Free Republic

THE contentious speech by Benedict XVI and the statement by Australia's George Pell signal a decisive change of attitude in the complex debate over the connection between Islam and violence. In his muscular statement this week, the Cardinal did more than defend the Pope. He did more than lament the Muslim violence directed against the Pope and the Catholic Church. The essence of Pell's statement was that such violence demonstrated one of the Pope's main fears: that for many Islamists there is a link between religion and violence. This is an inflammatory subject that many opinion makers want to keep...

Cardinal George Pell has declared yet again Islam is more warlike than Christianity, this time to a US Catholic newspaper. The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney told the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) Australia hadn't been affected much by Islamic threat following the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US, but this could change depending "on how many terrorist attacks" Muslim fundamentalists could "bring off successfully", Fairfax newspapers report. In the interview conducted in Rome with well-known NCR reporter John L Allen, Dr Pell said "the million-dollar question" was whether intolerance was a modern distortion of Islam or arose out of internal...

Prime Minister John Howard is standing by Australia's top Catholic, as Islamic and other groups question Cardinal George Pell's remarks about the intolerance of the Muslim faith and the Koran's "invocations to violence". Dr Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, defended comments he made in an address to US Catholic business leaders in Florida in February, which were published this week. In his speech, Cardinal Pell questioned the tolerance of Islam. "Considered strictly on its own terms, Islam is not a tolerant religion and its capacity for far-reaching renovation is severely limited," Dr Pell said in the address. He also said there...