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Pope did not intend to offend Muslim sensibilities, says Vatican

VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict XVI did not intend to offend Muslim sensibilities with remarks about the holy war, the Vatican said on Thursday night, as anger built in the Islamic world over some of his remarks during his pilgrimage in Germany.

``It certainly wasn't the intention of the Pope to carry out a deep examination of jihad [holy war] and on Muslim thought on it, much less to offend the sensibility of Muslim believers,'' Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, who accompanied the pontiff on the trip, said in a statement after the Pope returned to Rome.

A few hours earlier, Turkey's top Islamic cleric asked the Pope to apologise for the remarks and unleashed a string of accusations against Christianity, raising tensions before the pontiff's planned visit to Turkey in November on what would be his first papal pilgrimage in a Muslim country.

Religious Affairs Directorate head Ali Bardakoglu, a cleric who sets the religious agenda for Turkey, said he was deeply offended by the remarks about the Islamic holy war made on Tuesday by the Pope during a visit to Germany, and called the remarks ``extraordinarily worrying, saddening and unfortunate.''

Mr. Bardakoglu said that ``if the Pope was reflecting the spite, hatred and enmity'' of others in the Christian world, then the situation was even worse.

The Pope made his remarks on Islam in a speech in which he quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and an educated Persian on the truths of Christianity and Islam.

The conversation contained uncharitable remarks "made by the Emperor" about Islam.

Clearly aware of the delicacy of the issue, Pope Benedict added, ``I quote,'' twice before pronouncing the phrases on Islam.

In Egypt, Mohammed Mahdi Akef, the leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, also called for an apology.

``The remarks do not express a correct understanding of Islam and are merely wrong and distorted beliefs being repeated in the West,'' Mr. Akef said in a statement on Thursday evening.

The 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference, based in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia said it regretted ``the Pope's quote and for the other falsifications.'' — AP

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Pope did not intend to offend Muslim sensibilities, says Vatican

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