c. 2006 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ Pope Benedict XVI’s recent remarks about Islam have reopened historical wounds and could torpedo the pontiff’s push for dialogue.

Benedict’s attempt to indirectly confront violent strains of Islam and revisit the turbulent history of its relations with Christianity is having explosive consequences, possibly derailing his planned trip to Turkey in late November.

Ali Bardakoglu, Turkey’s top Islamic cleric, said Benedict’s remarks reflected “the hatred in his heart” and showed he was “full of enmity and grudge” against Islam. He demanded that Benedict retract his comments, and voiced opposition to the pope’s visit.

Benedict did not directly criticize Islam in his comments earlier this week in Germany, but made a historical reference to the prophet Muhammad that many Muslim leaders found provocative.

His speech at Regensburg University on Tuesday (Sept. 12) included a reference to the term jihad and quoted the 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel Paleologos II discussing the prophet. “Show me just what Muhammad 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,” Benedict quoted Manuel II as saying.

The statement unleashed a torrent of criticism from Muslim leaders, prompting the Vatican to rush to clarify the pope’s remarks when he returned home to the Vatican.

“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,” said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, in a statement released Thursday.

On Friday, the pope’s top official on relations with Islam, Cardinal Paul Poupard, told Milan’s Corriere della Sera newspaper that the news media took Benedict’s words out of context, and that the pope only wanted to “address the question of the relationship between faith and reason, not to express his attitude towards Islam.”

During his first visit to Germany as pontiff a year ago, Benedict became the first pope to mention Islam in the context of terrorism, calling on Muslim leaders to do more to stem the tide of extremism.

In a TV interview on Thursday, Turkey’s Bardakoglu said Benedict’s approach to dialogue was “prejudiced and biased.” The Associated Press quoted Haluk Koc, deputy head of Turkey’s Republican People’s Party, saying, “The pope has thrown gasoline on the fire.”

Muslim leaders also took issue with Benedict’s decision to revisit a historical era that many Muslims associate with the Crusades _ the bloody military campaigns mounted by popes to take possession of the Holy Land for Christianity. Hakim al-Mutairi, the secretary-general of the Islamic Nation Party of Kuwait, told Agence France Presse that the pontiff’s comments amounted to “the pursuit of Crusades.”

“I call on all Arab and Islamic states to recall their ambassadors from the Vatican and expel those from the Vatican until the pope says he is sorry for the wrong done to the Prophet and to Islam, which preaches peace, tolerance, justice and equality,” al-Mutairi said.

Even in India, the pope’s comments drew fire in an editorial by the New Delhi-based Hindustan Times, which likened Benedict to a “Southern-belt televangelist.”

“Coming as it does from an entity that once waged its own `holy war’ and turned the term `Inquisition’ into a terror-word, this is rather rich,” the paper said.

“(The pope), as the leader of a variegated community already nervous about Islam and Muslims, needs to quell fears, not to aggravate them.”

Back in Benedict’s native Germany, where critics have accused wartime Pope Pius XII of failing to strongly condemn the Nazis, and where Benedict himself was forced to enroll in the Hitler Youth movement, Muslim leaders called for the pope to do some self-examination.

“I do not think the church should point a finger at extremist activities in other religions,” said Aiman Mazyek, president of Germany’s Central Council of Muslims.

As a cardinal, Benedict challenged Turkey’s aspirations to enter the European Union, saying the country’s admission would result in a blurring of the cultural and religious identity of Europe.

That position still angers many Turks, who have challenged the pope’s intentions to visit the country. A best-selling Turkish novel titled “Papa’ya suikas,” or “Attack on the Pope,” has Benedict being assassinated during his visit to Istanbul.

Benedict isn’t the only Christian leader to face a backlash from Islam.

In Britain, John Sentamu, the archbishop of York _ second only to the archbishop of Canterbury in the Church of England hierarchy _ used a lecture on Wednesday to urge Muslims to follow the Christian precept of “love your enemies.”

His remarks drew a sharp rebuff from Inayat Bunglawala, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, who said Muslims could not tolerate “anti-Muslim prejudice” any more than Jews should tolerate anti-Semitism.

“We cannot,” Bunglawala said, “just turn the other cheek.”

(Al Webb contributed to this report from London. Achal Narayanan reported from Chennai, India.)

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