrew its ambassador as anger at his words flared on.
"The Holy Father thus sincerely regrets that certain passages of his address could have sounded offensive to the sensitivities of the Muslim faithful," Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said in a statement.
Pope Benedict's first big crisis since his election 17 months ago was sparked by a speech in his native Germany on Tuesday that seemed to endorse a Christian view, contested by most Muslims, that early Islam was spread by violence.
The backlash has cast doubt on a planned visit to Turkey by the Pope in November. In an early reaction to the Vatican statement, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said it was not enough.
"We feel he has committed a grave error against us and that this mistake will only be removed through a personal apology," the Brotherhood's deputy leader, Mohammed Habib, told Reuters.
Morocco's King Mohammed recalled his ambassador to the Vatican in protest.
"Ali Achour is recalled for consultations as from Sunday following offensive remarks by Pope Benedict about Islam and Muslims," the official MAP news agency quoted a foreign ministry statement as saying.
The Pope's next scheduled public appearance is his Sunday Angelus blessing, when he often comments on current affairs.
Bertone, walking into the crisis only a day after taking over as "deputy pope", said the 79-year-old Pope confirmed "his respect and esteem for those who profess the Islamic faith" and hoped his words would be understood "in their true sense".
The academic speech was meant as a "a clear and radical rejection of religiously motivated violence, wherever it comes from", said the statement, which came as criticism of the leader of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics swelled.
TURKISH DISPLEASURE
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan of Muslim Turkey said on Saturday before the Vatican statement that the Pope's comments were "ugly and unfortunate" and should be withdrawn.
"The Pope spoke like a politician rather than as a man of religion," he said in televised remarks. Asked if the Pope should cancel or postpone a planned trip to Turkey in November, he said: "I do not know."
Yemen's president publicly denounced the pontiff and five churches -- only one of them Catholic -- were attacked in the West Bank, although no one was hurt.
Egypt's foreign ministry summoned the Vatican envoy to Cairo to express "extreme regret" at Benedict's speech.
But Chancellor Angela Merkel and other German politicians defended his comments, saying he had been misunderstood.
"It was an invitation to dialogue between religions," she told the mass-circulation Bild newspaper in an interview.
CALLS FOR APOLOGY
The New York Times said in an editorial the Pope must issue a "deep and persuasive" apology for quotes used in his speech.
"The world listens carefully to the words of any pope. And it is tragic and dangerous when one sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly," it said.
In the speech, the Pope referred to criticism of the Prophet Mohammad by 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything Mohammad brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".
Using the terms "jihad" and "holy war", the Pope said violence was "incompatible with the nature of God".
But Bertone said the Pontiff "had absolutely no intention" of presenting Emperor Manuel's opinions on Islam as his own.
Vatican insiders and diplomats say the Pope may have mixed up his new role with his former posts as a theologian and head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, when as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger he was known as a disciplinarian.
Angry Muslim leaders flung what they saw as allegations of violence back at the Christian West.
"How can (the Pope) imply that Muslims are the creators of terrorism in the world while it is the followers of Christianity who have aggressed against every country of the Islamic world?" prominent Saudi cleric Salman al-Odeh said. "Who attacked Afghanistan and who invaded Iraq?"
In Libya, the General Instance of Religious Affairs said the "insult ... pushes us back to the era of crusades against Muslims led by Western political and religious leaders".
Turkish paper Vatan quoted a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party saying Benedict "will go down in history in the same category as leaders like Hitler and Mussolini".
Catholic bishops in Turkey feared the angry local reaction, led by the Grand Mufti, could show public opinion was shifting against the Pope's planned visit. But Turkish officials said they hoped the row would blow over and the visit would go ahead.
In Iraq the government asked Muslims not to take their anger out on the small Christian minority, after the door of a church in Basra was attacked. The foreign ministry summoned the Vatican's top diplomat there to explain the Pope's remarks.
http://today.reuters.com/misc/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-09-16T162002Z_01_L16121346_RTRUKOC_0_US-POPE-ISLAM.xml
Islamic Community Net
September 16, 2006
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/islamiccommunitynet/message/10792 Assalamu aleikum.
The Pope has - through someone else - mentioned that he "regrets" that "certain parts" of his rant "could" have "sounded offensive" to the "sensitivities" of the Muslim faithful.
That's a lot like "regretting" that "certain parts" of kicking in somebody's face "could" have "sounded offensive" to that person's "sensitivities".
The Pope simply thinks he has Muslims on a rope. The reason for his smugness is that he knows that while he insults Rasulullah (S.A.W.), we Muslims cannot return the insult by defaming Jesus (A.S.) in return; for Jesus (A.S.) is a Holy Prophet and Messenger of Allah (S.W.T.) and his person is inviolable to Muslims. Indeed, christians have often expressed frustration that it is Muslims who show up to protest films that insult Jesus (A.S.) while the christians stay home.
But the Pope is wrong in thinking that effective retaliation is not possible.
There IS an effective way to respond, one that not only does not insult Jesus (A.S.), but vindicates him as a human prophet of Allah (S.W.T.) while directly contravening the "Son of God" baloney and making a laughingstock of the Pope and his cannibal cult in the bargain.
Here's how.
Islamic Community Net has often noted before that Christianity is a cannibal cult - and that the Roman Catholic church headed by the Pope is the epicenter of that cannibal cult that also includes Orthodox Christians and Anglicans as well as some Protestants.
The Pope and his christian sect believe that during the daily or weekly christian ceremony called the "Mass" that wafers of flat, white unleavened bread circles are magically converted into the "actual living flesh" of Jesus (A.S.) (yeeeechhh!). (Yes, read that again, there is no typing error). The magically transformed wafer of unleavened bread is called the "Eucharist".
For a photograph of "Eucharists", see:
http://www.catholicpeople.com/catholic/Eucharist.jpg In addition, wine is magically converted into the "actual living blood" of Jesus (A.S.) (double yeeeechhh!). Please bear closely in mind that the Catholics don't think that this is mere symbolism at all - they truly believe that they are drinking the actual living blood of Jesus (A.S.) and eating his actual living flesh!
