By BRIAN MURPHY
ANKARA, Turkey Nov 28, 2006 (AP)— Pope Benedict XVI began his first visit to a Muslim country Tuesday by urging all religious leaders to "utterly refuse" to support any violence in the name of faith, but he expressed worry that the risks of more conflicts and terrorism were growing in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Benedict, speaking to diplomats in the Turkish capital, said "recent developments in terrorism and in certain regional conflicts" highlight the need for strong and effective international efforts, including peacekeeping forces in violence-wracked places such as Lebanon.
The pontiff also urged dialogue and "brotherhood" between faiths, while Turkey's chief Islamic cleric said at a joint appearance that growing "Islamophobia" hurts all Muslims.
In calling for religious leaders to "utterly refuse" any form of violence in the name of faith, Benedict carefully avoided a direct reference to Islam, but he said the "disturbing" conflicts in the world show "no sign of abating."
"I am thinking of the risk of peripheral conflicts multiplying and terrorist actions spreading," the pontiff added, but did not cite specific locations or groups.
The pope called on all religious leaders to reject attempts to wield political power and called on them to "utterly refuse to sanction recourse to violence as a legitimate expression of religion."
Benedict also said guarantees of religious freedom are essential for a just society comments that risked bringing the Vatican into conflict with some
Islamic nations that allow only Muslims to worship openly or impose restrictions on religious minorities. The views could be reinforced later during the four-day visit when the pope meets in Istanbul with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians.
The pope is expected to call for greater rights and protections for Christian minorities in the Muslim world, including for the tiny Greek Orthodox community in Turkey. With only some 30,000 Roman Catholics in a nation of some 72 million Muslims, the trip lacked the pageantry of a usual papal pilgrimage. With fear for the pope's safety, only one open air event is planned during the four-day trip with all other events in heavily guarded buildings.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2684589"With such a long history of separation, you cannot move in a big jump," Archbishop Demetrius, head of the Greek Orthodox Church in the United States, told Reuters. "You need a methodical, step-by-step approach."
Benedict, who represents 1.1 billion Catholics worldwide, must also consider factors such as Turkey's suspicion of the Ecumenical Patriarch, tensions with the Russian Orthodox Church and the role of Catholic churches in Eastern Europe.
Turkey, a mainly Muslim but secular state, suspects the patriarch of aiming to create a "little Vatican" in Istanbul, which as Constantinople was capital of the Byzantine Empire until the Ottoman conquest in 1453.
Turkish officials avoid using the word "ecumenical" and usually refer to Bartholomew as the bishop of Fener, the old Greek quarter where his compound stands. The state closed the patriarchate's seminary on Halki Island off Istanbul in 1971.There is also a polite rivalry between Bartholomew, the "first among equals" among Orthodox bishops, and the patriarch of the large Russian Orthodox Church, which has been renewing contacts abroad since the end of Soviet communism in 1991.
Benedict is also negotiating to meet Moscow's Patriarch Alexiy, whose church recognises Bartholomew's symbolic role but disputes his function as a spokesman for worldwide Orthodoxy.
Orthodox churches are joined in a loose union, rather than Catholicism's rigid hierarchy.
As Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew has a prestigious title but directly presides over only about 3,000 Greek Orthodox left in Istanbul.
Before stopping at the Blue Mosque, Benedict will visit the nearby Aya Sofya, which was once Christianity's largest church known by its Greek name Hagia Sophia (Church of Holy Wisdom).
On conquering the city in 1453, Sultan Mehmet went to the church and prayed, turning it into a mosque. As part of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's drive to modernise Turkey, it was secularised and turned into a museum in 1934.
Nationalist and Islamist Turks will be watching to see if Benedict commits the unlikely faux pas of praying in the museum. Pope Paul VI did so in 1967, causing a diplomatic incident, but Pope John Paul II did not when he was there in 1979.
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