Pope sorry for comment: Vatican

Rome: Pope Benedict XVI told Muslims on Saturday that he was sorry they had found his speech on Islam offensive, expressing his respect for their faith and hoping they would understand the "true sense" of his words.

"The Holy Father is very sorry that some passages of his speech may have sounded offensive to the sensibilities of Muslim believers," Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said in a statement.

On September 13, the Pope quoted from a book recounting a conversation between a 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and an educated Persian on the truths of Christianity and Islam. ''The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war,'' the pope said. ''He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Mohammed 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," he quoted the emperor as saying.

The statement came amid mounting anger from Muslims over remarks by the Pope in a speech in his native Germany on Tuesday that was seen as critical of their faith.

Calls for him to apologise had spread beyond the Islamic world. In that speech, the Pope appeared to endorse a Christian view, contested by most Muslims, that the early Muslims spread their religion by violence.

Islamic fury erupted on Thursday and has cast doubt on a visit the Pope plans to Turkey in November. But the Vatican statement said: "Confirming his respect and esteem for those who profess the Islamic faith, he (the Pope) hopes they will be helped to understand his words in their true sense."

Before the statement, the tide of Muslim criticism of the Roman Catholic leader swelled on Saturday.

Yemen's President became the first head of state publicly to denounce him and threatened to review ties with the Vatican unless he apologised. Ali Abdullah Saleh, campaigning for re-election, told voters at a rally Benedict had wronged Islam.

Two churches - neither of them Catholic - were fire-bombed in the West Bank, although no one was hurt. But Chancellor Angela Merkel and other German politicians defended his comments, saying he had been misunderstood.

"It was an invitation to dialogue between religions, she told the mass-circulation Bild newspaper in an interview. "What Benedict XVI emphasised was a decisive and uncompromising renunciation of all forms of violence in the name of religion."

"He should apologise to Muslims," the president of the German Council of Muslims, Ayyub Axel Koehler, told the Neue Presse newspaper on Saturday.

"That would be a contribution towards unwinding the tension and creating clarity." Support for that view came from the New York Times, which said in an editorial on Saturday he must issue a "deep and persuasive" apology for quotes used in his speech.

"The world listens carefully to the words of any pope. And it is tragic and dangerous when one sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly," it said.

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"He needs to offer a deep and persuasive apology, demonstrating that words can also heal." The Pope on Tuesday repeated criticism of the Prophet Mohammad by the 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything Mohammad brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".

The Pope, who used the terms "jihad" and "holy war" in his lecture, added "violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul".

Muslim figures continued to assail those comments. "How can (the Pope) imply that Muslims are the creators of terrorism in the world while it is the followers of Christianity who have aggressed against every country of the Islamic world?" prominent Saudi cleric Salman al-Odeh said.

"Who attacked Afghanistan and who invaded Iraq? ... The Pope's statements are an attempt to put a religious cover on injustice and political aggression practised by the American administration against Muslims."

Turkey's nationalist paper Vatan quoted Salih Kapusuz, head of the ruling Justice and Development Party's parliamentary group as saying: "The mentality of the Crusades has returned. (Benedict) will go down in history in the same category as leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini."

But Turkey's English-language Daily News, while deploring the Pope's comments, said: "We just disagree with this vendetta-like approach of continuing to abuse the Pope after his spokesman made a statement saying that he respected Islam and did not intend to offend Muslims."