From the Roman Catholic Cathechism (the first article below):
"Under the consecrated species of bread and wine Christ himself, living and glorious, is present in a true, real, and substantial manner: his Body and his Blood, with his soul and his divinity"
That's rather pathetic, violent, ignorant unnatural and SICK doctrine, and as has often been explained by Islamic Community Net, this unnatural and irreligious doctrine is the source of much christian violence against the rest of the world, especially Muslims.
Anyone who is first made to voluntarily descend into the humanly debased pit of cannibalism can be made to voluntarily engage in any other depravity - including the Crusades (both Middle Ages and today).
But that unnatural christian horror (called the "Eucharist") also provides a convenient nonviolent means of effective retaliation against the Pope's insults against Rasulullah (S.A.W.), and it soes so without insulting Jesus (A.S.). Far from it - this retaliation makes clear that Muslims regard with utter disgust the christian vampire cannibal cult that insults Jesus (A.S.) by presuming to eat his flesh and drink his blood.
The bread that magically becomes the "living actual flesh" of Jesus (A.S.) is distributed free to anybody who shows up to get one at any "Mass", on Sunday or otherwise. This happens about 20 minutes or more into the "Mass". People line up and go to the front where they kneel before the priest and chow down on the "actual living flesh" of the false "God" with which they have replaced Jesus (A.S.).
But anyone could go there, accept in the mouth, and push it to the side of the mouth and remove it from the church. Once accomplished, all kinds of interesting things could happen to the "Eucharist". Stomping on the "Eucharist", nailing the "Eucharist" to a cross, sticking the "Eucharist" with needles voodoo style: the list of possibilities goes on and on. Before anyone does this, call the church to make sure that they are not one of the churches that first dips the bread wafer into the wine (the vast majority of churches don't do this and when they do it is given as a soft cube, not as a wafer).
Perhaps you will choose to retaliate this way. Or perhaps you'll pass on this message to someone else who might do so. But if you do, here's the most important part:
Don't forget - make ABSOLUTELY SURE that you don't forget, because this is the main point of this particular exercise - that when you're done, you ask someone else to describe exactly what you have done and express on your behalf to the Roman Catholic Church your "regret" that "certain parts" of your activities "could" have "sounded offensive" to the "sensitivities" of the christian faithful.
Please note that 2 articles follow:
*Catechism of the Catholic Church (Sacrament of the Euchrarist) (In Brief)
*Pope sorry his Islam speech found offensive
---
(1)
Excerpted from:
Catechism of the Catholic Church
"In Brief"
PART TWO
THE CELEBRATION OF THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY
SECTION TWO
THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH
CHAPTER ONE
THE SACRAMENTS OF CHRISTIAN INITIATION
ARTICLE 3
THE SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST
The presence of Christ by the power of his word and the Holy Spirit
The Vatican
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a3.htm IN BRIEF
1406 Jesus said: "I am the living bread that came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; . . . he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and . . . abides in me, and I in him" (Jn 6:51, 54, 56).
1407 The Eucharist is the heart and the summit of the Church's life, for in it Christ associates his Church and all her members with his sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving offered once for all on the cross to his Father; by this sacrifice he pours out the graces of salvation on his Body which is the Church.
1408 The Eucharistic celebration always includes: the proclamation of the Word of God; thanksgiving to God the Father for all his benefits, above all the gift of his Son; the consecration of bread and wine; and participation in the liturgical banquet by receiving the Lord's body and blood. These elements constitute one single act of worship.
1409 The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ's Passover, that is, of the work of salvation accomplished by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, a work made present by the liturgical action.
1410 It is Christ himself, the eternal high priest of the New Covenant who, acting through the ministry of the priests, offers the Eucharistic sacrifice. And it is the same Christ, really present under the species of bread and wine, who is the offering of the Eucharistic sacrifice.
1411 Only validly ordained priests can preside at the Eucharist and consecrate the bread and the wine so that they become the Body and Blood of the Lord.
1412 The essential signs of the Eucharistic sacrament are wheat bread and grape wine, on which the blessing of the Holy Spirit is invoked and the priest pronounces the words of consecration spoken by Jesus during the Last Supper: "This is my body which will be given up for you. . . . This is the cup of my blood. . . ."
1413 By the consecration the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is brought about. Under the consecrated species of bread and wine Christ himself, living and glorious, is present in a true, real, and substantial manner: his Body and his Blood, with his soul and his divinity (cf. Council of Trent: DS 1640; 1651).
1414 As sacrifice, the Eucharist is also offered in reparation for the sins of the living and the dead and to obtain spiritual or temporal benefits from God.
1415 Anyone who desires to receive Christ in Eucharistic communion must be in the state of grace. Anyone aware of having sinned mortally must not receive communion without having received absolution in the sacrament of penance.
1416 Communion with the Body and Blood of Christ increases the communicant's union with the Lord, forgives his venial sins, and preserves him from grave sins. Since receiving this sacrament strengthens the bonds of charity between the communicant and Christ, it also reinforces the unity of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ.
1417 The Church warmly recommends that the faithful receive Holy Communion when they participate in the celebration of the Eucharist; she obliges them to do so at least once a year.
1418 Because Christ himself is present in the sacrament of the altar, he is to be honored with the worship of adoration. "To visit the Blessed Sacrament is . . . a proof of gratitude, an expression of love, and a duty of adoration toward Christ our Lord" (Paul VI, MF 66).
