I have two points, one is an aside to the point of the article itself and the second quite clearly demonstrates perhaps that the Pontiff's comment was not only intended, but may likely have been necessary!

- you refer to the church's "acquiesence" in the horrors of Nazi Germany, this is a topic not only deserving of an entire article, but of books, your recitiation of it as fact in an article critical of the Vatican on a completely separate subject is noteworthy to say the least.

- please cite recent examples of terrorist acts in the name of Catholicsim. Perhaps the entire point was to elicit some moderate voice to rise amongst Islam and denounce the atrocities ascribed in its name worldwide. Perhaps it is Islam that shgould join the 21st century and be capable of accepting criticism of Allah, Muhammed and any other figure of the church without immediately stirring murderous oppositional outrage, but I think you make that point quite well enough yourself:

An elderly Catholic nun has already been killed in Somalia, perhaps in retaliation for the pope's remarks; churches have been attacked in the West Bank. How is this papal stupidity going to play out in countries such as Nigeria, where the tensions between Catholics and Muslims frequently flare into riots and death? Or other countries such as Pakistan, where tiny Catholic communities are already beleaguered? Or the Muslim minorities in Catholic countries such as the Philippines -- how comfortable do they feel this week?

I'd say the bankruptcy of the Church is demonstrated by this latest mess.

Except that you have people like Pastor Hagy (sp?) in the US, head of a non-denominational evangelical church, who has a lot of influence in the Bush administration, and who is convinced of the imminence of the Rapture, and the Second Coming, and is just positive the prophesies of Revelations are coming true as I type.

I'd say that kind of craziness also represents bankruptcy..except that Hagy has a giant church, and all that influence..

Between guys like Hagy and guys like the current Pope, religion is looking like a very, VERY bad survival adaptation. That is, if you want a nice, peaceful, affluent life. If you're trying to survive in a brutal pre-historic world though, belief in craziness gives your DNA a better chance of making it into the next generation.

When, WHEN are we going to use these beautiful forebrains to finally renounce the insanity of religion? When? Probably never. The forebrain serves the hindbrain, and therein lies the problem.

Imagine, for a moment, a world without religion, where we all understand that this is the only life we get, that there is no heaven, there is no hell, there is no afterlife, there is no God. There is only us, on this tiny planet in this uncaring cosmos. I think life would be MUCH more rewarding...I suspect we'd all be a lot kinder to each other, knowing that this little flash of existence is all we get. We get one time around the track...and we are stardust again.

A world without any religion whatever would be a marvelous place. Better than any heaven. But we will never experience it. Because of fear. because of laziness...because of our fucking DNA. So to speak.

There's a lot of letters here setting up straw men and knocking them down.

The article suggested that the Pope knew exactly what he was doing when he made those comments and, probably, knew what the effect was likely to be. Sounds plausible to me. The article did NOT attempt to justify any violent response by Moslems.

While I have cringed and cried over the poor choices that Pope Benedict has made during this issue, I must point out that the Catholic church is not the only church with a bigoted past.

I define myself as an accidental Catholic but Catholic I am indeed. And I also consider myself a progressive thinker. The two are not mutually exclusive, as Marilyn Bunting would have us think.

However, can we focus on the real issue of Benedict's decidely bad timing to say something extremely insensitive and not have this be another moment of public Catholic bashing, which is what it appears to be.

I certainly wish that certain elements of the Muslim community would stop feeling the urge to take to the streets and burn effigies at the slightest hint of insult to their faith. I also wish the editors of Salon would stop feeling the urge to publish any article that trots out the same tired allegations about the Catholic church.

P.S. Has Ms. Bunting ever heard the rejoinder, "is the Pope Catholic?"

Back in the 1950's (yes, I am that old!), the old Baltimore Catechism stated that the Roman Catholic church was The One, True, Holy and Apostolic Church, that everything else was a pale imitation of The One Church and that apart from The One Church, there was no salvation. Then came Vatican II and much of the above statement was erased. In the traditional Roman Catholic countries, the Roman Catholic church would prefer to have the same social status that Islam holds in the traditional Muslim countries and the attitude of the Vatican has always reflected that preference. It is rather obvious that the ardently devout of each of every faith (Roman Catholic, the other Christian faiths, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and so on and so forth) would prefer that their faith be the predominate faith for the entire world. It is also rather obvious that a worldwide conversion to one faith is not likely to happen anytime soon. However, this does not stop the ardently faithful of dreaming about that moment.

Putting aside the tired, British, anti-Catholic tone of the entire article, did you not read these lines:

"Even the most cursory knowledge of dialogue with Islam teaches -- and as a Vatican cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI would have learned this long ago -- that reverence for the Prophet is non-negotiable. What unites all Muslims is a passionate devotion and commitment to protecting the honor of Mohammed."

It sure sounds like Ms Bunting is putting forth an excuse for Muslim violence here, isn't she? Or is there some hidden sentence in her article where she takes Muslim to task? Hmmm, didn't think so.....