--- In [email protected], bob_brigante <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <no_reply@> wrote: > > In other words, as far as I can tell they're blasting > > the Pope for knowing more about the history of their > > religion than they do. > > http://tinyurl.com/frea5
>From the Times of London: Times Online September 15, 2006 How an emperor's words landed the Pope in trouble By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent of The Times Even his critics are agreed that the Pope did not intend to cause offence to the world's Muslims....The Pope's mistake was his failure to distance himself from the Byzantine Emperor's comments.... And his address is undermined further by a serious error in regards to the Koran....[He said,] "The emperor must have known that surah 2,256 reads:`There is no compulsion in religion.' It is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat." In fact, this surah is held by Muslim scholars to be from the middle period, around the 24th year of Mohammed's prophethood in 624 or 625, when he was in Medina and in control of a state. Contrary to what the Pope said, this was written when Mohammed was in a position of strength, not weakness. ...Professor Hans Kung, a former colleague of his when at Tubingen university, agrees that the Pope did not intend to provoke Muslims. "He is very interested in dialogue with all religions. But using this quotation and his whole approach to Islam in the lecture was very unfortunate," he said.... "This just shows the limits of the theologian Joseph Ratzinger. He never studied the religions thoroughly and very obviously has a unilateral view of Islam and the other religions." The Pope has a history of criticism of Islam. According to another leading Catholic...Benedict XVI believes that Islam cannot be reformed and is therefore incompatible with democracy....Father Joseph Fessio...said the Pope believes that reform of Islam is impossible "because it's against the very nature of the Koran, as it's understood by Muslims."... Another senior Catholic source also described the Pope's use of the Byzantine emperor's comments as"extraordinary"...: "He is fully entitled to raise the issue of Islamist terror of course, but in this address he is not really doing that....He should have said the emperor's comments were deplorable, and that he also recognised the reality of Christian violence, then there might not be such trouble now." The tragedy of the episode is that the Pope was arguing against the idea that violence can be justified, in any religion. He was making the case for the compatibility of reason with religion at a time when fundamentalism has rarely been more pre-eminent across the religious spectrum. The irony is that the extremity of Islamic response illustrates in terrifying clarity how desperately the world needs to hear his message. Read the whole thing at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2359816,00.html http://tinyurl.com/z9tlq To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