1419 Having passed from this world to the Father, Christ gives us in the Eucharist the pledge of glory with him. Participation in the Holy Sacrifice identifies us with his Heart, sustains our strength along the pilgrimage of this life, makes us long for eternal life, and unites us even now to the Church in heaven, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and all the saints.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a3.htm ---
(2)
Pope sorry his Islam speech found offensive
By Stephen Brown
Reuters
Sat Sep 16, 2006
http://today.reuters.com/misc/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-09-16T162002Z_01_L16121346_RTRUKOC_0_US-POPE-ISLAM.xml VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican said on Saturday the Pope was sorry Muslims had been offended by a speech whose meaning had been misconstrued, but Morocco withdrew its ambassador as anger at his words flared on.
"The Holy Father thus sincerely regrets that certain passages of his address could have sounded offensive to the sensitivities of the Muslim faithful," Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said in a statement.
Pope Benedict's first big crisis since his election 17 months ago was sparked by a speech in his native Germany on Tuesday that seemed to endorse a Christian view, contested by most Muslims, that early Islam was spread by violence.
The backlash has cast doubt on a planned visit to Turkey by the Pope in November. In an early reaction to the Vatican statement, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said it was not enough.
"We feel he has committed a grave error against us and that this mistake will only be removed through a personal apology," the Brotherhood's deputy leader, Mohammed Habib, told Reuters.
Morocco's King Mohammed recalled his ambassador to the Vatican in protest.
"Ali Achour is recalled for consultations as from Sunday following offensive remarks by Pope Benedict about Islam and Muslims," the official MAP news agency quoted a foreign ministry statement as saying.
The Pope's next scheduled public appearance is his Sunday Angelus blessing, when he often comments on current affairs.
Bertone, walking into the crisis only a day after taking over as "deputy pope", said the 79-year-old Pope confirmed "his respect and esteem for those who profess the Islamic faith" and hoped his words would be understood "in their true sense".
The academic speech was meant as a "a clear and radical rejection of religiously motivated violence, wherever it comes from", said the statement, which came as criticism of the leader of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics swelled.
TURKISH DISPLEASURE
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan of Muslim Turkey said on Saturday before the Vatican statement that the Pope's comments were "ugly and unfortunate" and should be withdrawn.
"The Pope spoke like a politician rather than as a man of religion," he said in televised remarks. Asked if the Pope should cancel or postpone a planned trip to Turkey in November, he said: "I do not know."
Yemen's president publicly denounced the pontiff and five churches -- only one of them Catholic -- were attacked in the West Bank, although no one was hurt.
Egypt's foreign ministry summoned the Vatican envoy to Cairo to express "extreme regret" at Benedict's speech.
But Chancellor Angela Merkel and other German politicians defended his comments, saying he had been misunderstood.
"It was an invitation to dialogue between religions," she told the mass-circulation Bild newspaper in an interview.
CALLS FOR APOLOGY
The New York Times said in an editorial the Pope must issue a "deep and persuasive" apology for quotes used in his speech.
"The world listens carefully to the words of any pope. And it is tragic and dangerous when one sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly," it said.
In the speech, the Pope referred to criticism of the Prophet Mohammad by 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything Mohammad brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".
Using the terms "jihad" and "holy war", the Pope said violence was "incompatible with the nature of God".
But Bertone said the Pontiff "had absolutely no intention" of presenting Emperor Manuel's opinions on Islam as his own.
Vatican insiders and diplomats say the Pope may have mixed up his new role with his former posts as a theologian and head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, when as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger he was known as a disciplinarian.
Angry Muslim leaders flung what they saw as allegations of violence back at the Christian West.
"How can (the Pope) imply that Muslims are the creators of terrorism in the world while it is the followers of Christianity who have aggressed against every country of the Islamic world?" prominent Saudi cleric Salman al-Odeh said. "Who attacked Afghanistan and who invaded Iraq?"
In Libya, the General Instance of Religious Affairs said the "insult ... pushes us back to the era of crusades against Muslims led by Western political and religious leaders".
Turkish paper Vatan quoted a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party saying Benedict "will go down in history in the same category as leaders like Hitler and Mussolini".
Catholic bishops in Turkey feared the angry local reaction, led by the Grand Mufti, could show public opinion was shifting against the Pope's planned visit. But Turkish officials said they hoped the row would blow over and the visit would go ahead.
In Iraq the government asked Muslims not to take their anger out on the small Christian minority, after the door of a church in Basra was attacked. The foreign ministry summoned the Vatican's top diplomat there to explain the Pope's remarks.
http://today.reuters.com/misc/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-09-16T162002Z_01_L16121346_RTRUKOC_0_US-POPE-ISLAM.xml http://groups.yahoo.com/group/islamiccommunitynet/message/10792 Assalamu aleikum.
The Pope has - through someone else - mentioned that he "regrets" that "certain parts" of his rant "could" have "sounded offensive" to the "sensitivities" of the Muslim faithful.
Tha's a lot like "regretting" that "certain parts" of kicking in somebody's face "could" have "sounded offensive" to that person's "sensitivities".
The Pope simply thinks he has Muslims on a rope. The reason for his smugness is that he knows that while he insults Rasulullah (S.A.W.), we Muslims cannot return the insult by defaming Jesus (A.S.) in return; for Jesus (A.S.) is a Holy Prophet and Messenger of Allah (S.W.T.) and his person is inviolable to Muslims. Indeed, christians have often expressed frustration that it is Muslims who show up to protest films that insult Jesus (A.S.) while the christians stay home.
But the Pope is wrong in thinking that effective retaliation is not possible.
There IS an effective way to respond, one that not only does not insult Jesus (A.S.), but vindicates him as a human prophet of Allah (S.W.T.) while directly contravening the "Son of God" baloney and making a laughingstock of the Pope and his cannibal cult in the bargain.
Here's how.
Islamic Community Net has often noted before that Christianity is a cannibal cult - and that the Roman Catholic church headed by the Pope is the epicenter of that cannibal cult that also includes Orthodox Christians and Anglicans as well as some Protestants.
The Pope and his christian sect believe that during the daily or weekly christian ceremony called the "Mass" that wafers of flat, white unleavened bread circles are magically converted into the "actual living flesh" of Jesus (A.S.) (yeeeechhh!). (Yes, read that again, there is no typing error). The magically transformed wafer of unleavened bread is called the "Eucharist".
