Pope Benedict XVI said he was "deeply sorry" that Muslims were offended by his reference to a historical criticism of Islam, which he said does not reflect his own opinion.

The pope's remarks to pilgrims at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo Sept. 17 were his first public reaction to a wave of Muslim indignation over a university lecture he delivered in Germany.

"I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims," the pope said.

"These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought," he said.

The pope said he hoped his explanation and earlier Vatican statements would serve to "appease hearts and to clarify the true meaning of my address, which in its totality was and is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect."

Several Muslim leaders reacted positively to the pope's comments, which were carried live on some Arab TV networks. Other Islamic groups said a fuller apology was needed.

In Somalia, authorities were investigating whether the killing of an Italian nun, Sister Leonella Sgorbati, was related to the controversy over the papal speech. She and her bodyguard, who was also killed, were shot as they entered a children's hospital where the nun worked.

"We hope this remains an isolated act," said the Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi. Without directly linking the killing to the papal speech, he said the Vatican was "following with concern the consequences of this wave of hatred, hoping that it does not lead to serious consequences for the church in the world."

In Turkey, where there had been harsh criticism of the papal speech, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said there were no plans to change the government's plans to host Pope Benedict during a planned visit to Turkey this fall. It would be the pope's first trip to a Muslim country.

In his talk at the University of Regensburg, Germany, Sept. 12, the pope's main theme was how reason and faith must be reconciled in the West, but he introduced it by quoting the 14th-century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus on the errors of Islam and jihad, or holy war.

Most of the Muslim negative reaction has been based on the erroneous assumption that the pope agreed with the quoted material, including the line that Islam had brought "things only evil and inhuman."

Criticism came from Muslim leaders and representatives in many countries, including Egypt, Pakistan, Iran and Indonesia. In the West Bank, fire bombs were hurled at several Christian churches, apparently in reaction to the pope's speech; no injuries were reported.

The pope's decision to directly confront the controversy came after the Vatican issued two statements clarifying his speech, saying it had been misinterpreted.

A few hours after the pope returned from Germany Sept. 14, Father Lombardi said that while the papal speech contained a "clear and radical rejection of the religious motivation for violence," it was not meant to be a critical assessment of Islam. On the contrary, Father Lombardi said, the pope's talk focused primarily on the religious shortcomings of the West.

The Vatican's new secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, issued another statement Sept. 16 saying the pope respected Islam and its followers, and was unequivocally in favor of interfaith dialogue. The cardinal said that in Germany the pope had been arguing in favor of religious values in modern cultures -- a point that should be welcomed by Muslims.

"Indeed it was (the pope) who, before the religious fervor of Muslim believers, warned secularized Western culture to guard against 'the contempt for God and the cynicism that considers mockery of the sacred to be an exercise of freedom,'" Cardinal Bertone said.

Much attention was focused on the pope's planned trip to Turkey Nov. 28-Dec. 1. Cardinal Bertone said he hoped the Turkey trip would take place and added, "For the time being there is no reason why it should not."

Ali Bardakoglu, the head of Turkey's directorate of religious affairs, who had earlier denounced the papal speech, welcomed the clarifying remarks.

"(The pope) says that he respects Islam and didn't want to offend Muslims. That's a civilized position," Bardakoglu said.

But elsewhere the pope's words drew a less enthusiastic response. In Iran, a government spokesman said Sept. 18 that the pope's explanation was not enough, and that "he should say that what he declared was wrong." In the Iraqi city of Basra the same day, some 150 people joined a protest organized by a Shiite cleric, burning the pope's effigy along with U.S., Israeli and German flags.

Several Vatican officials expressed deep dismay that Muslim reactions were based on distorted news media accounts of the papal speech.

Cardinal Paul Poupard, who heads the Vatican council that dialogues with Muslims, said a careful reading would show that the pope had offered to Islam "an outstretched hand" in the battle against an oversecularized global culture.

"I invite our Muslim friends of goodwill to take the pope's text in hand and read it in its entirety and meditate on it. It will be clear that this can in no way be considered an attack on Islam but is rather an outstretched hand, because it defends the value of humanity's religious cultures, including Islam," the cardinal said in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

Cardinal Poupard, head of the pontifical councils for interreligious dialogue and for culture, pointed out that in quoting the 14th-century criticism of Islam, the pope had noted the "startling brusqueness" of the language.

"With this, the pope was signaling that he was not endorsing these words," Cardinal Poupard said.

The cardinal said the idea that Islam has produced "only evil and inhuman" things, as expressed by the Byzantine emperor quoted by the pope, "cannot be held by whoever accepts the teaching of the Second Vatican Council on non-Christian religions."

---CNS