The Pope's speech (link)

[fpb]

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg_en.html

Scientists and philosophers appreciated it.
Howling mobs of fanatics hated what they could understand of it.
(This suggests that a lot of LJers will hate what they can understand of it.)

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, there have been practically no big noises in Europe, America and Australia. Either the local Muslims are worried that they pushed our patience too much already, or they know (and I like to think this may be the case) that the Church is not hostile to them.

[goreism.livejournal.com]

I'm also suspicious of the reports that say a prominent so-and-so in Mogadishu or whatever has condemned the Pope. I sort of wonder how many of these people are nutters with no real following.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Um. Considering that, 1) the Islamic judges run the town and much of the country now, and 2) that someone just murdered an elderly Italian nun who was working in the local hospital for no reason, I suspect there is rather more to that than you imagine.

[ccord.livejournal.com]

Considering how quickly it seems that the reaction came into effect in such a miraculously well-organized fashion (one would normally expect it to take a few weeks for a German-to-Arabic translation of a complex theological speech to become widely available), one might wonder if certain parties in positions of influence and trust were providing large audiences with creative summaries of the Pope's speech for their own reasons.

But perhaps I simply have an overly Machiavellian mind. :-)