For a photograph of "Eucharists", see:
http://www.catholicpeople.com/catholic/Eucharist.jpg In addition, wine is magically converted into the "actual living blood" of Jesus (A.S.) (double yeeeechhh!). Please bear closely in mind that the Catholics don't think that this is mere symbolism at all - they truly believe that they are drinking the actual living blood of Jesus (A.S.) and eating his actual living flesh!
From the Roman Catholic Cathechism (the first article below):
"Under the consecrated species of bread and wine Christ himself, living and glorious, is present in a true, real, and substantial manner: his Body and his Blood, with his soul and his divinity"
That's rather pathetic, violent, ignorant unnatural and SICK doctrine, and as has often been explained by Islamic Community Net, this unnatural and irreligious doctrine is the source of much christian violence against the rest of the world, especially Muslims.
Anyone who is first made to voluntarily descend into the humanly debased pit of cannibalism can be made to voluntarily engage in any other depravity - including the Crusades (both Middle Ages and today).
But that unnatural christian horror (called the "Eucharist") also provides a convenient nonviolent means of effective retaliation against the Pope's insults against Rasulullah (S.A.W.), and it soes so without insulting Jesus (A.S.). Far from it - this retaliation makes clear that Muslims regard with utter disgust the christian vampire cannibal cult that insults Jesus (A.S.) by presuming to eat his flesh and drink his blood.
The bread that magically becomes the "living actual flesh" of Jesus (A.S.) is distributed free to anybody who shows up to get one at any "Mass", on Sunday or otherwise. This happens about 20 minutes or more into the "Mass". People line up and go to the front where they kneel before the priest and chow down on the "actual living flesh" of the false "God" with which they have replaced Jesus (A.S.).
But anyone could go there, accept in the mouth, and push it to the side of the mouth and remove it from the church. Once accomplished, all kinds of interesting things could happen to the "Eucharist". Stomping on the "Eucharist", nailing the "Eucharist" to a cross, sticking the "Eucharist" with needles voodoo style: the list of possibilities goes on and on. Before anyone does this, call the church to make sure that they are not one of the churches that first dips the bread wafer into the wine (the vast majority of churches don't do this and when they do it is given as a soft cube, not as a wafer).
Perhaps you will choose to retaliate this way. Or perhaps you'll pass on this message to someone else who might do so. But if you do, here's the most important part:
Don't forget - make ABSOLUTELY SURE that you don't forget, because this is the main point of this particular exercise - that when you're done, you ask someone else to describe exactly what you have done and express on your behalf to the Roman Catholic Church your "regret" that "certain parts" of your activities "could" have "sounded offensive" to the "sensitivities" of the christian faithful.
Please note that 2 articles follow:
*Catechism of the Catholic Church (Sacrament of the Euchrarist) (In Brief)
*Pope sorry his Islam speech found offensive
---
(1)
Excerpted from:
Catechism of the Catholic Church
"In Brief"
PART TWO
THE CELEBRATION OF THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY
SECTION TWO
THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH
CHAPTER ONE
THE SACRAMENTS OF CHRISTIAN INITIATION
ARTICLE 3
THE SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST
The presence of Christ by the power of his word and the Holy Spirit
The Vatican
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a3.htm IN BRIEF
1406 Jesus said: "I am the living bread that came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; . . . he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and . . . abides in me, and I in him" (Jn 6:51, 54, 56).
1407 The Eucharist is the heart and the summit of the Church's life, for in it Christ associates his Church and all her members with his sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving offered once for all on the cross to his Father; by this sacrifice he pours out the graces of salvation on his Body which is the Church.
1408 The Eucharistic celebration always includes: the proclamation of the Word of God; thanksgiving to God the Father for all his benefits, above all the gift of his Son; the consecration of bread and wine; and participation in the liturgical banquet by receiving the Lord's body and blood. These elements constitute one single act of worship.
1409 The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ's Passover, that is, of the work of salvation accomplished by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, a work made present by the liturgical action.
1410 It is Christ himself, the eternal high priest of the New Covenant who, acting through the ministry of the priests, offers the Eucharistic sacrifice. And it is the same Christ, really present under the species of bread and wine, who is the offering of the Eucharistic sacrifice.
1411 Only validly ordained priests can preside at the Eucharist and consecrate the bread and the wine so that they become the Body and Blood of the Lord.
1412 The essential signs of the Eucharistic sacrament are wheat bread and grape wine, on which the blessing of the Holy Spirit is invoked and the priest pronounces the words of consecration spoken by Jesus during the Last Supper: "This is my body which will be given up for you. . . . This is the cup of my blood. . . ."
1413 By the consecration the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is brought about. Under the consecrated species of bread and wine Christ himself, living and glorious, is present in a true, real, and substantial manner: his Body and his Blood, with his soul and his divinity (cf. Council of Trent: DS 1640; 1651).
1414 As sacrifice, the Eucharist is also offered in reparation for the sins of the living and the dead and to obtain spiritual or temporal benefits from God.
1415 Anyone who desires to receive Christ in Eucharistic communion must be in the state of grace. Anyone aware of having sinned mortally must not receive communion without having received absolution in the sacrament of penance.
1416 Communion with the Body and Blood of Christ increases the communicant's union with the Lord, forgives his venial sins, and preserves him from grave sins. Since receiving this sacrament strengthens the bonds of charity between the communicant and Christ, it also reinforces the unity of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ.
1417 The Church warmly recommends that the faithful receive Holy Communion when they participate in the celebration of the Eucharist; she obliges them to do so at least once a year.
1418 Because Christ himself is present in the sacrament of the altar, he is to be honored with the worship of adoration. "To visit the Blessed Sacrament is . . . a proof of gratitude, an expression of love, and a duty of adoration toward Christ our Lord" (Paul VI, MF 66).
