Vatican Says Cartoons and Deadly Riots 'Equally Deplorable'

1. Lebanon church attacked; was priest’s murder part of Muslim outrage? As worldwide protests against caricatures of Muhammad turn deadly, they have also turned anti-Christian. Retaliation against Christians for European publication of the cartoons has been especially notable in Lebanon, where Christian-Muslim tensions are more acute than they are elsewhere in the Middle East. Rioters with “Prophet’s soldiers” headbands attacked a Maronite church in Beirut’s largely Christian Achrifiyeh neighborhood, not far from the Danish embassy, and the headquarters of the Greek Orthodox archbishop.

“I thought, ‘These are not people. These are monsters,'” Father Elias Feghali, pastor of St. Maron Catholic Church, told Catholic News Service. Some Muslim leaders apparently tried to stop the attack.

Some government officials, church leaders, and others in Turkey are suggesting that the murder of Roman Catholic priest Andrea Santoro on Sunday was also connected to the demonstrations. The murderer, who is thought to be between 14 and 17 years old, shouted “Allahu Akbar” (the frequent Muslim declaration meaning “God is great”) as he shot the priest, who was praying after celebrating Mass.

The Vatican called the publication of the cartoons as “equally deplorable” as the “violent actions of protest,” and suggested that European countries should crack down against newspapers that published the cartoons. “Authorities might and should intervene eventually according to the principles of national legislation,” the Vatican press office said in an unsigned statement. Seriously. The Vatican says the violent riots, which have resulted in deaths, are equally deplorable to the publication of satirical cartoons, and says governments should consider limiting press freedom on this issue. “The freedom of thought and expression, confirmed in the Declaration of Human Rights, cannot include the right to offend religious feelings of the faithful,” the Vatican said. “That principle obviously applies to any religion.”

Weblog’s offended at this kind of moral equivalence from the Roman Catholic Church, which usually has such good things to say about life ethics and human dignity. Since I’m offended, perhaps the governments of the world should crack down and censor the Vatican’s comments.

2. Pa. court rules against eminent domain decision In 2003, the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority condemned Mary Smith’s home in a blighted neighborhood, and then handed it over to the Hope Partnership for Education to build a middle school. But a Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court panel ruled 4-3 Monday that the action “demonstrates the entanglement between church and state” and called it an unconstitutional establishment of religion.

Here’s what’s so crazy: While the executive director of Hope Partnership is a nun, and workers’ religious beliefs motivate them to help the poor, the school isn’t religious. It’s not a Catholic school, doesn’t have any religious qualifications for its students, and it doesn’t offer religious instruction. Still, the court ruled, the “land acquisition for the Hope Partnership had a primary religious effect because it directly aided the religious organization’s mission to provide faith-based educational services, among other things, to residents in the blighted area.”

Nonsense, said Judge Dan Pellegrini in his dissent. “There is no possible Establishment Clause violation because there is no proof that the project is a religious enterprise, but only that it is being run by groups who have religious motivations to educate the poor,” he wrote. “What the majority is suggesting is that the Authority or, for that matter, any governmental entity could not convey property that it has in its possession for a church, school, nursing home, a college run by a religious group, or a shelter run by the Salvation Army because that would aid religion and violate the Establishment Clause. To the contrary, what that outcome suggests is ‘viewpoint discrimination’ against religious groups, which is an impingement on their First Amendment rights that has been condemned by the United States Supreme Court in Good News Club v. Milford Central School.”

Pellegrini is right, and Weblog can’t see any chance of the majority opinion being upheld in higher courts. If it is, a lot of faith-based ministries serving the poor—even those that don’t take government funds—could be in peril. Another question is whether the religious organizations that were so outraged by the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision on eminent domain will support Hope Partnership in this case.

3. Church parking battles heat up Keep your eye on disputes over Sunday morning parking in America’s cities. It could be a major issue in the near future, since several cities are having their own localized controversies. In Manhattan, the fight has been over free meters on Sundays and religious holidays. In Pittsburgh, it’s over whether a church parking lot is vital to a church’s existence, and thus exempt from property taxes. Now comes a Washington Post report noting that D.C. parishioners who park illegally on Sunday mornings get a free pass—even when their double parking prohibits residents from driving to church. “Love your neighbor” isn’t quoted in the piece.

