Pope to host Catholic-Muslim forum

Summary: The leaders of the Christian religion and the Islam religion are getting together to create and improve the harsh relations that sometimes occur between these two religions. They have agreed to establish and official dialogue to help make this happen. At the first meeting, some of the themes that will be discussed are about loving god and your neighbor, spiritual foundation, and human dignity and respect. These themes will be addressed by the Pope. More than two hundred Muslims signed an appeal to the Pope to begin this dialogue. However, when Pope Benedict XVI delivered a lecture in Germany, the Muslims took his words to mean that Islam was, “violent and irrational.” Due to this misunderstanding, Muslims from all over protested and the pope tried to apologize many times. But in the end, even though the pope expressed regret many times, he never really gave the proper apology that the Muslims wanted.
Reaction: This article shows how there will always be conflicts, even if they are minor ones. This specific conflict has to deal with the AP World History theme of interaction between cultures. It shows the interaction between Christians and Muslims and how some things may be interpreted differently or misunderstood. However, this interaction was also a good thing because it led to the flow of ideas to make things easier to improve some harsh relations.
History: The history of this conflict starts from when the crusades happened. The crusades created a fight between the U.S. and the Muslims to see which religion was better. From then on there was an ongoing disagreement about which was a better religion.
Point of View and how it affects what is being written: This article was written by an outside source, however they seemed to lean more towards Muslim views by the way the article was written. The point of view affects what is being written because it can create some kind of bias. In this article, the author seems to be in favor of the Muslims.
Missing Voice: I would like to hear from a regular, everyday Christian to hear what they know about the Muslims and the history that there is about their religion. This will help clear up any misunderstandings like the Muslims thinking that the pope was saying that they were violent and irrational. It would also be helpful to hear from some of the leaders that were present during the meetings that decided to create this official dialogue. This would give us an insight to what went on in that meeting that was fact and not from and outside source of what they think went on in that meeting.
What I thought about this article: I thought that this article showed how even the smallest things can be interpreted the wrong way and can change plans that may have helped our future peace between these religions. I thought that it was a little childish how the pope didn’t give a real apology and I wondered why he couldn’t. Was it because that is what he actually meant? And I think that more people should investigate and learn about their history with other religions and cultures and watch what they say, even if it is the smallest comment.