justalurkr | Holy Foot In Mouth, Batman!

Not my usual thing for this journal, but variety is the spice of life, and I've just tuned in to:

Apparently, the Bishop of Rome managed to stir everyone up last week:

A Pope’s Holy War

"There was a lively exchange with historians, philosophers, philologists ..." Benedict said early in an address on faith and reason. Citing a conversation between a 14th-century Christian Byzantine emperor and an Islamic Persian, Benedict quoted Manuel II: "'Show me just what Mohammed 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.'"

And some Muslims reacted when he apologized:

Iraq al-Qaida says pope, West are doomed

The pope on Sunday said he was "deeply sorry" about the angry reaction to his speech last week in which he cited the words of a Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of Islam's Prophet Muhammad as "evil and inhuman" and referred to spreading Islam "by the sword."

[article text snipped]

Protesters also rallied in the city of Muzaffarabad, in the Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir. "His apology is not sufficient because he did not say that what he said was wrong," said Uzair Ahmed of Pasban-e-Hurriyat, a Pakistani political group.

[Incidentally, all those places wherein the Bishop of Rome's better known title is not capitalized quoted from Yahoo! News, not altered by me.]

And Karen Armstrong reacted:

We cannot afford to maintain these ancient prejudices against Islam

I haven't read the whole ~~freakishly long~~ learned Armstrong treatise, but I'm grooving on her example of a pevious occasion a Catholic member of clergy opened a "dialog" with Islam:

In the 12th century, Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, initiated a dialogue with the Islamic world. "I approach you not with arms, but with words," he wrote to the Muslims whom he imagined reading his book, "not with force, but with reason, not with hatred, but with love." Yet his treatise was entitled Summary of the Whole Heresy of the Diabolical Sect of the Saracens and segued repeatedly into spluttering intransigence. Words failed Peter when he contemplated the "bestial cruelty" of Islam, which, he claimed, had established itself by the sword. Was Muhammad a true prophet? "I shall be worse than a donkey if I agree," he expostulated, "worse than cattle if I assent!"

Plus ca change, plus ce la meme chose, baybee.

We now return you to your normal fannish pursuits.

edited a number of times to correct HTML tags and the more egregious typos. PREVIEW IS YOUR FRIEND.