There has been various interpretations and wide press coverage of Pope Benedict XVI's prayer while at the Blue Mosque.
According to CNS, "The pope accepted the gift of a ceramic tile inscribed with the word "Allah" in the form of a dove. Placing his hand on the tile, the pope said: 'Thank you for this gift. Let us pray for brotherhood and for all humanity.' ... 'Your Holiness, please remember us,' the mufti replied.
Spain's El Pais newspaper qualified the event as an "unexampled gesture," while The Guardian noted that 'Pope Benedict, who enraged the world's Muslims less than three months ago, last night stood in prayer alongside the grand mufti of Istanbul in one of Islam's greatest places of worship.' Similarily, the Daily Telegraph reported that "The Pope yesterday became only the second pontiff in history to step inside a mosque, as he continued to try to thaw Muslim hearts in Turkey."
But is that the way things happened?
According to the Vatican press office, what some press has been calling a "prayer," might better be called a "moment of meditation."
"It was a moment of personal meditation, of relationship with God, which can also be called of personal, profound prayer, but it was not a prayer with external manifestations characteristic of the Christian faith," said Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican's press office.
"The Pope paused in a moment of meditation and recollection," Father Lombardi said.
It should be noted that Pope Benedict was in the prayer hall
Here is how Franco Pisano of Asian News described the moment: "Two minutes of silence, a prayer made obvious only by the moving lips of Benedict XVI and the imam of the Blue Mosque. Different prayers, of course, elicited by the Pope who said—“Let us pray for brotherhood and the good of humanity!—in response to the imam, who during the visit to Istanbul’s Blue Mosque, showed the Pontiff the Muslim prayer book, saying that “each Muslim prayer begins with the name of Allah; Allah is the name of God”. Having placed his hand on the book, the Pope invited those present to pray. At the moment he was in front of the mihrab, the niche in direction of Makkah."
"Fr Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican Press Room, denied there was a prayer. “The Pope,” he said, “stood before the Mihrab in meditation and he certainly turned his thoughts to God,” Pisano quoted the press director as saying.
That said, it has been duly noted that there is the precedent of Pope John Paul I who prayed in the Damascus Mosque, said to be the burial spot of John the Baptist.
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