The Pope is not an innocent bystander - if he had quoted Hitler to a group of Jewish people the reaction would have been exactly the same, but seen as justified.
Also the thing about the nun being murdered is just speculation that it's to do with that. People get murdered all the time, it's just the press making the link.
I think if people want to decide for themselves if Islam is a nasty religion they should read the whole Qur'an, not just whatever verses they can find online. The Old Testament has plenty of stuff which is far more violent in it than anything in Islam - Deuteronomy for example actively endorses genocide.
I guess my words are wasted here though, I'm probably the only person posting on this board who has actually read both books and not just online exerpts and it sounds like everyone's minds are made up. Just remember though, people don't take the KKK as an example of Christians do they? Or the IRA as an example of all Irish people? People consistenly take a small portion of Islamic extremists as indicative of the whole where they don't with other religions/communities and it's not fair and completely contradictory to the hundreds of great, friendly Muslim people I know from my home town.