[AU72]

Pope Benedict can now forget that NPR interview.

[theDentist]

Hey Vatican! Thanks for noticing.

[sayuncledave]

Yup. Three choices are given: become a dhimmi (submit to live as second class citizen), or convert, or die. Religious obligation for them.

[mikelets456]

Vatican: Koran encourages 'killing Christians'

Are you sure? I think the government needs to do a multi- billion study just to make sure...

[therightliveswithus]

they actually read the Koran

[bayouranger]

Phase one in effect.

[Natural Law]

The image of JPII kissing a Koran is widely misunderstood and often defamed. It is used frequently by anti-Catholics to imply that the Catholic Church is in some way in league with Islam. Nothing could be further from the truth. Unlike Calvinism that has many dogmatic similarities to Islam the Catholic Church has stood in steadfast opposition to Islam for over 1300 years.

The Church recognizes the Abrahamic origins of Islam, but that in no way endorses it. The Church declares that there is one infinitely perfect God and that Islam, like many Christian sects, imperfectly describes and worships Him.

[Miles the Slasher]

It’s a good thing he didn’t say that on “The View.”

[Martin Tell]

Ping for later.

I may want to use this link in a Facebook argument I am having with a liberal. He is incredulous that terrorists may be motivated by Islam and urged me to speak with an Imam and get set straight.

[Le Chien Rouge]

Obama will probably want to cut diplomatic ties with the Vatican....

[MarineBrat]

The Vatican needs to get these marching orders out to the Clergy. While world governments still allow it.

[Verginius Rufus]

The headline makes it appear that the Catholic Church was officially making this pronouncement. It wasn’t the pope who said this, but one Arab archbishop (who happened to have a ringside seat when Muslims were killing Catholics unless he happened to be in Rome at the time of the civil war).

[Cicero]

Well, rather than argue the details, let me make two points here.

1) There are some people in “the Vatican” who are dissidents and/or idiots. It’s inevitable, as long as people are human, that there will be at least some such types anywhere. But these idiots do not speak for the Pope or for the Church.

2) The Pope and the Vatican as a whole are quite aware that Muslims kill Christians. They do it all over the world, all the time. For that reason, unfortunately, they have to be very careful what they say. Because if they say something too provocative, then the Muslims just go out and kill MORE Christians. Maybe burn down a few churches or schools.

It’s all very well to say that you should stand up to the Muslim killers. And you should. But there’s no particular point in saying something provocative when you know that somebody else is going to get killed for it. Somebody in the Muslim world. Some innocent Christian.

So, the Vatican is between a rock and a hard place. They want to stand up to Islam and defend the Faith, but they don’t want to be the cause of more innocent deaths.

Personally, I am a great admirer of JP II, but I don’t mind saying that I think he made a mistake kissing the Koran. He was trying to show respect for another religion, trying to defuse tensions and hatreds and protect the Christians in North Africa, the Middle East, and all those other Muslim countries. But I’m still not sure it was justified.

It was not a matter of faith and morals. Even good Popes, even great Popes, even saints, make an occasional mistake.

Take off your shoes in a mosque, yes. Kiss the Koran? I personally think that’s a mistake. But if the Koran was shoved at him and he had a choice of kissing it or insulting his hosts, who knows, maybe he did the best thing possible in a nasty situation.

[Romulus]

The headline is misleading, but I suppose “Vatican says” attracts more eyeballs than “Obscure Lebanese bishop says”.

[djf]

Islam is basically a religion? that says you can kill anyone or everyone who disagrees with you.

That’s not the way grown men and women approach the world.

Perfect “religion” for six year olds, though.

[rawhide]

"The Koran gives Muslims the right to judge Christians and kill them with Jihad," he said. "It gives orders to impose religion with force, with the sword. For this reason, Muslims don't recognise the freedom of religion among themselves or others."

Says it plainly and clearly.

[Psalm 144]

No duh.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Yeah, I winced, too, when I saw the picture, years back, of Pope John Paul II kissing tht Koran. Where's my facepalm?

>:o/

I am well aware that he was a kissy polish guy, he kissed tarmacs, he kissed a blind guy's guide dog, and food (it seems I remember a smelly cheese, it made a funny picture), and gifts, he invariably kissed gifts: sombreros, soccer jerseys, flags. Too much. Cringeworthy. And of course kissing a Koran would be interpreted, by those motivated to do so, as some kind of religious submission.

But it would be interpreted thus only by people who didn't know jack chick about Wojtyla.

People seem to forget that a Muslim gunman, Mehmet Ali Agha, shot and almost killed Pope John Paul II in 1981; and that when Pope Benedict (in a philosophical lecture at Regensburg University in 2005) quoted merely quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor to the effect that Mohammad's contribution to world culture was not all that positive, there were riots on 3 continents and 16 people killed, including an elderly Italian nursing nun shot in the back in Somalia.

And they forget what happened when Muslim operatives informed Pope Benedict that if he baptized Muslimn-born convert Magdi Allam, blood would flow in Rome. So what happened? He went ahead and baptized Allam in the highest-profile way possible: at the Easter Vigil, guaranteed to get maximum worldwide publicity:

Pope baptizes famous Muslim convert

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1990056/posts

I, personally, think this Pope and the last one "grasp" the essentials of Islam with a lot deeper realism, and at a lot greater personal price, than most of us will ever be called on to do.

It's knowledge and it's nerve, not from infallibility --- not at all, in this case --- but from costly personal experience.