Italian police were on Sunday ordered to tighten security at potential Catholic targets across the country as the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church anxiously waited to see if a personal expression of regret by Pope Benedict would assuage Muslim fury over his remarks on Islam.
The pope’s speech in Germany last week, in which he quoted a medieval ruler who said Muhammad’s innovations were ”evil and inhuman”, has led to widespread condemnation in the Muslim world. On Sunday night the controversy seemed to have claimed its first victims when gunmen killed a 65-year-old Italian nun and her bodyguard at the entrance to a hospital where she worked in the Somalian capital, Mogadishu.
A doctor said the nun, who was named as Sister Leonella Sgorbati, from Piacenza in northern Italy, had been shot four times in the back by two men with pistols. The attack was linked by some to the pope’s remarks.
A Vatican spokesperson, Father Federico Lombardi, said he hoped it was ”an isolated event”, adding: ”We are worried about the consequences of this wave of hatred and hope it doesn’t have grave consequences for the church around the world.”
The pontiff appeared to risk causing fresh controversy during his speech on Sunday when he cited a passage from St Paul that risked being interpreted as hostile — not by Muslims, but by Jews. It described the crucifixion of Jesus as a ”scandal for the Jews”.
At Castel Gandolfo in the hills east of Rome, where the pope has his summer residence, armed police kept watch from a balcony on the town hall as he prepared for the most nervously awaited statement of his 17-month papacy.
Some of the pilgrims entering the courtyard of his residence to listen to his traditional Sunday address were searched by police, who confiscated metal-tipped umbrellas and some bottles of liquid. Plainclothes officers dressed as tourists filmed the gathering using video cameras.
When the pontiff appeared, to applause from a crowd huddled under driving rain, he joked about the downpour and said his visit to Bavaria, during which he delivered his controversial lecture, had been a ”deep spiritual experience”. He added: ”I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims. These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought.”
The Vatican took the unusual step of translating the papal apology into French and English for the press. Normally they are delivered in Italian only.
The comments did not differ in substance from a statement made the previous day by the Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, and reactions were mixed.
In Turkey, a government member, Mehmet Aydin, said the pope seemed to be saying he was sorry for the outrage, but not necessarily for the remarks themselves. ”You either have to say ‘I’m sorry’ in a proper way or not say it at all,” he said. The government, however, said there were no plans to call off the pope’s visit to Turkey in November and Cardinal Bertone said he hoped it would go ahead.
There were attacks on seven churches on the West Bank and in Gaza, while in Iran 500 theological students protested in the holy city of Qom.
An influential Iranian cleric, Ahmad Khatami, warned that if the pope did not apologise, the ”outcry will continue until he fully regrets his remarks”. He suggested ”the pope should fall on his knees in front of a senior Muslim cleric and try to understand Islam”.
In his address, the pope said his earlier lecture had been intended as an invitation ”to frank and sincere dialogue, with mutual respect”. The leader of the Italian opposition, Silvio Berlusconi, called his remarks a ”positive provocation”. But, in an apparent rebuke to the pope, President Vladimir Putin of Russia urged world religious leaders to show ”responsibility and restraint”. – Guardian Unlimited Â