If the Pope doesn't give us a better apology for saying we're violent, we'll become...violent!

As long as groups like Hamas do not consider the Pope's statement an apology, there is hope. Once they're satisfied, this will just have been another instance of a Western leader's vile submission to the most successful thug in history.

From here:

Pope Benedict said on Sunday he was deeply sorry Muslims had been offended by his use of a medieval quotation on Islam and violence, but failed to quell the fury of some Islamic groups demanding a full apology.

Good.

The head of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics, whose comments on Tuesday sparked worldwide Muslim anger because they were seen as portraying Islam as a religion tainted by violence, said the quotation did not represent his personal views.

"In Hamas we do not view the statement attributed to the Pope as an apology," said Sami Abu Zuhri, spokesman for the militant group which controls the Palestinian government.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition force, initially said the Pope made a "sufficient apology". But deputy leader Mohammed Habib said later: "It does not rise to the level of a clear apology and ... we're calling on the Pope to issue a clear apology that will decisively end any confusion."

It will be a tragedy if he does.

By the way, has anyone noticed that the two groups here unsatisfied with the Pope's cited a Byzantine emperor are terrorists?

Before the Pope spoke and mollified some Muslims, there were attacks on churches in the West Bank and a protest in Iran. In Somalia, an Italian nun was killed in an attack one Islamist source said could be linked to the dispute.

But I thought Islam was "untainted by violence."

"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," the Pope told pilgrims at his Castelgandolfo summer residence.

That's a good non-apology.

"These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought," he said at his weekly Angelus prayer.

Leaving out the words "in any way," would go a long way to confirming the Pope's courage and intellectual honesty. In fact, he ought to come out with a much more explicit statement. Something like that posted here or here.

"The heads of Muslim countries had expressed dismay at what they saw as an offensive comment and religious leaders had called it the start of a new Christian crusade against Islam.

Considering that the first Crusade began as a response to a desperate call for help from Eastern Christendom suffering at the hands of Allah and his false prophet, a new Crusade is entirely appropriate, about eight hundred years too late, five years too late, and too much to hope for from today's flaccid Western "leaders."

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi hoped the death of a nun working at a Mogadishu children's hospital was 'an isolated event'. The nun's order said there was no evidence to suspect it was related to the Pope's speech last Tuesday.

Where I come from, nuns are shot all the time.

Didn't the article just note above that an "Islamist" source attributes the nun's murder to Muslim anger over the citation?

In the speech, the Pope, a former theology professor and enforcer of Vatican dogma, referred to criticism of the Prophet Mohammad by 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus.

The emperor said everything the Prophet Mohammad brought was evil 'such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached'.

That's not what he said. The emperor said that Mohammed brought nothing "new" except that which was evil and inhuman. That's a fact.

...But angry Muslim leaders flung what they saw as allegations of violence back at the West, referring to the medieval crusades against Islam and to the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have fanned the flames of Muslim resentment.

Both the Crusades and our Global War of Self-Defense Against Islam are instances of Infidels fighting back against the jihadist onslaught, so basically, Islam resents its victims defending themselves against it. That's typical of Islam's moral clarity and intellectual honesty.

In Iran, about 500 theological school students protested in the holy city of Qom and hardline cleric Ahmad Khatami said that if the Pope did not apologize, 'Muslims' outcry will continue until he fully regrets his remarks'.

One al Qaeda umbrella group in Iraq, the Mujahideen Shura Council, threatened in an unauthenticated Internet statement to 'break the cross and spill the wine' in revenge, referring to Christian symbols and sacraments."

That certainly sounds like a religion of peace to me!

Let's hope Turkey's State Minister Mehmet Aydin, who said that the Pope seemed to be saying he was sorry for Muslim rage but not his actual comments, is correct.

Speaking of Turkey, has anyone in the media noted that within only a few decades, Palaeologus's comments on Islam were finally and brutally proven true with the fall of Constantinople?