LEWISTON – As Pope Benedict XVI has apologized to Islamic nations – where people have protested in the streets about the pontiff’s statements linking violence to the Prophet Mohammed – Lewiston’s Muslim community has responded with a combination of silence and sadness.

“I was not angry,” said Musa Hussein of Lewiston. “But I felt disappointed. I didn’t expect the pope to go this way.”

At a time when there is so much tension in the Middle East, a religious leader with his power ought to be more careful, he said.

Last week, Benedict gave a speech in Bavaria, Germany, in which he quoted a Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of Mohammed as “evil and inhuman” and referred to spreading Islam “by the sword.”

The outcry among Islamic countries has been extraordinary.

Pakistan’s legislature unanimously condemned Benedict. Lebanon’s top Shiite cleric demanded an apology. And in Turkey, the ruling party compared the pope to Hitler and Mussolini and accused him of reviving the mentality of the Crusades.

On Sunday, Benedict said he was “deeply sorry” about the reaction to his speech. It’s intention had been far different: “an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect,” Benedict said in a prepared statement issued by the Vatican.

On Monday, as the overseas furor continued to build, the leader of Maine’s Catholic Church issued his own statement. Meanwhile, many local Muslims declined to talk.

Imam Iman Nuh of the Lewiston-Auburn Islamic Mosque said he’d heard about the controversy but knew too little of what the pope said to comment.

Other Muslim men and women, Somali immigrants in several downtown Lewiston shops, declined to talk about the pope’s words.

Some did talk, though.

Mohammed Heban said he is willing to accept the pope’s apology and move on.

“Anybody can make a mistake,” he said. “We’re all human.”

Like Hussein, he was saddened by the pope’s choice. Both men talked of the differences between Benedict and Pope John Paul II.

“John Paul was a peacemaker in the cause of international peace and coexistence,” Hussein said.

Hussein also seemed ready to accept an apology, but he believes Benedict’s words were neither twisted nor misunderstood.

He has listened to news accounts on National Public Radio and read a verbatim copy of the speech, he said.

The suggestion that Mohammed favored violence is as insulting to Muslims as the same change, directed toward Jesus Christ, would be to Christians, he said.

“He is the center of our religion,” said Hussein, whose first name is Arabic for “Moses.”

Bishop Richard Malone, who leads the Catholic Church in Maine, repeated the pope’s apologies Monday and spoke out in support of the pontiff’s work to foster talk between religions.

“I share this commitment, which is what led to my involvement several years ago in a Muslim-Catholic-Jewish trialogue group in Massachusetts,” Malone said in a prepared statement.

“Certainly the Muslim community enriches the social, cultural and religious dimension of life here in Maine,” the bishop said.