Pope should have taken a balanced approach

YOU’D have to wonder what Pope Benedict had in mind when writing the controversial address he delivered at Regensburg last week.

It’s hard to believe anyone of even moderate intelligence would fail to see it was likely to cause grave offence to Muslims.

Indeed, considering the fact that the Vatican library must house acres of archives on the Crusades, the Inquisition, the burning of heretics and so on, it’s strange he should choose to bypass all this evidence of religious intolerance from earlier times in order to find an obscure quote from a 14th century Byzantine emperor to damn the Prophet Mohammed.