Such incidents provide untold joy to watch how they unfold.

An embattled Vatican has launched a damage limitation exercise, 72 hours after Pope Benedict XVI set off a storm in the Muslim world and beyond with comments that appeared to criticise Prophet Mohammed, the concept of jihad and apparent lack of rationality in the Islamic faith.

What amuses me more in this whole affair is, in short order:

• A courageous attempt by the Ratzinger to call a spade by its name
• The predictable wail by the usual suspects whose propensity to yell Islam in danger! is becoming a daily occurrence
• A subsequent retraction of said courageous attempt, a further acceptance of the superiority of Mob Fury

Such fun.

If the Pope, for all his pretensions of “interfaith dialogue,” or his intention to awaken the Christian world to the Islamic threat has no moral standing in either case; definitely not when he thinks he’s above any independent nation’s Constitution.

His waxy eloquence on the Evil of conversion by force holds no buyers for while he’s busy quoting some scholar on a medieval King who criticized Islam, Ratzinger’s faithful followers are busy harvesting souls in the large swaths of the wretched Third World. Sometimes, the sickle used for such soul-harvesting paves way for secessionist ideas: our very own North-East. Ratzinger’s lecture also excluded certain uncomfortable historical facts about Christianity: the mass murders, pillaging, wiping out entire native populations… all pious deeds no doubt, in the service of our Only Lord.

If you’ve not read it already, here’s the full text of the Pope’s recent lecture that has caused such furore in the Islamic world. Read it if you want to bored to death.

The historical battle between the two Religions of the Book isn’t in a hurry to stop soon. Only, Christianity today is too emaciated to face Islam, a far cry from its might in its heydays.

I have no support for the Pope invoking that criticism of Islam, nor sympathy for the worldwide Islamic thuggery it has provoked. For a very simple reason: both Islam and Christianity have caused immense misery to the world and continue to do so.

Meanwhile, here’s a parting laugh:

In Pakistan, the Vatican envoy was summoned to the foreign office…

That was pretty tame; I expected to read that the envoy was banished from Pakistan or worse, bumped off.

Related Links: A Toady NYT Oped | And a Superb Retort to it plus a nice analysis of the Islamic Reaction

Postscript: I’m waiting for similar toady pieces to grace our secular newspapers and blogs.