: Frail Pope Calls for Peace in Muslim Azerbaijan

With his physical weakness in full view, Pope John Paul II made an unprecedented trip last week to Azerbaijan as part of a whirlwind tour of Central Asia (widely assumed to be one of his last). In addition to addressing that country’s tiny Catholic community, the Pope pleaded for Muslims to reject fundamentalism, acknowledging religious tensions there. “Everyone must be committed to peace, but it must be true peace, based on the pursuit of dialogue as the only effective means of resolving tensions,” he said. Before his trip, the Pope had criticized Muslims for imposing their religious laws on Christians in Nigeria, and said that everyone in Nigeria should enjoy the freedom of religious expression and should be equal before the law, regardless of their beliefs. But character advice goes both ways – by the time he returned to the Vatican, President George Bush was on hand to discuss recent sex abuse scandals, despite earlier assurances not to bring it up. Ooops.

Zahed Amanullah is associate editor of altmuslim.com.  He is based in London, England.