No matter what the Pope says.

And just to make sure the point was made, and to strongly protest the Pope’s slander, Islamic activists continued the second day of attacks targeting Christian churches in Gaza and the West Bank.

Nablus Church on FireToday gunmen opened fire on the oldest church in Gaza City. A spokesman from the Islamic Organisation of the Swords of Righteousness stated that “We carried out this shooting because of the pope’s statement, and he must apologise.” Another group calling itself the Lions of Monotheism claimed responsibility for firebomb attacks on an Anglican and a Greek Orthodox church in Nablus on Friday. Apparently the Lions weren’t aware that the Pope has no connection to either of those denominations of Christianity. Hopefully all the relevant gunmen got the news that the Pope, through his spokesman the new Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, has in fact apologised today for his comments which he felt were misunderstood, and that he in fact had great respect for Islam and Muslims, especially those who “who adore the only God” and who presumably uh… don’t firebomb or otherwise attack Churches.

Oh and, as usual, a Catholic Pope’s upsetting pronouncements about an otherwise peaceful religion have been blamed on, you guessed it… the Jews.

“We call on the pope to carry out a scientific and fastidious reading of Islam. We do not want him to succumb to the propaganda of the enemy led by Judaism and imperialism against Islam,”

So said Lebanon’s most senior Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, on Friday. Great.

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About the author

ck

Founder and Publisher of Jewlicious, David Abitbol lives in Jerusalem with his wife, newborn daughter and toddler son. Blogging as "ck" he's been blocked on twitter by the right and the left, so he's doing something right.

12 Comments

  • Pope to rioters: Thanks for making my case.

    Hmm, I don’t read the Vatican statement as an apology– and none should be forthcoming. In contrast to the Danish cartoons, which may have been gratuitously offensive, the Pope is simply trying to get Muslims to engage in serious dialogue around jihad, extremism, etc. If Islam can’t deal with that, that’s too bad– truly, too bad for the entire world, including Israel, which has to deal directly with it.

    And there’s certainly no good reason to enable them, either. So, no apologies, sorry.

  • Oh, and too bad the Pope ignores the obvious involvement of Jews in this incident. Could clear up this whole mess, just like that.

  • I hope the Pope shows some backbone and refuses to apologize. Certainly an ‘I’m sorry.” one, given the very problem he was commenting about, in a totally benign unoffensive way, has shown itself in spades….and made his point as Tom noted.

  • When I saw the Pope reading that thing, it reminded me of a history lesson and not some kind of attack against some group’s personal values and beliefs. Perhaps the wording could have been different, though.

  • if you only wanna see and hear whats wrong you´ll see and hear all that i swrong. its in the air to find things to hate when wetsern world is talking about islam. its a sad development indeed.
    when imam´s telling the world that jews are (worse than?) pigs and apes nothing is happening…. hf

  • If the group of people doing the rioting and raising hell were a single person I’d say they have either an identity crisis or bad self-esteem or both. Or that they’re just immature, like small children.

  • I guess what infuriates me most about this is the incredibly screwed up priorities the rioters/gunmen/fools demonstrate. If they got het up over the fact that children starve to death by the minute, the rape of the earth, the daily terror that landmines represent to folk like shepherds and nomads, in other words, non-combatants, or any of the billions of people who suffer daily due to human greed and/or evil, I’d be hard pressed to condemn them. As is, they help perpetrate the evil that afflicts the globe’s inhabitants, and it makes me sick, it enrages me, and it overwhelms me with a sense of helplessness.

  • You would think that a group of people who adhere to a 1400 year-old religious code and who are fixated on events that happened almost a century ago, would know enough history to realize that the Orthodox and Anglican churches specifically REJECT Catholicism and the Pope.

  • And in breaking news, Muslims world wide show solidarity and protest the Popes comments regarding Islamic violence – with acts of violence. Ah, yes. Popetic justice?

  • It’s been a long time that I’ve defended the Catholic church but I feel like I have to defend the leader of the religion I was raised in.
    The Pope has nothing to apologize for. He quoted a 14th century theologian’s opinion on Islam. Maybe the Pope believes what he quoted but that is not the issue.
    The Muslims have no right to threaten or commit violent acts against Christians. They have every right to criticize the Pope but it should be done in a constructive way through dialogue not violence.