{"id":5855,"date":"2006-09-15T10:16:53","date_gmt":"2006-09-15T10:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/needed-a-sense-of-irony-and-a-clue.html"},"modified":"2006-09-15T10:16:53","modified_gmt":"2006-09-15T10:16:53","slug":"needed-a-sense-of-irony-and-a-clue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/needed-a-sense-of-irony-and-a-clue.html","title":{"rendered":"Needed: A sense of irony and a clue"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is not an effective way to argue against someone who has questioned your religion’s relationship to violence:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

From a Daily Mail story. These are Muslims in Indian burning an effigy of the Pope. Because, you know, questioned using religion to justify violence.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

But Britain’s Ramadhan Foundation, a youth organisation based in Rochdale, reacted angrily to the comments, comparing the Pope unfavourably to his predecessor John Paul II. <\/p>\n

In a statement it said: "If the Pope wanted to attack Islam and Prophet Muhammad teachings he could have been brave enough to say it personally without quoting a 14th century Byzantine Christian emperor. <\/p>\n

"The late Pope John Paul II spent over 25 years to build bridges and links with the Muslim community. He showed the world that its perception of Islam was false and that we are peace-loving people. <\/p>\n

"The Ramadhan Foundation is disappointed that the current Pope has not followed the example of his predecessor; it is essential in today’s world that we link together and encourage a wider understanding of our different faiths, celebrating our religious differences is essential in a ever expanding world." <\/p>\n

Muhammad Umar, chairman of the foundation, said: "This attack on Islam and Prophet Muhammad by Pope Benedict is recognition that he has fallen into the trap of the bigots and racists when it comes to judging Islam on the actions of a small number of extreme elements." <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

More:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

"The Pope of the Vatican joins in the Zionist-American alliance against Islam," said the leading Moroccan daily Attajdid, the main Islamist newspaper in the kingdom.<\/p>\n

"We demand that he apologizes personally, and not through (Vatican) sources, to all Muslims for such a wrong interpretation," said Beirut-based Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, one of the world’s top Shi’ite Muslim clerics.<\/p>\n

Sheikh Hamza Mansour, who heads the Shura Council of the Islamic Action Front, Jordan’s largest opposition party, said only a personal apology could rectify the "deep insult made by the provocative comments" to over 1 billion Muslims.<\/p>\n

And in Iraq, the Pope’s comments were condemned at Friday prayers by followers of radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.<\/p>\n

Sheikh Salah al-Ubeidi, one of Sadr’s aides, condemned "the offence to Islam and the character of the Prophet."<\/p>\n

"This is the second time such an offence has been give before Ramadan," he said, referring to last year’s publication of cartoons in a Danish newspaper that led to violent protests by Muslims around the world.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

More:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Militant Islamic websites also attacked the Pope, and the Muslim Council of Britain called on him to clarify his remarks urgently. <\/p>\n

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary-general of the MCB, said: <\/p>\n

"One would expect a religious leader such as the Pope to act and speak with responsibility and repudiate the Byzantine emperor’s views in the interests of truth and harmonious relations between the followers of Islam and Catholicism." <\/p>\n

Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, said Muslims must learn to enter into dialogue without "crying foul". <\/p>\n

He said: "The Pope is a distinguished scholar and one unlikely to say offensive things. If he quoted something said 600 years ago we should not assume that this represents the Pope’s beliefs about Islam today. <\/p>\n

"But Muslims as well as Christians must learn to enter into dialogue without crying foul. <\/p>\n

"We live in perilous times and we must not only separate religion from violence but also not give religious legitimacy to violence in any shape or form."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is not an effective way to argue against someone who has questioned your religion’s relationship to violence: From a Daily Mail story. These are Muslims in Indian burning an effigy of the Pope. Because, you know, questioned using religion to justify violence. But Britain’s Ramadhan Foundation, a youth organisation based in Rochdale, reacted angrily…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nNeeded: A sense of irony and a clue - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/needed-a-sense-of-irony-and-a-clue.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Needed: A sense of irony and a clue - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This is not an effective way to argue against someone who has questioned your religion’s relationship to violence: From a Daily Mail story. These are Muslims in Indian burning an effigy of the Pope. Because, you know, questioned using religion to justify violence. But Britain’s Ramadhan Foundation, a youth organisation based in Rochdale, reacted angrily…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/needed-a-sense-of-irony-and-a-clue.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-09-15T10:16:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/img.dailymail.co.uk\/i\/pix\/2006\/09\/popeeffigy_700x405.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Needed: A sense of irony and a clue - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/needed-a-sense-of-irony-and-a-clue.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Needed: A sense of irony and a clue - Via Media","og_description":"This is not an effective way to argue against someone who has questioned your religion’s relationship to violence: From a Daily Mail story. These are Muslims in Indian burning an effigy of the Pope. Because, you know, questioned using religion to justify violence. But Britain’s Ramadhan Foundation, a youth organisation based in Rochdale, reacted angrily…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/needed-a-sense-of-irony-and-a-clue.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2006-09-15T10:16:53+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/img.dailymail.co.uk\/i\/pix\/2006\/09\/popeeffigy_700x405.jpg"}],"author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/needed-a-sense-of-irony-and-a-clue.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/needed-a-sense-of-irony-and-a-clue.html","name":"Needed: A sense of irony and a clue - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/needed-a-sense-of-irony-and-a-clue.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/needed-a-sense-of-irony-and-a-clue.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/img.dailymail.co.uk\/i\/pix\/2006\/09\/popeeffigy_700x405.jpg","datePublished":"2006-09-15T10:16:53+00:00","dateModified":"2006-09-15T10:16:53+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/needed-a-sense-of-irony-and-a-clue.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/needed-a-sense-of-irony-and-a-clue.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/needed-a-sense-of-irony-and-a-clue.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/img.dailymail.co.uk\/i\/pix\/2006\/09\/popeeffigy_700x405.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/img.dailymail.co.uk\/i\/pix\/2006\/09\/popeeffigy_700x405.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/needed-a-sense-of-irony-and-a-clue.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Needed: A sense of irony and a clue"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5855\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}