Religion a force for unity, Pope tells Muslims
Pontiff urges Muslims and Christians to come together as 'worshippers of God'
Amman - Pope Benedict XVI yesterday condemned the 'ideological manipulation of religion' in a speech to Muslim leaders in Jordan, as he pressed for inter-faith reconciliation.
Religion should be a force for unity, not division, he told his audience, which included Christian prelates, in Amman's huge Al-Hussein Mosque on the second day of his tour of the Holy Land.
On his first visit to an Arab country as pontiff, he urged Muslims and Christians to unite as faithful 'worshippers of God' because of 'the burden of our common history' that has often been marked by misunderstanding.
The Pope was eager to mend ties with the Muslim world after a 2006 address in Regensburg, Germany, in which he quoted a mediaeval Christian emperor who criticised some teachings of Prophet Muhammad as 'evil and inhuman'.
In his speech, the Pope acknowledged that 'tensions and divisions' between followers of different faiths exist.
He noted, however, that it is often the 'ideological manipulation of religion, sometimes for political ends, that is the real catalyst for tensions and divisions - and at times even violence - in society'.
The Pope, who expressed his 'deep respect' for Islam on Friday, fell short of a full apology yesterday. But Prince Ghazni bin Mohammed, the top religious adviser and cousin to Jordan's King Abdullah II, said the Muslim world 'appreciated' the Vatican's clarification and accepted that the Pope was not expressing his own opinion in 2006 but making a historical citation.
He also praised the Pope for his 'friendly gestures and kindly actions towards Muslims' since then.
In one section of his address at the mosque, Pope Benedict referred to God as 'merciful and compassionate', using the formula Muslims use when speaking of God.
Mr Ibrahim Kalin, a spokesman for Common Word, a group of Muslim scholars promoting dialogue with Christians, said the Pope's speech yesterday would not erase his Regensburg address from popular memory.
But he noted with approval that Pope Benedict had stressed that Muslims and Christians worshipped the same God.
Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said yesterday that the Pope did not remove his shoes or pray while in the mosque, as he did during his first visit to a mosque in Turkey in 2006.
Instead, he paused for 'a respectful moment of reflection'.
The Pope did not remove his shoes as his hosts did not ask him to, the spokesman explained.
Catholic conservatives criticised the Pope in 2006 after he prayed towards Mecca with the imam of a mosque in Istanbul.
The Pope arrived here on Friday on a Holy Land tour that will also take him to Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Earlier yesterday, he called for reconciliation between Christians and Jews during a speech at Mount Nebo, where the Bible says God showed the Promised Land to Moses.
'The ancient tradition of pilgrimage to the holy places also reminds us of the inseparable bond between the Church and the Jewish people,' he said.
'May of our encounters today inspire in us a renewed love for the canon of sacred scripture and a desire to overcome all obstacles to the reconciliation of Christians and Jews in mutual respect and cooperation.'
Israel and the Vatican have clashed recently over the papal decision to lift the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop and over moves to beatify Pope Pius XII.
AFP, AP, Reuters
