Yeah, Right, Whatever

It's not getting a lot of press in the US, but Pope Benedict XVI (from here on out known as B16) is visiting Germany this week. And he's firing on all cylinders. He is evidently at odds with JPII's view that "Christians, Jews and Muslims have the same God and have to pray together to the same God". He must be, considering some of these statements:

• He said that violence, embodied in the Muslim idea of "jihad," or holy war, is contrary to reason and God's plan, while the West was so beholden to reason that Islam could not understand it.
• He began his speech, which ran over half an hour, by quoting a 14th-century Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologus, in a conversation with a "learned Persian" on Christianity and Islam —"and the truth of both."
  "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword by the faith he preached," the pope quoted the emperor, in a speech to 1,500 students and faculty.
• He went on to say that violent conversion to Islam was contrary to reason and thus "contrary to God's nature."
• Last year, during his inaugural trip as pope to Cologne, Benedict chastised Muslim community leaders for failing to steer their youths from "the darkness of a new barbarism," and he has asserted the fundamental importance of Europe's Christian history and character.

um... is it wrong of me to say, "Preach on, Il Papa!" ???