Silent majority

What's wrong with this picture? Pope Benedict XVI quotes a 14th-century conversation between a Byzantine emperor and a Persian scholar decrying Mohammed's command to "spread by the sword the faith he preached." The next thing we know, three Christian churches in the Holy Land are burned and a Catholic nun is killed in Somalia ("Pope's Islam Quote Prompts Outrage," Sept. 16). To mollify the world's Muslims, the pope apologizes.

Who do we look to for apologies for the murder of Sister Leonella Sgorbati, age 65, who spent her adult life caring for children in Africa? I'm tired of hearing that only a small percentage of Muslims hate the West. Why don't the "silent majority" of Muslims stand up, be counted and publicly and aggressively condemn those Muslims who in fact are trying to "spread by the sword the faith [they] preach"?

Maybe they're also afraid of their militant brethren. Maybe the pope called a spade a spade.

MALVIN SANDER
Peters

Point proved?

Just a small note on the apology of the pope: After he made his statement on Islam, wasn't it proved with the damage to some churches and, possibly, the killing of the nun and her bodyguard in Africa?

BERNICE PELLES
Munhall

Violence tolerated

Who hasn't seen news coverage of young Arab men screaming in the streets over alleged religious improprieties? This time it is over comments by the pope; a while back it was over political cartoons in a Danish newspaper.

What these grimly distorted Arab faces show is a closed and intolerant culture whose answer to all problems is the same: violence and death. Why is the Muslim world not called to account for exhibiting a ridiculous moral "double standard"? For example, how can millions of Arab Muslims be so morally incensed over seemingly minor issues that physically harm no Muslim, yet remain mute concerning the Muslim-killing-Muslim death spree running rampant in Iraq?

We have not failed in Iraq; the failure is the Arab-Muslim society and culture that is so hateful and intolerant that Iraqi Muslims can't stop slaughtering fellow Muslims.

In the face of growing terrorism toward the West and internal violence within its own borders, the Muslim world's refusal to address those issues shows that the dark comments made by the pope are demonstratively true. Who by now does not understand that the Muslim world accepts violence, oppression and death as being justified in its righteous pursuit to rule the world through religion?

WILLIAM McCARTHY
West Mifflin