Robert,
I will tell you what I heard (this was years ago). Apparently, and I say this in all charity, I think some people were trying to spin it so that the rumor got out that Pope John Paul II kissed a copy of the Gospels, but fact-checking proved that it was, indeed, the Qur'an.
I would chalk this behavior up to the fact that many were indeed scandalized, and someone thought it smart to devise a "cover up." I didn't know that is what so widely disseminated that you would've heard about it. Although since I heard about it, why shouldn't you, I guess? LOL.
Alexis