Fall on your knees to the children of hate

``The pope should fall on his knees before a senior Muslim cleric and try to understand Islam," said Ahmad Khatami, an influential cleric in the Iranian holy city of Qom, according to television and wire service reports.

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Without a true apology, Khatami warned, ``Muslim outcries will continue until he fully regrets his remarks."

Sporadic violence and protests against the pope continued in Islamic lands, with a Catholic nun shot dead in Somalia, churches set ablaze in the Palestinian West Bank, and hard-line Muslim clerics denouncing Benedict as an enemy of Islam.

Two more churches were set ablaze yesterday in the Palestinian West Bank by Muslims protesting the pope's comments about Islam.
In Qom, Muslim theological schools were officially closed so that students could protest against the pope.

In the Somali capital, Mogadishu, Muslim gunmen killed an Italian nun at a children's hospital, although it was not immediately clear whether the killing was linked to the furor over the pope's remarks. Sister Leonella Sgorbati, a nun from the Missionaries of Consolation, died on a surgical table after being shot in the chest, stomach, and back. Her bodyguard was also killed.

A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told Italy's ANSA news agency that he hoped the killing of the nun might be an isolated event.

``But we are worried about the consequences of this wave of hatred," he said. ``We hope it doesn't have grave consequences for churches around the world."

And from the statement from Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state:

On this point, it is worth recalling what Benedict XVI himself recently affirmed in his commemorative message for the 20th anniversary of the Interreligious Meeting of Prayer for Peace, initiated by his predecessor John Paul II at Assisi in October 1986: " ... demonstrations of violence cannot be attributed to religion as such but to the cultural limitations with which it is lived and develops in time. ... In fact, attestations of the close bond that exists between the relationship with God and the ethics of love are recorded in all great religious traditions."

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I don't think the mohotmets will like the "cultural limitations with which it is
lived and develops in time" part.

What are we seeing here? Give a child guns and bombs, an adult body, and a shriveled
capacity to cope and you would perhaps get this type of response.

Are these the folks you would care to be friends with? Enjoy discussions
with? Find a common ground for praising God with?

It has been said before and is being daily proved. This is not a clash of
civilizations, but a defense of civilization. It is likely to be very painful,
and all in God's good time.