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February 23, 2006
Vatican City: Vatican Asks Muslims to Respect Christian Minorities
If this was Pope Benedict's only motivation for criticizing the Mohammad cartoons, then it was an utterly quixotic move. Because there is no way Muslims will change their behavior towards their Christian minorities. They will continue to use them as hostages--give us this concession, and that money, and maybe we'll let them repair that Church. Here is the story, don't miss the craven cowardice displayed by the Vatican's Secretary of State, which I have highlighted for you below: Vatican to Muslims: practice what you preach
PARIS (Reuters) - After backing calls by Muslims for respect for their religion in the Mohammad cartoons row, the Vatican is now urging Islamic countries to reciprocate by showing more tolerance toward their Christian minorities.Roman Catholic leaders at first said Muslims were right to be outraged when Western newspapers reprinted Danish caricatures of the Prophet, including one with a bomb in his turban. Most Muslims consider any images of Mohammad to be blasphemous.
After criticizing both the cartoons and the violent protests in Muslim countries that followed, the Vatican this week linked the issue to its long-standing concern that the rights of other faiths are limited, sometimes severely, in Muslim countries.
Vatican prelates have been concerned by recent killings of two Catholic priests in Turkey and Nigeria. Turkish media linked the death there to the cartoons row. At least 146 Christians and Muslims have died in five days of religious riots in Nigeria.
"If we tell our people they have no right to offend, we have to tell the others they have no right to destroy us," Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's Secretary of State (prime minister), told journalists in Rome.[...][emphasis mine--RD]
Posted by Ruy Diaz at February 23, 2006 6:48 PM
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