4. Priest punished for preaching about Mary’s cervix Thomas J. Quinlan Jr. is 77 and retired as a priest, but the clergy shortage means he still gets asked to preach and perform priestly duties around Virginia Beach. But his Christmas Eve sermon, where he “mentioned the Virgin Mary’s birth canal,” according to The Virginian-Pilot, got him barred from such duties in the diocese. “Your shock content was crude, offensive, and disturbing,” particularly to families, youth, and visitors, Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo of the Richmond Diocese told Quinlan in a letter last month. Quinlan’s behavior “engenders such anxiety and emotional upset that it interferes with the pursuit of the individual’s religious experience,” the diocesan newspaper said this week. Good thing Denver’s Scum of the Earth church isn’t part of DiLorenzo’s diocese. On a more serious note, though, at what stage does attempting to maintain “good taste” in church cross over into a problematic denial of the earthy, physical realities of life? Discuss.

5. What good are films? Calvin College film studies professor Bill Romanowski had the Monday religion slot on the USA Today op-ed page this week, and he calls for films that spark conversation, not conversions. “Evangelicals can influence Hollywood when they think of the cinema as an arena for cultural discourse but not a place for converting members of that culture to a specific Christian orientation,” he writes. “In other words, evangelicals’ goal for the movie industry should be to encourage discourse, not merely evangelizing.” Less than one-tenth of 1 percent of The Passion‘s audience accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior as a result of the film, he says, and Brokeback Mountain isn’t turning anyone gay. But movies get people talking, he says. Once evangelicals understand that, he says, “they are in a position to shape that vital discussion.”

Romanowski’s column was answered in large part a day earlier, in a Los Angeles Times op-ed by Maria DiBattista. Not only are movies poor evangelistic tools, but they’re not changing people’s minds about anything. “Movies can take on the great social problems of their time, but they may be the least effective — or appropriate — medium for solving them,” she writes. “Name any ‘problem film’ — whether it deals with discrimination (racial, ethnic, sexual, or religious), social reform (of schools, prisons, legislatures) or corporate corruption (national or global) — and you will come up with the same unimpressive results. The more designs a movie has on us, the less willing we are to change our minds, much less our social and business practices.” If you want to see the power of film, she says don’t look for the “message”—look for the pictures. “What moves us to want to change things—even ourselves—when we watch a movie are its images, not its social agenda, however creditable.”

In other words, while Romanowski sees film’s changing power in tongues and ears, DiBattista sees the power in the eyes.

Quote of the day: “It’s important to make the first service after what happened. It shows we are still here. All the members are here today. They may have burned the building, but the church is still here. We will go on.”

Patsy McElroy, attending Rehobeth Baptist Church in Lawley, Alabama, one of five area churches set ablaze Friday morning. She was quoted by the Montgomery Advertiser.

Cartoon controversy | Priest killed in Turkey | Religious liberty | Slaves and captives | Military | Church and state | Eminent domain | Education | Higher education | Evolution | Politics | Georgia religion bills | Abortion | RU486 in Australia | Life ethics | Sex and marriage | Abuse | Catholicism | Church life | Ala. church burnings | Megachurch study | Azusa Street memorial | History | Books | Music | Film and TV | Money and business | Missions & ministry | Spirituality | Other stories of interest

Cartoon controversy:

Beirut rioters attack church | Muslims outraged over cartoons of the prophet Muhammad target a Christian community and Danish Consulate. Some see Syria’s hand (Los Angeles Times)
Protesters torch Danish mission in Beirut | Christian neighborhood ransacked (Associated Press)
Beirut mob burns Danish mission over cartoons | The violence in the predominantly Christian Achrafieh section of East Beirut raised fears of deepening divisions in Lebanon (The New York Times)
Religious leaders condemn drawings | In a joint statement, the seven-member executive committee of the European Council of Religious Leaders said the drawings “are a misuse of the freedom when it is done without regard to the damaging affect on people or groups” (PA, U.K.)
Invoking Islam’s heritage, Iranians chafe at ‘oppression’ by the West | The West is crashing into a religious identity that has over the centuries, even before the Islamic revolution, melded with a national identity (The New York Times)
We are all Danes now | That anything so mild could trigger a reaction so crazed — riots, death threats, kidnappings, flag-burnings — speaks volumes about the chasm that separates the values of the civilized world from those in too much of the Islamic world (Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe)
Cartoon debate | The case for mocking religion (Christopher Hitchens, Slate)
Vatican says freedom of expression does not mean offending religions | At the same time, the Vatican said, violent reactions are equally deplorable (Catholic News Service)
Also: Vatican condemns cartoons of Mohammed | Also denounces violent reaction of Muslim world (Zenit)
Q&A: Depicting the Prophet Muhammad | There is no specific, or explicit ban int he Koran on images of Allah or the Prophet Muhammad – be they carved, painted or drawn (BBC)
Q&A: The Muhammad cartoons row | What the cartoons portray, and how people have responded (BBC)

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