From Australia:
Muslims are “perfectly entitled” to criticise the Pope for linking Islam with evil and violence, but John Howard wants them to “move on”.
The Prime Minister said last night he was “disappointed” and “exasperated” that “whenever the Pope says something (it) provokes demonstrations”.
In defence of comments yesterday by the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, George Pell, Mr Howard said Cardinal Pell “has a point” in criticising Muslims for reacting to the Pope’s comments with “demonstrations and threats of violence”.
“It’s a strange form of restraint to respond to words of disagreement with demonstrations and threats of violence,” he said.
Archbishop Pell said the nation’s Muslim clerics should address the links between Islam and violence instead of sweeping them under the carpet.
He also said the reaction of Muslims to comments made by Benedict XVI – in which the Pope quoted a Byzantine emperor using the words “evil” and “inhuman” in reference to the prophet Mohammed – showed the link in Islam between religion and violence.
That is the point exactly. A historical reference in a scholarly speech results in the killing of Christian religious people and the burning of churches. If it is not true that elements of Islam have fostered evil and violence (historically and presently), why all the evil and violence on the part of those who invoke the name of Allah?
