POPE BENEDICT SPEECH

Submitted by Fazal Habib Curmally (Pakistan), Sep 21, 2006 at 01:42

I have read the speech that the Pope gave at the University of Regensberg in Germany. As a Muslim and believer in the right of free speech, the Pope has done nothing wrong. He has chosen a very hurtful point of reference. He is in default for quoting the Byzantine Emperor and the Emperor's disparaging remarks about the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and the Emperor's views on Islam, who probably was under threat from the Osmanli Turks.

The Emperor was expressing a political truth as far as he was concerned. What is the threat to the West from Islam today? Is it that we are challenging the way you run the affairs of the world? Are the Muslims saying anything about how or what the West believes? What is the threat to the Holy Father?

My question is , Is it necessary to quote anybody who has made a disparaging remark about the beliefs of peoples who inhabit this Earth? I may not agree with many aspects of a religion but this is not a license to be disrespectful of the believers of that Religion's feelings. This is where the Holy Father is at fault.

Perhaps people in the West have de-sacralised belief and perhaps the metaphysical base for truth and morality has been replaced by their beliefs by Politics and political truths. But this switching the basis for morality is not Universal and this most of all should not have been forgotten by the Holy Father.

I may forgive the Holy Father the insult but I shall never forget it. I believe that the Islamic world is not only under political pressure from the West to conform and now the Roman Catholic Church may want to put us under reiligious pressure too.

If such is the case, then we have a very big fight that will span generations on our hands. remember we did not fire the first shot.

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