| Sunday September 24, 2006 The Associated Press |
CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday praised an Italian nun for pardoning her killers as she lay dying from an attack that was may have been linked to Muslim anger over his remarks about Islam and violence.
Benedict spoke to pilgrims at his Castel Gandolfo summer palace, where on Monday he is to meet with ambassadors from predominantly Muslim countries in a bid to defuse tensions that emerged from his Sept. 12 speech in his native Germany.
Rosa Sgorbati, an Italian missionary who worked in a pediatric hospital in Somalia under the religious name Sister Leonella, was slain in Mogadishu Sept. 17. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack, which came hours after a leading Somali cleric condemned the pope’s remarks.
Witnesses said she muttered the words “I forgive, I forgive,” in Italian after being shot.
“This nun … died pronouncing the world ‘pardon,'” the pope told pilgrims during his traditional Sunday noon appearance. “This is the most authentic Christian testimony … which shows the victory of love over hate and evil.”
In his address at the University of Regensburg in Germany, Benedict cited the words of a Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as “evil and inhuman,” particularly “his command to spread by the sword the faith.”
Benedict has said he was deeply sorry his remarks, which did not reflect his own opinion, offended Muslims.
Amid fury in the Islamic world, the Vatican also ordered papal representatives around the world to meet with leaders of Muslim countries to explain the pope’s point of view and the context of his speech.
Source: AP, Sept 24, 2006
