Pope in about-face over Muslim dialogue office

Reuters reports:

VATICAN CITY – In a surprising about-face, Pope Benedict has decided to restore power and prestige to the Vatican department that oversees dialogue with Islam a year after he controversially downgraded it.

The department’s return to its former status occurred as Catholic-Muslim dialogue is still suffering the negative effects of Benedict’s Regensburg speech last September in which he appeared to equate Islam with violence.

Catholic and Muslim officials on Monday hailed the decision as a positive step that could help improve relations.

In Christian tradition, a repenting sinner is preferable to a persisting sinner.

However, it would have been better for the Pope not to have been wrong on issues like Islam, or the Spanish colonial genocides in the Americas, in the first place.

Then he would not have had to retract anything.