AFP: AMMAN — Pope Benedict XVI urged inter-faith reconciliation on the second day of a Holy Land tour but disappointed Muslim clerics by failing to offer a new apology for remarks seen as targeting Islam.
The pontiff in a keynote address to Muslim leaders in Amman's huge Al-Hussein Mosque bemoaned "ideological manipulation of religion" and urged Muslims and Christians to unite as "worshippers of God."
"Certainly, the contradiction of tensions and divisions between the followers of different religious traditions, sadly, cannot be denied," the leader of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics told his audience.
"However, is it not also the case that often it is the ideological manipulation of religion, sometimes for political ends, that is the real catalyst for tension and division, and at times even violence in society?"
Some clerics expressed disappointment however that the pontiff in his wide-ranging speech had made no new apology for a 2006 address in which he quoted a medieval Christian emperor who criticised some teachings of the Prophet Mohammed as "evil and inhuman." >>> Copyright © 2009 AFP | Saturday, May 9, 2009
