April 17, 2005

Potentially World-Changing: Vatican Is Rethinking Relations With Islam

From Daniel Williams and Alan Cooperman at the Washington Post:

ROME, April 12—After two decades of contact and dialogue with the Islamic world under Pope John Paul II, the Vatican is rethinking an outreach program that critics say is diluting Catholicism and has brought almost no benefits to beleaguered Catholic minorities in Muslim countries.

The Church is finally taking notice of the oppression of non-Muslims in Islamic nations:

...Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, said the next pope might more emphatically demand rights for Christian minorities in Islamic countries and the freedom of all people to choose their faith.

“There may be a greater insistence on religious liberty,” said Fitzgerald, the church’s point man on Islamic relations.

...Justo Lacunza Balda, who heads the Pontifical Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies, a Vatican research group, said criticism was focused on the lack of reciprocal goodwill gestures in many Muslim countries. “Humanly speaking, it is of course important to see some payback,” he said.

The Church is taking notice of the Islamofascist goal of destroying the Judeo-Christian tradition:

...One Turkish newspaper, Hurriyet, said the pope had not apologized for the Crusades and that Muslims were waiting. Radical Islamic Web sites sometimes predict that Muslims will conquer Europe and set up headquarters in the Vatican.

Bat Ye’or’s message is getting out. For 30 years she has been warning of how Islamofascists wage Jihad by immigrating to a target nation in large numbers, and then refusing to assimilate. It appears that the Church is finally aware of this danger:

...Now, the large Muslim minorities that have emerged in historically Christian European cities have engendered suspicion from the majority populations.

This is extremely good news.

(Hat Tip to Kate Wright. )

The Pigs Do What Now?

From the Washington Post:

A pair of piglets compete in the “Pig Olympics” at Heping Park in Shanghai, China. The Olympic events include running, hurdles, hoop-jumping, diving and swimming. The piglets start training a month after birth and compete until they are one year old.

From China Economic Net:

Pigs can’t fly, but they can run, swim and dive, as proven by contestants in the Pig Olympics.

Thousands of locals have made their way to Hongkou District’s Heping Park to watch some 20 pig athletes from Thailand take part in sporting events over the past month.

“It’s incredible. I never thought that a pig could be so clever, dexterous and versatile,” [8-year-old audience member Tan yizhou] said.

Hey—that kid sounds pretty smart. He sounds like that brainy kid from The Simpsons.

Finally—School Protesters Arrested for not Letting an Invited Speaker Talk:

Six people, including one juvenile, were arrested Wednesday night after protesting David Horowitz’s speech at Townes Hall at the UT School of Law. The Texas Federalist Society hosted the meeting and invited Horowitz, a right-wing advocate and author of the Academic Bill of Rights, to speak.

Opposition groups were holding signs and speaking out during Horowitz’s speech on Wednesday, but when they were told to stop speaking, some took out noisemakers to mark their disapproval of the speaker. Three females and three males were arrested and then jailed under charges of disrupting a meeting or procession ­- a Class B misdemeanor. The subjects were not UT students.

Many colleges and universities have become places where people are not permitted to express Conservative, pro-America views. It’s very encouraging to see one such school take steps away from that.