The Vatican stressed its commitment to inter-religious dialogue on Friday as anger boiled in the Muslim world over Pope Benedict XVI's recent comments on Islam and violence .
The Vatican's newly appointed foreign minister, Monsignor Dominique Mamberti, said that when he takes over his duties in a few weeks dialogue with Muslims will be a top priority .
Because his appointment had only been made public a few hours earlier, he was reluctant to comment directly on the furious reactions of Muslim leaders to Benedict's lecture at Regensburg university on Tuesday .
"I can only say that dialogue with the great civilisations is one of the big issues on the agenda. It is a priority that will require much attention and commitment on my part," he said .
In his speech, Benedict quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor who said: "Show me what Mohammed brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached" .
Benedict, whose lecture was not about Islam but the importance attached in the West to 'reason', said that these words "astonished" the contemporary reader by their "brusqueness" .
Still repeating the argument of the emperor, he said that spreading faith through violence was contrary to reason and to God's nature .
In Muslim countries from Indonesia to Morocco the pope's remarks were taken as an attack on Islam and an assertion that Muslims were ready to use violence to spread their religion. All around the Muslim world there were calls for the pope to issue a public apology .
POPE CONDEMNED .
Both the Egyptian and Pakistani parliaments passed resolutions on Friday condemning the pope's words as hostile to Islam. Jordan's government described them as "defamatory" .
"To affirm that Islam invites people to spread religion with the sword does not correspond to the truth. Islam forbids violence," said the top Lebanese Sunni jurist Mohammed Rashid Qabani .
In Iraq, Baghdad's chief Iman asked whether the Vatican was trying to provoke "a new crusade" and in Tehran, Iran's religious leader Ahmad Khatami described the pope's observations as "absurd" .
Back in the Vatican, officials insisted that the polemics were based on a misunderstanding of why the pope repeated a statement made by Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus 600 years ago .
"History cannot be interpreted with the same criteria we have today. In the past there was a different way of judging things. The future can only be built through dialogue," said Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican's justice and peace department .
"John Paul II and Benedict XVI have always said that inter-religious dialogue should be encouraged," he continued, noting that this point was recently reaffirmed at an inter-religious meeting in the Italian town of Assisi .
'NO ATTACK' .
Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Vatican's department for inter-religious dialogue, urged Muslims to read the entire text of the pope's lecture .
"It should be clear that this was in no way an attack on Islam, but rather a hand held out, because he's maintaining the value of humanity's religious cultures," he told Italy's Corriere della Sera daily .
One of the effects of the polemics was to throw doubt on the pope's planned visit to Turkey in November. Ali Bardakoglu, Turkey's leading Islamic cleric, said that he was deeply offended by the remarks and called them "extraordinarily worrying, saddening and unfortunate". There were also protests from several Turkish parliamentarians. A group of unionists and officials from the government's religious affairs office left a black crown in front of the papal nuncio's office in Ankara .
Opinion in Italy was largely pro-pope. Leading Muslim commentator Magdi Allam said in an editorial that he was dismayed by the "bleak and worrying picture" of a united Muslim front attacking the pope .
He said that in some sections of the Muslim world there lurked a "blind ideology of hatred which defiled the faith and darkened minds" .
