A Coming Papal Visit Focuses Anger Among the Turks - New York Times

"A novel was published here in May, winning more notoriety than sales, called “Assassination of a Pope.”

It was inspired not by the attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II by a Turkish gunman in 1981, but by the trip to Turkey of his successor, Benedict XVI, who is coming to this overwhelmingly Muslim country in late November primarily to meet the Orthodox patriarch, who lives in Istanbul.

Benedict was far from loved here even before his speech in Germany two weeks ago quoting a medieval commentator who called aspects of Islam “evil and inhuman.” But his visit, and the book, play on one of Turkey’s deepest fears: that the secular and unified Turkish state could begin to dissolve if the Orthodox patriarchate tries to become a sort of Vatican, a state within a state.

The pope apparently did not grasp fully that his words would hit Turkey even harder than those other Muslim countries where the reaction was violent. The anger in this nation that uncomfortably bridges West and East — with a strong recent tug from Islam — is far from over, and not just among the religious."

A Coming Papal Visit Focuses Anger Among the Turks - New York Times