As a Zionist Crusader myself, I am happy to welcome the Pope into the ranks of the Zionists.
“Pope’s comments on Islam unite Iraqis” — wow, George W. Bush should offer the Pope a cabinet post for that. Nothing else has managed to accomplish this so far. From AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Often divided by religious differences,
Iraq’s Shiite and Sunni Arabs united Friday in anger over remarks by
Pope Benedict XVI referring to Islam and holy war.Clerics from both communities, which are locked in a vicious cycle of reprisal attacks that have killed thousands of Iraqis, called the pontiff’s comments an insult to the Muslim faith and its founder, Prophet Muhammad.
“We denounce this slander made by the pope on Islam and the figure of the Prophet Muhammad,” Sheik Salah al-Ubaidi said in a sermon to about 5,000 people in the Shiite Muslim-stronghold of Kufa, about 100 miles south of Baghdad.
“It is the second assault made on Islam and the prophet. Last year, and in the same month, the Danish cartoon assaulted Islam,” he said, referring to caricatures of Muhammad published in a Danish newspaper that set off sometimes violent Muslim protests around the globe.
Yes. And it looks as if the reaction will be just as irrational and violent as Global Cartoon Rage.
At the Abdul-Qadir al-Gilani mosque in central Baghdad, Sunni cleric Mahmoud al-Isawi’s sermon described the pope’s comment as a “Western aggressive attack” that was “clearly showing its hatred toward our Islamic religion.”
Shiite cleric Sheik Abdul-Kareem al-Ghazi, in Iraq’s second-largest city, Basra, said the pope’s comments ran counter to the Christian faith.
“The pope and Vatican proved to be Zionists and that they are far from Christianity, which does not differ from Islam. Both religions call for forgiveness, love and brotherhood,” he said in a sermon delivered at the offices of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, where many people gather for religious services.
“Christianity does not differ from Islam,” that is, in its Qur’anic form, which rejects the doctrine that Jesus is the Son of God and says that those who hold it are under Allah’s curse (9:30). From the Islamic perspective, true Christianity is identical to Islam; it just doesn’t happen to exist anywhere in the world today.
Al-Ghazi challenged Benedict or any other senior Vatican official to a debate, saying he would be willing to convert to Christianity if the pontiff managed to convince him of his views.
Well, I don’t work in the Vatican, but I myself would be happy to debate you, Al-Ghazi.