1419 Having passed from this world to the Father, Christ gives us in the Eucharist the pledge of glory with him. Participation in the Holy Sacrifice identifies us with his Heart, sustains our strength along the pilgrimage of this life, makes us long for eternal life, and unites us even now to the Church in heaven, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and all the saints.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a3.htm ---
(2)
Pope sorry his Islam speech found offensive
By Stephen Brown
Reuters
Sat Sep 16, 2006
http://today.reuters.com/misc/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-09-16T162002Z_01_L16121346_RTRUKOC_0_US-POPE-ISLAM.xml VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican said on Saturday the Pope was sorry Muslims had been offended by a speech whose meaning had been misconstrued, but Morocco withdrew its ambassador as anger at his words flared on.
"The Holy Father thus sincerely regrets that certain passages of his address could have sounded offensive to the sensitivities of the Muslim faithful," Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said in a statement.
Pope Benedict's first big crisis since his election 17 months ago was sparked by a speech in his native Germany on Tuesday that seemed to endorse a Christian view, contested by most Muslims, that early Islam was spread by violence.
The backlash has cast doubt on a planned visit to Turkey by the Pope in November. In an early reaction to the Vatican statement, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said it was not enough.
"We feel he has committed a grave error against us and that this mistake will only be removed through a personal apology," the Brotherhood's deputy leader, Mohammed Habib, told Reuters.
Morocco's King Mohammed recalled his ambassador to the Vatican in protest.
"Ali Achour is recalled for consultations as from Sunday following offensive remarks by Pope Benedict about Islam and Muslims," the official MAP news agency quoted a foreign ministry statement as saying.
The Pope's next scheduled public appearance is his Sunday Angelus blessing, when he often comments on current affairs.
Bertone, walking into the crisis only a day after taking over as "deputy pope", said the 79-year-old Pope confirmed "his respect and esteem for those who profess the Islamic faith" and hoped his words would be understood "in their true sense".
The academic speech was meant as a "a clear and radical rejection of religiously motivated violence, wherever it comes from", said the statement, which came as criticism of the leader of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics swelled.
TURKISH DISPLEASURE
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan of Muslim Turkey said on Saturday before the Vatican statement that the Pope's comments were "ugly and unfortunate" and should be withdrawn.
"The Pope spoke like a politician rather than as a man of religion," he said in televised remarks. Asked if the Pope should cancel or postpone a planned trip to Turkey in November, he said: "I do not know."
Yemen's president publicly denounced the pontiff and five churches -- only one of them Catholic -- were attacked in the West Bank, although no one was hurt.
Egypt's foreign ministry summoned the Vatican envoy to Cairo to express "extreme regret" at Benedict's speech.
But Chancellor Angela Merkel and other German politicians defended his comments, saying he had been misunderstood.
"It was an invitation to dialogue between religions," she told the mass-circulation Bild newspaper in an interview.
CALLS FOR APOLOGY
The New York Times said in an editorial the Pope must issue a "deep and persuasive" apology for quotes used in his speech.
"The world listens carefully to the words of any pope. And it is tragic and dangerous when one sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly," it said.
In the speech, the Pope referred to criticism of the Prophet Mohammad by 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything Mohammad brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".
Using the terms "jihad" and "holy war", the Pope said violence was "incompatible with the nature of God".
But Bertone said the Pontiff "had absolutely no intention" of presenting Emperor Manuel's opinions on Islam as his own.
Vatican insiders and diplomats say the Pope may have mixed up his new role with his former posts as a theologian and head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, when as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger he was known as a disciplinarian.
Angry Muslim leaders flung what they saw as allegations of violence back at the Christian West.
"How can (the Pope) imply that Muslims are the creators of terrorism in the world while it is the followers of Christianity who have aggressed against every country of the Islamic world?" prominent Saudi cleric Salman al-Odeh said. "Who attacked Afghanistan and who invaded Iraq?"
In Libya, the General Instance of Religious Affairs said the "insult ... pushes us back to the era of crusades against Muslims led by Western political and religious leaders".
Turkish paper Vatan quoted a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party saying Benedict "will go down in history in the same category as leaders like Hitler and Mussolini".
Catholic bishops in Turkey feared the angry local reaction, led by the Grand Mufti, could show public opinion was shifting against the Pope's planned visit. But Turkish officials said they hoped the row would blow over and the visit would go ahead.
In Iraq the government asked Muslims not to take their anger out on the small Christian minority, after the door of a church in Basra was attacked. The foreign ministry summoned the Vatican's top diplomat there to explain the Pope's remarks.
http://today.reuters.com/misc/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-09-16T162002Z_01_L16121346_RTRUKOC_0_US-POPE-ISLAM.xml
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Comments
Hide the following 23 comments
pope and hope
17.09.2006 07:10
krs
Too much verbiage
17.09.2006 10:30
There was a born Jew who refused to be a Jew because their God instructed them to commit Genocide to get their clear title to Israel. Perhaps Moslems should be reassesing their Prophet in a simmilar way. If they value the Umma of all Earth Life they had better turn off the Oil now. It is probably too late.
Ilyan
Baloney?
17.09.2006 13:32
Why do you have to respond to a pope quoting a 14th century figue with being insulting about Christianity? The Islamic religon was spread by conquest that is a historical fact, if it wasn't please explain how Spain became Islamic? Now please tell us what the view of the supposed prophet Muhammad was on sex with children? It is also a historical fact he married a six year old girl. However Muslims respond to such entirely valid criticism with violence.
