Jihadi Du Jour: The Religion Of Peace Greets The Pope

A Muslim tried to kill the last Pope. Now the "Turkish Street" is after this one.

When a religious figure needs to have barracades along his route to protect him from the "religion of peace", well that's saying something! Too bad Jesus didn't have that protection.

Police monitored the highway leading to Ankara from the airport, where Turkish and Vatican flags waved in a light breeze. Snipers climbed atop buildings and hilltops. In wooded areas along the route, soldiers in camouflage fatigues set up observation points and sniffer dogs passed along bridges.

Benedict's journey is extraordinarily sensitive, a closely watched pilgrimage full of symbolism that could offer hope of religious reconciliation or deepen what many say is a growing divide between the Christian and Islamic worlds.

The outcome depends partly on the words and gestures of Benedict, who triggered an outcry in September when he quoted a 14th century Christian emperor who characterized the Prophet Muhammad's teachings as "evil and inhuman."

The Vatican said the speech was an attempt to highlight the incompatibility of faith and violence, and Benedict later expressed regret for the violent Muslim backlash.

In Ankara, a small protest was held before Benedict's arrival. "You're not welcome, Pope," read a banner.

It was his first visit to a Muslim country as pontiff. The original goal of the pope's trip to Turkey was to meet Bartholomew I, leader of the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians. The two major branches of Christianity represented by Bartholomew and Benedict split in 1054 over differences in opinion on the power of the papacy, and the two spiritual heads will meet in an attempt to breach the divide and reunite the churches.

Benedict leaves Ankara on Wednesday for Ephesus, where the Virgin Mary is thought to have spent her last years, and will then travel to Istanbul, a former Christian metropolis known as Constantinople until Ottoman Turks conquered it in 1453.

How can there be a bridge between the religions when one says Jesus was a "prophet of Islam" and the other says he was "the Son of God"? or when one is intolerant and the other is not? How on earth can one ever avoid "insulting Islam" while not being insulted by it?

Miss Kelly has more on the facts and fiction of the Pope's visit to Turkey.