Pope, visiting Turkey, urges religious freedom

Consider that the Muslim nation hosting the pope was a formerly Christian land brutally conquered by Muslim armies, culminating with the siege and bloody aftermath of Constantinople in 1453. Thousands of people were slaughtered, most in their homes. Women and children were raped and taken as slaves. Even the Grand Duke was executed along with his family after he refused his 14-year-old son to the sexual avarices of the Muslim conqueror, Mehmed II. Needless to say, churches and priceless Christian artifacts were destroyed.

Muslims do not apologize for such crimes. Neither do they apologize for or even acknowledge the Turkish slaughter of over a million Armenian Christians in the early part of the 20th century. In fact, Turkey has laws that prohibit the genocide from even being spoken of.

To this day, the pope’s host does not allow full property rights to Non-Muslims. Priests and ordinary laypeople in Turkey are heavily discriminated against and occasionally murdered in the name of Islam. Two Christians are currently on trial for sharing their faith openly.

Certainly there is a lot that the media could be telling us instead of repeating the same message that Muslims are angry at the Pope. We suspect that if the rest of the story were given equal billing, then reasonable people would realize that if the burden of apology falls anywhere, it is on those responsible for the actual history to which the pope’s remarks merely served to recognize.