Word: benedicts
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...Behind Benedict's Vatican Overhaul Though eyes are on his trip home, the Pope is (gradually) launching big changes back in the Roman Curia
...Excerpts from Pope Benedict XVI's Speech Given at the University of Regensburg on Sept...
...then it swelled once more. Pope Benedict seemed to revive it last week, with the help of an old -- make that a very old -- friend. He cited Manuel II Paleologus, the emperor of Byzantium from 1391 to 1425, who in a ?dialog? with ?an educated Persian? said: "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.? Benedict then paraphrased Manuel's complaint using the explicit phrase ?forced conversion...
...hands of either the blogs or Benedict, however, the forced-conversion argument may be a little...forced...
...possible that Benedict has misconstrued what Manuel meant about Islam's being spread by the sword. The ancient emperor may have been alluding not to sword's-edge conversion, but merely (if "merely" is the right word) to Islam's early intent to conquer the world, whose inhabitants would eventually come around to the true faith of their own accord. In that case, it?s probably accurate. That was the plan in the first generations after Mohammed, and that may be enough to scare anyone who thinks that it has been sustained since then...