When Pope Benedict quoted a predecessor who said Islam is a religion of violence, was he right?

Question

And how did Moslems respond?

Answer 1

Yes and no.

Here is a link to the English translation of the Pope's controversial speech: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg_en.html

In my opinion, although what the Pope said was true, he said it in the wrong way to the wrong people.

If you are going to give a constructive criticism to your neighbor (Islam) then you should do it to his face not behind his back.

The Pope's speech used Islam as a bad example of "faith and reason" to a group of Catholics when he probably could have found a better bad example in Catholicism.

Therefore it was appropriate for the Pope to apologize.

With love in Christ.

Answer 2

Pastor Billy says: a couple of points to correct here

1. Pope Benedict did not quote a predecessor (another Pope) he quoted a Byzantine Emperor (civil authority not religious)

2. What the Byzantine Emperor wrote was right and accurate as at the time the Byzantine nation was under attack by a violently oppressive Islamic attacker.

3. The current Pope was correct because he was referencing the comments of another during a certain period of human history which is very similar to ours today. Those who are incorrect are the Emans and newspaper reports who have deliberately taken the Regensburg University speech out of context to serve their own desires and purposes.

4. The intention of the Pope was to encourage open and truthful dialogue not only between Christianity and Islam but also with the atheistic academia which teach at our schools and university who are attempting to remove God (Allah) from our society, it is a shame the non-religious news media didn't have the balls to quote the entire speech addressing their lack of accountability in our world today.

5. How did Muslims respond, well go to this website http://www.cwnews.com/ and type in August/Sept/Nov 2006 and Pope and discover all the terrible acts committed by individual Muslim incited to them by ignorance, poor instruction of the facts and or vindictive Islamic leaders who are quick to use violence instead of intellect.

Why not try reading the entire speech yourself first before asking a question like this one

goto: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg_en.html

Answer 3

First of all, the English version of the speech that the Catholics want you to read is not an accurate translation of the Pope's actual words. He did in fact make the statement that Islam is a religion of violence. I work in a translation department and have already read the text before the Catholics changed it. My Islamic friends know the pope made the vial statement. However, they realize the pope was indoctrinated into Nazism and is using tainted rhetoric that would be in close relationship to Nazi teachings.

The Catholics who deny the pope's true words are not serving the Christian religion. They are now showing that the true Satanic Verses are from Catholic theologians, written to hide the real truth of chaos and sin.

Answer 4

No, he was not right. Islam has no more of a bloody history than any religion, including Christianity. That said, religion is never really the problem when it comes to violence. Human beings tend to be driven by greed, power, and selfishness. In cases where land, oil, money, or power are an issue, wars occur. In cases of war, ideology is necessary to convince a weary populace to participate and support the violence. The result is that religion is misused by powerful people to achieve their own personal, selfish goals or the perceived goals of a people or nation.

Currently, the social environment and political situation in many Muslim countries is unstable. The result is unrest, which leaders such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Osama Bin Laden can use to their advantage. Religion, in this situation, is easily manipulated to pit one group of people against another. The same thing occurred with Christianity in the 16th century, when unstable governments used religion in an attempt to create hegemony within their borders to increase their power.

The thing that makes it unfair to blame the religions is that if they did not exist, the same thing would happen. Evil men would use common ideologies and cultural identities to inspire their people to violence. The difference is that it would be nationalism, race, gender, or some other political theme instead of religion. We are too quick to blame Islam for the problems of the world. The real problem is merely economics and people. Most Muslims are just like you: they would just as soon sit at home with their families, eat, and get some sleep for work tomorrow; rather than go around fighting and killing. And yet violence happens, with them just as it happens amongst us. What a shame.

Answer 5

I think he was right. Islam is probably the most violent religion right now. How did they respond when accused of being violent? With violence. Makes you wonder about the IQ of the average Muslim.

Answer 6

Well by the Muslims response I would say the pope and his predecessor were correct. I saw a real correlation to Muslimic violence do to someone Else's statements. It appear they are most easily manipulated.

Answer 7

So far with Islam violence is all that we have seen. I realize because of the threat of being killed Muslims in America do not stand up against radical Islam. However, to do nothing, promotes it.

Answer 8

History is history and in this case the history is clear and historicaly acurate... the quaran is from allah... there is only one quaran... the quaran is islam... islam is the quaran... the quaran clearly states that all who do not submit to islam are to be killed... That is the history of islam from there own historical work.... if killing all who do not submit to them isn't violent then I guess I do not know what violence is...... then there is 1400 yrs of world history to look at... kind of verifies the violence in my opinion.

Answer 9

Dude. That's so old. You JUST now heard about this?

The Muslims responded with hostility.

It's over and done with. The quote was taken out of context. He was not condemning Muslims today.

Raymond, there is no evidence to show she was killed by Muslims. That is only a theory spewed out by people who want to stir up violence.

Answer 10

I don't know how Muslims responded, but he was obviously right, because as I have said before, with the demise of the IRA, all Muslims may not be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslim. Besides, I have never heard a Muslim decry actions taken by Muslim terrorists, so to me, that makes them complicit.