Pope Says Sorry...But Not Quite

It is all in the eye of the beholder it seems.

The pope said "sorry" yesterday. But his exact words have done little to appease the Muslims of the world or alter his image in their minds. He said he was , "..deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address . . . which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims. These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought."

The reaction from the Muslim world was summed up by a Turkish State Minister Mehmet Aydin who said the pontiff appeared to be saying he was sorry for the outrage but not necessarily the remarks themselves.

The pope was delivering a lecture to a group of academics about the use of violence to promote religion. His point was that the use of reason is superior to the use of violence, and because God gave us reason, and we were created in his image, it stands to reason that God would not want us to use violence in place of reason in order to spread his word. Thus the pope, in his capacity as spokesperson for God, was explaining how violence is contrary to the nature of God. This, of course, negates everything that the Old Testament teaches us about God, and pretty much contradicts almost everything about the history the spread of the Christian church.

The Islamic world is itself not without a few contradictions. By first of all claiming to be a religion of peace, and then promising violence to all who would question it on that point, it has shown itself to be anything but peaceful. Christian churches have been attacked and some Christians killed in the aftermath of the pope's little faux pas. The Islamic attitude reminds me of the old bumper sticker that went something like this:

Support Mental Health...Or I'll Kill You!!!

One television news program last night offered us a short interview with a Muslim protestor outside Houses of Parliament in London, He described a "Trinity of Evil" as 1. The pope, 2. President Bush, and 3. Tony Blair.

It would seem that the pope, an icon of modern Christianity and tolerance, has now become iconic to Islam much in the same way as one of his predecssors, Pope Alexander II, who launched the first Crusade in 1063.

Who will be next to throw a little petrol on the fire in the hope of extinguishing the flames? Stay tuned to find out.