The following is the text of Pope Benedict XVI's remarks about his remarks causing offence to Muslims in his 12 September speech in the Bavarian city of Regensburg.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The pastoral visit which I recently made to Bavaria was a deep spiritual experience, bringing together personal memories linked to places well known to me and pastoral initiatives towards an effective proclamation of the Gospel for today.
I thank God for the interior joy which he made possible, and I am also grateful to all those who worked hard for the success of this Pastoral Visit.
As is the custom, I will speak more of this during next Wednesday's general audience.
At this time, I wish also to add that 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.
These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought.
Yesterday, the Cardinal Secretary of State published a statement in this regard in which he explained the true meaning of my words.
I hope that this serves to appease hearts and to clarify the true meaning of my address, which in its totality was and is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect.
Muslim leaders in the Middle East today demanded real apologies from Pope Benedict XVI for insulting remarks about Islam.
Mahmoud Ashour, the former deputy of Cairo's Al-Azhar, the Sunni Arab world's most powerful institution, said the Pope's "apology" for Muslim reactions was not enough.
"He should apologise because he insulted the beliefs of Islam," Ashour told Al-Arabiya TV. "He must apologise in a frank way and say he made a mistake."
Pope Benedict XVI's statement that he regretted causing any offence to Muslims fell short of an apology, Islamic groups said, as Morocco became the first Muslim country to recall its Vatican ambassador over the Pope's remarks.
Morocco's foreign ministry announced that its ambassador would be recalled effective from Sunday for consultation on the instructions of King Mohammed VI after "offensive remarks about Islam and Muslims made by Pope Benedict XVI at Regensburg University on September 12".
The head of the Roman Catholic Church on Saturday said he "sincerely regretted" that he may have offended Muslims, but stopped short of retracting his words.
The Muslim world seethed with fury over the Pope's comments, which critics said linked violence and Islam. Reacting to the Pope's statement, Muslim groups in Egypt said Benedict had not been sufficiently contrite.
"This is not an apology. The Vatican secretary seems content to confirm that the Pope is sorry because his remarks were misinterpreted. But they were not misinterpreted," said Abdel Moneim Abul Futuh, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood group.
"The Pope made a mistake, he must recognise it and apologise," he added.
It is really strange by the way that the Pope started citing a Christian Orthodox Byzantine Emperor, an arch-enemy of the Roman Catholic Church, a "heretic" for every Catholic, in positive terms and approving some angry remarks made by the Emperor during a Christian-Islamic War.
The whole Regensburg lecture of the Pope concerns Christianity and the influence of Hellenization (paganism), which is a positive ideology for the Pope, on Christianity. The words of the Emperor quoted and approved by the Pope are at the very beginning of the lecture and have nothing to do with its main subject. The impression is that the Pope specially added these paragraphs to his lecture to insult Islam.
Moreover, the Muslim world with two of its countries---Iraq and Afghanistan-- directly occupied by Western troops does not need to be reminded of the language of the Crusades. In the Western world suffering from environmental degradation, poverty, hunger, repression, the Pope chooses to insult the rival religion.
Agencies
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