Vatican wants to defuse anti-Islamic rancour

Vatican City, Oct 13: Pope Benedict's right-hand man has said the Vatican is willing to do its part to help defuse anti-Islamic feeling that ''lurks in many hearts''.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state, made his comments in an article for the Italian Catholic monthly magazine ''30 Days'' about the controversy over the Pope's remarks about Islam last month.

''We have to defuse the anti-Islamic rancour that lurks in many hearts, even though the lives of many Christians are at risk,'' he said, according to an advance copy of the article due to be published in the next edition of the monthly.

Bertone did not elaborate, but the Vatican has made it known that it is worried about minority Christian communities in predominantly Islamic nations.

The article by Bertone, who took office last month and ranks second only to the Pope in the Vatican hierarchy, was the Vatican's latest attempt to calm relations with Islam over Benedict's speech, which they say was misunderstood.

In his September. 12 lecture at Regensburg University in his native Germany, the Pope quoted 14th-century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus who spoke of the Prophet Mohammad's ''command to spread by the sword the faith he preached''.

Bertone said the relationship between the Church and Islam had to be centred around ''the promotion of the dignity of every person and raising consciousness about the defence of human rights''.

But he said the Catholic Church could not give up the right to preach the Gospel ''even to Muslims'' as long as it was done in a way that respected freedom of religion.

Bertone said the Vatican would make the utmost use of its diplomatic missions in predominantly Muslim countries to help increase inter-religious understand and harmony.

He also said the Vatican wanted to strengthen its contacts with the Cairo-based Arab League and increase cultural and academic links between major Catholic universities and Islamic centres of learning.

In the past month the Pope has several times expressed regret for the reaction to the speech but he has stopped short of the unequivocal apology wanted by Muslims for the speech.

Some have accused him of undoing decades of bridge-building by his predecessor, Pope John Paul II.

He met ambassadors from predominantly Muslim countries and assured them he was committed to dialogue with Islam.

Church sources have said the Vatican's annual message to the Islamic world, to mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan due for late October, was being rewritten to address the tensions that arose after the Pope's lecture.

Reuters