Pope Benedict XVI has expressed “total and profound respect” for Muslims, as he attempts to defuse a row between Islam and the Catholic Church. He made the remarks in a meeting with envoys from the Muslim world, weeks after a speech in Germany prompted an angry reaction by some Muslims. Iraq’s ambassador said it was…
Mahmoud Hussein Ecrivain, essayist. Pseudonym of Adel Rifaat and Bahgat Elnadi, French-Egyptian intellectuals. After the controversial “lesson” of Benedict XVI on Islam at Ratisbonne, the question of the place of speech and of the sword in the propagation of religions is asked more than ever. How does the life of Mohammed make clear for another…
For this historian, only just tolerated by the Tunisian regime, Islam is compatible with democracy, Muslims should free themselves from sharia, liberty is primary, and the pope therefore has the right to state his opinion. Benedict XVI has the right, “like everyone,” to express himself. Mohamed Talbi was furthermore not really surprised by the statements…
Ingrid Mattson had given up God. She had stopped saying her rosaries, stopped taking Communion. She was an atheist, abroad in Paris the summer before her senior year of college. But she could not stop listening to the Koran. “Forget it,” she told herself. “This can’t be happening to me.” Yet day after day, she…
The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales risked a new clash with Muslims yesterday by questioning whether Turkey should be admitted to the European Union. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor echoed Pope Benedict XVI in saying that the predominantly Muslim state was not culturally part of Europe.
