Pope offends Islamic cleric

TURKEY’S top Islamic cleric asked the Pope to take back recent remarks he made about Islam and unleashed a string of counteraccusations against the Christian Church yesterday, raising tensions ahead of the pontiff’s visit to Turkey in November, his first to a Muslim country.

Religious Affairs Directorate Ali Bardakoglu, a cleric who sets the religious agenda for 99% Muslim but secular Turkey, said he was deeply offended by the Pope’s remarks on Islamic holy war, calling them “extraordinarily worrying, saddening and unfortunate”.

Bardakoglu said that “if the Pope was reflecting the spite, hatred and enmity” of others in the Christian Church, then the situation was even worse.