April 13, 2008
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/Pope at Ground Zero to call for terrorists to convert to Christianity
This is likely to cause immense outrage among Muslims, but consider this: most of the time the party line is that the terrorists are hardly Muslims at all, but are perverting and twisting and hijacking a peaceful religion. I have seen many Muslim spokesmen in the West loudly say that they don't have to apologize for the deeds of the terrorists, because the terrorists aren't true Muslims. So if they aren't, why is this a big deal (as it almost certainly will be)? But I expect that there will be expressions of outrage that the Pope is praying for the conversion to Christianity of any Muslim -- suddenly, the terrorists will turn out to be Muslim after all.
"Pope will pray for terrorists at Ground Zero," by Malcolm Moore in the Telegraph (thanks to Zeus):
The Pope will pray for the redemption of Islamic terrorists when he visits the site of the September 11 attacks in New York next week. The pontiff will call for terrorists to convert to Christianity, saying: "Turn to Your way of love those whose hearts and minds are consumed with hatred.
"God of understanding, overwhelmed by the magnitude of this tragedy, we seek your light and guidance".
The prayer is likely to further incense the Muslim world, which has already attacked the Pope for publicly converting Magdi Allam, a journalist and one of Italy's most high-profile Muslims, at Easter.
Osama bin Laden accused the Pope of trying to provoke "a new crusade" against Islam.
Aref Ali Nayed, a leading scholar and proponent of peaceful relations between the Roman Catholic Church and Islam, said that there were "genuine questions about the motives, intentions and plans of some of the Pope's advisers on Islam".
He said that religious conversion should not be "made into a triumphalist tool for scoring points"....