Sunday, September 17, 2006

USA Today blames Pope Benedict for inciting violence

Some big voices in the US media are losing it. The Muslim Brotherhood has accepted Pope Benedict XVI's apology for having given offense to faithful Muslims (while not retracting his courageous and truthful remarks from September 12), but the atheists who run the New York Times editorial page aren't satisfied.

USA Today is blaming the Pope for the Islamist firebombing of churches in Palestine and the murder of a Catholic nun at a women and children's hospital in Somalia. An Iraqi group called the Pope the "dog of Rome" and threatened to "break your crosses in your home" and send suicide bombers to murder people at the Vatican.

In a September 18 editorial headlined, "Pope's words spark violence," USA Today appeared to urge self-censorship on the part of Western leaders so as not to offend the Islamists.

Oddly and encouragingly, European leaders are lining up behind the Pope. German Chancellor Angela Merkel strongly defended him. And a lot of Muslim leaders out there staying cool about the controversy.

Even the radical Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), fresh with its new coat of moderate rhetorical camouflage, didn't do its typically hysterical rant. Instead, it urged that Catholics and Muslims use the opportunity to have a "dialogue."

The editors of New York's Gray Old Lady and the McPaper just don't seem to get it.

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