"If anyone felt offended in his religious feelings, I freely ask him in a Christian manner for forgiveness," said Cavalleri.
ROME, April 15, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The editor of an Italian Catholic magazine apologized Sunday, April 16, for publishing a cartoon depicting Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) in hell.
"If, contrary to my intentions and those of the author, anyone felt offended in his religious feelings, I freely ask him in a Christian manner for forgiveness," Cesare Cavalleri of Studi Cattolici said according to a statement published by the Italian news agency (ANSA).
The cartoon in the March issue of Studi Cattolici, a magazine reportedly close to the influential Opus Dei group, shows Italian poets Dante Alighieri and Virgil on the edge of a circle of flames looking down on the Prophet, according to a description by ANSA.
"Isn't that Muhammad?" Virgil is shown asking. "Yes, and he's cut in two because he has brought division to society," Dante replies.
The Catholic conservative group has blasted the drawing and distanced itself from the magazine.
"We consider it deplorable that this cartoon should appear in a magazine that has the name Catholic in its title," Marc Carroggio, Rome Office of Communications, said in a press release posted on the group's website.
"Identity Crisis"
Cavalleri said the cartoon had been "interpreted as anti-Islamic when it was a condemnation of the cultural identity crisis of the West."
The editor, himself a member of Opus Dei, earlier defended the cartoon as "only a reference to a passage in (Dante's) Divine Comedy."
Pope Benedict XVI had strongly criticized the publication of twelve Danish cartoons ridiculing Prophet Muhammad, which strained relations between the Muslim world and Denmark.
The cartoons by 12 artists were first published in Danish mass-circulation Jyllands Posten last September and later reprinted in a number of other mainly European dailies.
The drawings, considered blasphemous under Islam, have triggered massive and sometimes violent demonstrations across the Muslim world.
The editor of the Danish daily has apologized for offending Muslims but defended the paper's right to publish the cartoons.
The Muslim world insists on a clear-cut apology for the "publication" of the cartoons and is pressing for a UN resolution criminalizing blasphemy.
The editor of Norway's Magzinet apologized in February to the Muslim minority for reprinting the Danish cartoons.
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