Vatican City, 22 Oct. (AKI) - The Koran is a text that encourages Islam to impose itself with force and permits the killing of Christians, said Lebanon's Catholic Patriarch of Antioch Archbishop Raboula Beylouni, addressing a Vatican meeting of Middle East bishops.

"The Koran gives Muslims the right to judge Christians and kill them with Jihad," he said. "It gives orders to impose religion with force, with the sword. For this reason, Muslims don't recognise the freedom of religion among themselves or others."

Pope Benedict XVI on 11 Oct. the opened the two-week-long meeting of 246 Middle East bishops and other religious leaders by lashing out against violence "in God's name".

The pontiff warned delegates to guard against the spread of "terrorist ideology" in the modern world.

Among clerics attending the meeting were Muhammad al-Sammak, political counsellor to the Grand Mufti of Lebanon, representing Sunni Islam; and Ayatollah Seyed Mostafa Mohaghegh Ahmadabadi, a law professor at the Shahid Beheshti University of Tehran and member of the Iranian Academy of Sciences, representing Shia Islam.

http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Religion/?id=3.1.1142668038