Pope Takes Unprecedented Steps to Heal Rift with Muslim Envoy Meeting

The Pope is to take unprecedented steps to defuse the potential crisis with the worldwide Muslim community. Pope Benedict XVI, the head of the Catholic Church will look to heal the conflict with Islam in a meeting with an envoy from Muslim nations.

The meeting will aim at reconciliation after recent remarks made by the Pope caused outrage in the Muslim world.

|PIC1|Since the comments were made, Pope Benedict has publicly announced that he regrets any offence caused and expressed his "deep respect" for Islam.

Muslim leaders across the globe have been demanding an unequivocal apology from the Pope.

However, EU Commission President Jose Manuel Durao Barroso has defended the Pope, saying more European leaders should have supported him.

"I was disappointed there were not more European leaders who said: 'Naturally, the Pope has the right to express his views'," Mr Barroso was quoted as saying in an interview with Germany's Die Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

"The problem is not the comments of the Pope but the reactions of the extremists."

The proposed reconciliatory talks will be held at the Pope's residence near Rome, and will include the head of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, Cardinal Paul Poupard, and Islamic representatives in Italy, as well as Muslim ambassadors to the Vatican, report the BBC.

Envoys from Iran, Turkey and Morocco have all confirmed they will attend the important interreligious meeting.

The Pope has requested his top Vatican advisers be present at the discussions which will open with a speech that he has been writing during the weekend, says the BBC.

Cardinal Poupard said that the meeting was "a signal that the Holy Father's call for a dialogue between cultures and religion has been widely welcomed".

Further controversy was sparked among religious leaders last week when the Pope, hoping to heal the rift, commented that both Christians and Muslims worship the same God.

On Sunday, the pontiff said he was "deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg" in Germany.

In addition, on Wednesday, he addressed pilgrims at the Vatican that his remarks in Bavaria last week had been "misunderstood".

He said his use of a quote from a 14th-Century Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologos, was not meant to reflect his personal opinion, nor the opinion of the Catholic Church.

The quote stated: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

The Pope, in fact, said his real intention had been to "explain that religion and violence do not go together, but religion and reason do".