James
ilyas has it wrong
17.09.2006 13:57
In fact, the Holy Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.) was more merciful to the enemies of Islam than their handpicked "friends". When 3 tribes of Jews who had sworn a treaty to support the defense of Medina instead worked to help attackers of Medina, two of the tribes who submitted themselves to the judgement of Muhammad (S.A.W.) were simply allowed to leave. The third tribe demanded that one of their friends be appointed a judge over their case and that Muhammad (S.A.W.) swear that he would not interfere with the judgement. Their friend found them guilty of betrayal and sentenced to death all the men in the tribe, and sold all the rest into slavery. Smart move, hey?
correction fluid
answer
17.09.2006 14:15
A. The insult is that the Pope eats what he deems to be the actual living flesh of Jesus (A.S.) and drinks the actual living blood of Jesus (A.S.). Cannibalism .however "prettily" portrayed, is cannibalism. It is sheer hypocrisy for the leader of a cannibal cult to attack anyone else for "unnatural" doctrines against God. Learn to deal with it.
Q. The Islamic religon was spread by conquest that is a historical fact, if it wasn't please explain how Spain became Islamic?
A. A Visigoth faction among those competing for power within Spain asked the Muslim Berbers for their support. That's why they came.
Q. Now please tell us what the view of the supposed prophet Muhammad was on sex with children?
A. The Holy Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.) would support the arrest, trial, conviction, whipping and banishment of each and every Catholic priest perp.
Q. It is also a historical fact he married a six year old girl.
A. Not true. She was older (age unstated), and in any case the marriage was not consummated until many years later. You want to diss Muhammad (S.A.W.), then go after Mr. Spock, too. He did the same thing in 1960s Star Trek, but no one had any criticism of that, of course.
Q. However Muslims respond to such entirely valid criticism with violence.
A. Keep on task. Acquisition of the "Eucharist" in the manner described in the article is both nonviolent and perfectly legal.
Islamic Community Net
True Faith?
17.09.2006 17:12
It seems there are now two good reasons for not converting to Islam. The first is that you cannot then convert to save your Life if you commit a Capital offence. The second is that it is unwise to follow an Author who has been so heavily censored. His truth has been warped - fairly self evident when followers make random massacres instead of taking out the guilty political leaders.
The Q & A session is so full of distortiona and irrelevance it is probably written by an anti-Islamist to discredit Islam. As is the main feature. Failure to account for "The people of the book" in context is an indication they are not as well versed in the Koran as they should be.
I have an Imam 30 miles south east, and an Islamic Professor 30 miles North East. Please someone save me the travelling.
Ilyan
Islamic Community Net is ignorant about it's own religon!
17.09.2006 18:42
James
What century is this?
17.09.2006 19:24
How can ANYBODY take this medieval superstition seriously? Who gives a toss what some old buffer in the Vatican or the mosque says? What next - witch burnings? Do you REALLY need some priest / imam / guru / rabbi / witchdoctor claiming a link to the divine to tell you what to think?
Grow up and start living in the REAL world!
Gregor Samsa
Aisha
17.09.2006 22:36
Hell no, not unless you are nine too at least. Still, to use this fact to smear the Prohpet Mohammed is to ignore the fact that everyone was at it in those days, including yer Christian kings. Partly our change is due to the fact we have increased our average life-expectancy beyond the age of thirty. Even today though you are bieng parochial assuming the British age of consent as being the moral gold-standard, check out comparitive western laws before you start throwing stones.
Basically another post that proves you only lower yourself when you stand upon the bible to raise yourself above others.
I'm with South Park on this one, the age of consent should be raised gloabally to 17. And if there are some 17 year olds who don't feel ready for sex, ignore them, pair them off with some more enthusiatic attractive 17 year olds and let them change their opinion. Age is irrelevant once you are 18, the main issue in any sexual matter is male violence.
Danny
Christian Kings?
18.09.2006 10:19
James
Kings and Popes, Generals and Presidents
18.09.2006 11:19
Unfortunately many. You got a King James version of the bible ? He was a sexual deviant who in his spare time personally tortured women to death, leading to the worst witchhunts in history, many tens of thousands of innocents tortured 'in the name of God' - and yet you carry his interpretation of the word of God - ha ! . And don't start me on the depravity of popes or we'll be here all day, or of the relative civility of Islam at the time of Torquemada and the many inquisitions.
And as for violence, hundreds of thousands of Muslims have been slaughtered just in this latest Christian crusade while next to no Christians have been killed by Muslims in the same period, which sort of destroys your argument.
"I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."
Apart from the massive evils that have been committed by evil people in the name of the bible, flick open the book itself, there is more than a touch of debauchery and immorality in there, and not just the mortals, your diety too.
I'm not defending Islam, but if one religion starts 'casting the first stone' against another religion then same rules apply, expect some criticism in return.
Danny
Cannibalism lies at the heart of the faith
18.09.2006 13:55
The pope suggests that reason should be broadened to include the empirically unverifiable. And is there any question these new “vast horizons” will include the plump dogmas of the Catholic Church? Here, the pope gets the spirit of science exactly wrong. Science does not limit itself merely to what is currently verifiable. But it is interested in questions that are potentially verifiable (or, rather, falsifiable). And it does mean to exclude the gratuitously stupid. With these distinctions in mind, consider one of the core dogmas of Catholicism, from the Profession of Faith of the Roman Catholic Church:
“I likewise profess that in the Mass a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice is offered to God on behalf of the living and the dead, and that the Body and the Blood, together with the soul and the divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ is truly, really, and substantially present in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, and there is a change of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into Blood; and this change the Catholic Mass calls transubstantiation. I also profess that the whole and entire Christ and a true sacrament is received under each separate species.”
While one can always find a Catholic who is reluctant to admit that cannibalism lies at the heart of the faith, there is no question whatsoever that the Church intends the above passage to be read literally. The real presence of the body and blood of Christ at the Mass is to be understood as a material fact. As such, this is a claim about the physical world. It is, as it happens, a perfectly ludicrous claim about the physical world. (Unlike most religious claims, however, the doctrine of Transubstantiation is actually falsifiable. It just happens to be false.)
