c. 2006 Religion News Service

ROME _ Under pressure to apologize for his remarks about Islam and jihad, Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday (Sept. 17) said he was “deeply sorry” that his use of a 14th-century quotation critical of the prophet Muhammad had provoked outrage in the Muslim world.

Benedict said the obscure quote, which used the word “evil” to refer to Islam’s revered prophet, in “no way” reflected his own thinking on Islam.

In his first public appearance since making the controversial remarks at the University of Regensburg on Tuesday, Benedict aimed to distance himself from the offending quote, but also appeared to stop short of a full apology that many in the Muslim world had demanded in recent days.

“I’m deeply sorry for the reactions provoked by a few passages in my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to some Muslim faithful.” The pope downplayed the significance of the quote, noting that it came from a “medieval text that in no way expressed my personal opinion.”

Initial reactions to the pontiff’s Sunday address were lukewarm. “We consider that the new statements represent a retreat from what went before,” Mohammed Habib, an official with the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood, one of the world’s largest Islamic movements. “We can consider them a sufficient apology, even if we had wanted the Pope to outline his ideas and vision of Islam,” said Habib.

The Turkish government on Sunday renewed its support for Benedict to visit Turkey in late November. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said canceling the pope’s trip is “out of the question,” the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.

Benedict’s speech at his old teaching post in Germany had described jihad as “holy war” and quoted a book in which the 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel Paleologos II is documented criticizing 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.

That statement provoked a torrent of criticism from Muslim leaders who also denounced the pope’s description of jihad as “holy war” as a slur on Islam.

Turkey’s top cleric voiced opposition to the pope’s planned visit in November, the lower house of Pakistan’s parliament issued a unanimous resolution denouncing the pontiff, and numerous Muslim leaders accused the pope of reopening historical wounds dating back to the Crusades when popes waged war against Muslim rulers to capture the Holy Land.

Some Muslim leaders drew parallels between the pontiff’s remarks and the inflammatory Danish caricatures of Muhammad that sparked weeks of deadly protest around the world.

Speaking before a lively crowd gathered at the papal summer residence, Benedict said he hoped to “appease hearts and to clarify the true meaning of my address, which in its totality was and is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect.”

Since his election, Benedict has pushed for more dialogue with Muslim leaders, departing from the conciliatory gestures made by his predecessor, John Paul II, with calls for Muslim leaders to address violent strains of Islam.

Benedict did not say why he chose to quote Manuel II _ whose Byzantine Empire lay between Europe and the Muslim armies of the Ottoman Empire _ at the beginning of a lengthy speech at Regensburg on the relationship between faith and reason.

He said the motivations behind his use of the quote already had been explained by the Vatican’s newly appointed secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who said Saturday that Benedict used the quote to stir “some reflections” on the “relationship between religion and violence in general and to conclude with a clear and radical rejection of religiously motivated violence, from whichever side it originates.”

Earlier Sunday, violence over the pontiff’s remarks erupted as two churches were set ablaze in the West Bank.

In Mogadishu, Somalia, two gunmen killed an Italian nun at a hospital.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi told Italy’s ANSA news agency he hoped the nun’s death was “an isolated event.”

“We are worried about the consequences of this wave of hatred and hope it doesn’t have grave consequences for the church around the world,” Lombardi was quoted as saying.

KRE/RB END MEICHTRY