Just as well the Byzantine emperor who was quoted by the Pope has been dead for seven centuries. Who knows what would have become of him in the current climate?
Throughout the day, the news programmes have featured one incensed muslim after another, lining up to denounce the Pope. The last straw for me was the shrill-sounding Baroness Uddin. (Never mind all this, what I’d like to know is how she got into the House of Lords. My background reading reveals nothing exceptional as to qualify her for a title. If she could enlighten me as to her public service record, I would be grateful.)
I wonder which journalist will be brave enough to point out to these shrieking sheikhs (and Uddin) that the fist-shaking, effigy-burning, threats-spewing actions of their brother muslims are simply confirming the offending remarks over and over. As John East asked in the comments to my last post, don’t these people get irony?
Apparently not.
To the charge of lacking irony, add those of illiteracy and ignorance. If they had troubled to read the Pope’s speech in the first place, they would have seen that this is just a lot of fuss over nothing. But the thing is, the real problem is not the speech. The real problem is Christianity and western values. This was simply another opportunity to attack those values, and by Allah, they were damned if they were going to miss it.
Meanwhile, the Pope has expressed his regret that ’some passages of his speech may have sounded offensive to the sensibilities of some muslim believers’.
How is that for an apology? Obviously he felt he had to say something, but does not feel the need to apologise. My own preference was for him to stick the Catholic equivalent of two fingers at the mad mullahs, but I can live with this ‘non-apology’. I am liking this Benedict fellow more and more each day.