Sam Harris
Homepage:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060916_sam_harris_rottweiler_barks/
casting stones
18.09.2006 14:02
James
Pope on a rope
18.09.2006 14:32
google
Homepage:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&q=cannibal+catholic&btnmeta%3Dsearch%3Dsearch=Search+the+Web
Christian Riot
18.09.2006 15:33
Matt
Free Mehmet Ali Agca
18.09.2006 15:39
They don't need to riot or threaten violence for they are already commiting real violence, genocide, against muslims, and if you doubt that they are committing that genocide in the name of the Christian God, then Bush and his generals certainly don't.
And no Christian would threaten me to death for my views ? Not even Joseph Kony ?
"They are examples from the 21st century not the 15th!"
I chose examples from 'the dark ages' - in reality only Europe needed enlightening, from the Islamic Arabs lest you forget and away from the ignorance that the church imposed - because the Pope did first. If you want to look at some 20th century Christian photgraphs that may give you pause for reflection:
When Christianity came to these parts, locals already had a sense of good and God, what the Christians brought was a sense of evil and Satan, and they used these concepts to control and abuse the local population ever since. The previous Pope was a CIA pope, this one is was his enforcer. Fuck him. You know the best response to this popes crass hate-mongering ? The Turks should release and pardon Mehmet Ali Agca on the first day of the popes visit there.
Alright, in an effort to be mediator, I will henceforth ridicule each Abrahamic religion equally, you have enough nonsense in common.
Samson is a holy figure in all the abrahamic religions. He was a bad-tempered murderer who slaughtered his own wedding guests and went on to sleep with whores. Your common flood myths are stolen from earlier religions as proven by the epic of Gilgamesh.
Danny
What a load of wasted breath
18.09.2006 17:52
What a load of crap! Do you guys REALLY care what an old fucker who is alive said in Rome? Does it really matter? And some vitually mythological character said back in the days of the black death and the Great Fire of London? Who cares if someone insulted someone? He's dead - and if he is so great I'm sure he isn't so bloody petty that he cares what the Pope says.
Honestly! Both sides of this argument are about as sad as each other. No wonder the world is so bloody fucked up, what with people thinking such utter and absolute shite! Next we'll be arguing that the world is flat, and that witches regularly jump on their broomsticks at the witching hour.
No Gods, No Masters, No Bloody Religion!
Krop
Religion - the hope for a future
19.09.2006 10:57
But the only real problem today for those who are not religious is how to save God's Creation from Mass Extinction.
Sounds daft doesn't it. God is so far seeing there are plans to prevent the destruction. That is why there are so many Religions. Is the only thing that can save the World a war between Christians and Moslems that results in the Oil being turned off permanently.
Satan, having taken over all the Churches is doing his damnest to prevent that war so that his scheme for Mass Extinction shall prevail.
Keep on laughing.
Or become a believer and rejoice that the happy Life hereafter is being hastened.
Laugh at that too.
Ilyan
debate or distraction - post a link to the text, THEN discuss . . . .
19.09.2006 14:41
Meja reporting distorted the actuality of the speech - cui bono ?
minderbinder crap.
the speech itself is interesting - for VERY different reasons - see "I SLEIGHT THE POPE BUT THE POPE SPOKE HOPE" piece, posted 18/9/6 - also, for other minderbinder infowar trying to twist people against each other - google "iran'53" , "2 remember the scams" - also in this newswire.
x leg iron
'And the loudspeaker said "Christianity is stupid!"'
20.09.2006 10:26
He hangs in glib delight upon his cross, upon his cross,
Above my body, lowly me
Christ forgive, forgive?
Holy He, He holy, He holy?
Shit He forgives, Forgive? Forgive?
I? I? Me? I? I vomit for you Jesu
Christy Christus
Puke upon your papal throne
Wrapped I am in the muddy cloud
Of hellish genocide
Petulant child
I have suffered for you
Where you have never known me
I too must die
Will you be shadowed in the arrogance of my death?
Your valley truth
What light pass those pious heights?
What passing bells for these in their trucks?
For you lord.
You are the flag-bearer of these nations
One against the other that die in the mud
No piety. No deity
Is that your forgiveness?
Saint. Martyr. Goat. Billy.
Forgive? Shit he forgives
He hangs upon his cross
In self-righteous judgment
Hangs in crucified delight
Nailed to the extend of His vision
His cross. His manhood. His violence. Guilt. Sin.
He would nail my body upon his cross
As if I might have waited for him in the garden
As if I might have perfumed His body
Washed those bloody feet
This woman that he seeks
Suicide visionary. Death reveller. Rake. Rapist.
Gravedigger. Earthmover. Lifefucker. Jesu.
You scooped the pits of Auschwitz
The soil of Treblinka is rich in your guilt
The sorrow of your tradition
Your stupid humility is the crown of thorn we all must wear.
For you. Ha. Master. Master of gore. Enigma. Stigma. Stigmata. Errata. Eraser.
The cross is the mast of our oppression.
You fly there, vain flag.
You carry it, wear it on your back, Lord. Your back.
Enola is your gaiety.
Suffer little children (to come unto me)
Suffer in that horror. Hirohorror. Hirrohiro. Hiroshimmer. Shimmerhiro.
Hiroshima. Hiroshima. Hiroshima. Hiroshima.
The bodies are your delight
The incandescent flame is the spirit of it
They come to you Jesu. To you
The nails are the only trinity
Hold them in your corpsey gracelessness
The image that I have had to suffer
These nails at my temple
The cross is the virgin body of womanhood
That you defile
In your guilt you turn your back
Nailed to that body
Lame-arse Jesus calls me sister
There are no words for my contempt
Every woman is a cross in filthy theology
He turns His back on me in His fear
His vain delight is that pain I bear
Alone He hangs. His choice. His choice
Alone. Alone. His voice. His voice
He shares nothing, this Christ
Sterile. Impotent. Fucklove prophet of death
He's the ultimate pornography
He. He. Hear us Jesus
You sigh alone in your cockfear
You lie alone in your cuntfear.
You cry alone in your womanfear.
You die alone in you manfear.
Alone Jesu, alone
In your cockfear. Cuntfear. Womanfear. Manfear.
