During a conversation with German President Horst Kohler on September 9, Pope Benedict XVI said that he hoped Muslims could be better integrated into German society. That was the report that Koehler gave to reporters after their meeting.
ROME: Senior politicians in Italy’s government launched a policy manifesto on Thursday vowing to protect Western civilisation from what they said were the twin threats of Islamic fundamentalism and a moral vacuum. Marcello Pera, speaker of the Senate and a friend of Pope Benedict, said people in the West were ashamed to stand up for…
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Spain asked the Vatican on Friday to back an initiative promoting Western-Arab understanding, in a bid to give fresh impetus to the plan after Muslim protests against cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad. Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos made the request for support of the “Alliance of Civilisations” during talks with…
Reactions against the conscience test applied to Muslims who want to become German citizens in Germany’s Baden-Wurttemberg province continue. The German Alliance 90/Greens Party Federal Assembly Group submitted a parliamentary motion to terminate the practice of examining the private life of applicants. The party’s Co-Chair Claudia Roth, criticizing the test’s questions on homosexuality as well,…
By John Hooper in Rome Oriana Fallaci, the controversial Italian journalist and author who is awaiting trial on charges of vilifying Islam, has been granted a secret audience with Pope Benedict. Fallaci’s diatribes against Muslims’ persuasions have turned her into a hate figure for the Italian left and a heroine for the anti-immigrant right. The…
