During his four-day visit, which ended Friday, the pope faced Mecca and prayed shoulder to shoulder with an Islamic cleric in Turkey's most important mosque. He shook the hand of one of his sternest Muslim critics. He even hoisted a Turkish flag bearing the Islamic symbol of a crescent moon.

It was a speech that [Benedict] gave in September that ended up setting the agenda for his first trip to a predominantly Muslim country. In that speech in Regensburg, Germany, Benedict linked Islam to violence and quoted a Byzantine emperor who saw only evil in the faith founded by the prophet Muhammad.

Some Turkish commentators said they thought Benedict backtracked toward the end of his visit when he spoke of the need to preserve Europe's Christian roots. But another reading of those comments suggests that he was stating the conditions under which Turkey could join the EU, conditions such as respect for religious freedom that the EU itself is demanding.