Alone in your fear. Alone in your fear. Alone in your fear.
Your fear. Your fear. Your fear. Your fear. Your fear. Your fear. Your fear.
Warfare. Warfare. Warfare. Warfare. Warfare.
Jesus died for his own sins. Not mine.
Pot Kettle-Black
Reality Asylum
20.09.2006 17:40
Agree with your posting, but PLEASE give credit where it's due - in this case to the (fairly) great CR@SS!!
Gregor Samsa
Yeah I know but...
20.09.2006 20:36
I can just see them dropping tools at Dial House and rushing to employ an advocate to sue IndyMedia...
I hope crass aren't even aware this place exists now that it's become a conspiraloon haven.
XXX
PKB
James is wrong about Ayesha being 7 at marriage (nikah)
14.10.2006 05:15
Islamic Voice
Q. I am a devout Muslim but I get deeply disturbed at the thought of 53 year old prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) marrying Hazrat Ayesha who was just nine years old. We are unable to explain this in the present society. Surely the reason for this marriage cannot be blatant sensuality. But please tell me how can we explain this to non-Muslims? The age difference defies all logic. It involves questions of pre-puberty alliance, question of psychological incompatibility.
(XXX ; Srinagar)
A. It is widely believed that Hazrat Ayesha’s age was seven years when she was married to the Prophet (Pbuh) and she was 9 when she came to live with him but this is wrong. The fact is that she was 17 when married and 19 at the time of her rukhsati (departure from her home to the husband’s house). There are too many indisputable evidences in favour of this. A few of those are listed below:
1. Imam Waliuddin Muhammad Abdullah Al-Khateeb, the author of famous work on Hadith, namely Mishkaat was also an acknowledged expert of Asma-ur-Rijal (the unique art of research on people). He registered the following about Hazrat Asma at the end of Mishkaat.
“She is Asma, the daughter of Abu Bakr Siddiq...She is the mother of Abdullah Bin Zubair...She was 10 years older than her sister Ayesha...She died at the age of 100 in Makkah in 73AH...”(Mishkaat, Asma-ur-Rijal)
There is unanimity among all the scholars of Asma-ur-Rijal and historians on the above-mentioned facts.
It can be easily computed from above that being 100 years old in 73 AH, Hazrat Asma, daughter of Hazrat Abu Bak’r was at least 27 (100-73) years old at the time of Hijrah of the Prophet (Pbuh). If she died in the beginning of 73 AH, then her age was (100-72) 28 years at Hijrah. It is stated above that she was 10 years older than Hazrat Ayesha. It means Hazrat Ayesha was 18 years old at Hijrah. She came into the Nikah of the Prophet (Pbuh) one year before Hijrah and she shifted to the Prophet’s house two years later. Clearly, she was 17 at the time of nikah and 19 at her rukhsati.
2. The historians have placed Hazrat Ayesha between No. 17 and 20 in the list of those who were earliest to embrace Islam. Ibne Ishaq, the earliest authentic Islamic historian has placed her at No. 18. We also know that Hazrat Umar was the 40th person to embrace Islam and he entered into the faith in the first year of prophethood. It means Hazrat Ayesha was among those few who embraced Islam almost immediately after the declaration of prophethood. She must have been at least 5 years old to be categorized in the list of those who embraced Islam. Therefore her age was 18 when Hijrah came about 13 years later.
Examination of Hazrat Ayesha’s biography through accounts of Asma-ur-Rijal reveals that she was 17 when married to the Prophet and 19 when she came to live with him
Now imagine this. The saying goes that she was 7 at her nikah i.e. 8 at Hijrah that occurred 13 years after the declaration of prophethood. If it were true the declaration of prophethood occurred 5 years before her birth. Did she embrace Islam 5 years prior to her birth?
3. There are indications that she was among those who went to war of Badar but her presence in the battleground of Uhad is beyond doubt. It is in many authentic books of Hadiths and history that she was among those women in Uhad who were carrying water to the injured Sahaba. Now remember the incident of two young boys Rafe and Samra who were 13 and the Prophet (Pbuh) was not permitting them to join forces for their age but later agreed to their pleading as they were very enthusiastic. If Hazrat Ayesha was 10 when Uhad came about in 2 AH, was it possible that a new bride of 10 would have been permitted while the young boys of 13 were refused permission to go to Uhad? On the contrary if she was 18 at Hijrah her age was 20 and fit to take care of the injured in the battlefield when Uhad took place.
There are quite a number of other irrefutable evidences of her age being 19 when she entered into the Prophet’s home 2 years after her Nikah to him.
The wrong notion of her being 7 at marriage is widely accepted (and many Fiqh deductions are erroneously made on its basis) as there is a false report narrated by Hashsham bin Urwah in all the six most authentic collections of Hadith i.e. Sihah-e-Sittah! Hashsham bin Urwah was a very reliable narrator according to all scholars but this fact skipped the scrutiny of the famous Muhaddiseen of Sihah-e-Sittah that Hashsham became forgetful and unbalanced at his old age when he shifted to Iraq. The said report was narrated by him while he was in Iraq. Hashsham was the teacher of Imam Malik and he has accepted a number of Hadiths narrated by him in his collection of Hadith, Muatta. It was none other than Imam Malik, Hahsham’s disciple who declared after Hashsham shifted to Iraq that none of his former teachers’ statements were reliable any more because of his mental condition. The compilers of Sihah-e-Sittah, all being non-Arabs were not aware of it.
Now you know that when Hazrat Ayesha came to the Prophet’s house she was a major. The age difference is still considerable but no law of any land objects to the union of mutual wilful consent of two majors. Remember also that the Prophet (Pbuh) possessed exceptional health at 53 with all his hair black and he being stronger than most youngsters. Besides he was an ideal husband and the history testifies to his ideal care of his young wife with all the psychological considerations.
Islamic Voice
Homepage:
http://www.islamicvoice.com/march.2001/dialogue.htm#haz