VATICAN CITY - The Vatican on Thursday rejected an accusation by Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden that Pope Benedict XVI is deeply involved in a so-called "new crusade" to deride Islam.
Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi dismissed as "totally unfounded" the claim that the Roman Catholic Church backed the February 13 republication in several European newspapers of a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed.
On Wednesday, Bin Laden's message warned Europe of a "reckoning" over the cartoons and claimed that their publication formed part of "the framework of a new crusade" in which the pope "has played a large, lengthy role".
The Italian interior ministry, which is responsible for papal security, will examine the message closely during a meeting Friday of its anti-terrorism unit, the ANSA news agency reported.
Such threats would "be taken seriously," an anti-terrorism source told ANSA.
In an audio message addressed to "intelligent" EU members, a voice purported to be bin Laden's said publishing the drawings was a greater crime than Western forces targeting Muslim villages and killing women and children.
Lombardi said the threats would not affect the pope's programme, notably during the Easter period when he said security measures will remain unchanged.
"The pope and the papal council for inter-religious dialogue have denounced the satirical campaign against Islam on more than one occasion," the spokesman noted.
The Vatican and Cairo's Al-Azhar University -- Sunni Islam's main seat of learning -- last month jointly condemned the reprinting of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed considered offensive to Muslims.
The caricature published in February was one of 12 cartoons published in September 2005 by Denmark's Jyllands-Posten daily, sparking bloody riots in the Islamic world.
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03/20/2008 17:21 GMT