The Pope as Rabble Rouser

Vatican tries to calm Pope row

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei joined a chorus of Muslim criticism of the head of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics, calling the Pope's remarks "the latest chain of the crusade against Islam started by America's (George W.) Bush."

The Pontiff said on Sunday he was deeply sorry Muslims had
been offended by his use of a medieval quotation on Islam and holy war. But he stopped short of retracting a speech seen as portraying Islam as a religion tainted by violence.

While some Muslims were mollified by his explanation for the speech made in Germany last Tuesday, others remained
furious. "We tell the worshipper of the cross (the Pope) that you and the West will be defeated, as is the case in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya," said a Web statement by the Mujahideen Shura Council, an umbrella group led by Iraq's
branch of al Qaeda. "We shall break the cross and spill the wine ... God will (help) Muslims to conquer Rome ... (May) God enable us to slit their throats, and make their money and descendants the bounty of the mujahideen," said the statement, posted on Sunday on an Internet site often used by al Qaeda
and other militant groups.

In Iraq's southern city of Basra, up to 150 demonstrators chanted slogans and burned a white effigy of the Pope. "No to aggression!," "We gagged the Pope!," they chanted in front of the governor's office in the Shi'ite city.

The Pope referred to criticism of the Prophet Mohammad by 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything the Prophet brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Isn't it interesting that the Pope did NOT say "I take it back" when he recounted long-ago observations that Islam is spread through the sharp edge of a sword. And isn't it interesting that Muslim protestors burning effigies of the Pope are shouting, "No to aggression!" Indeed.

I increasingly get that uneasy feeling that this is going to end up in a bloody contest of who has the bigger sword on a global scale, and fence-sitting isn't going to be an option.

I read a review of THE HOLY VOTE: The Politics of Faith in America, By Ray Suarez in the Washington Post this weekend. The author, claims the reviewer, "identifies himself as a deeply religious person [who] is offended by the Christian right's efforts to identify their country with their faith, and he has no problem saying so. The result is a powerful reaffirmation of America's greatest contribution to human liberty: the separation of church and state." In my mind, most countries in the Middle East illustrate what happens when faith and law become one and the same.