Egads!

    I swear, some of the things people pull out of their heads is simply baffling. 

    When I was reading the news this morning, I came across the following piece that had me scratching my head:

    Movie News - Cardinal Urges Legal Action Against 'Da Vinci' - AOL News

    VATICAN CITY (May 8) - In the latest Vatican broadside against "The Da Vinci Code," a leading cardinal [Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria], says Christians should respond to the book and film with legal action because both offend Christ and the Church he founded.

    Now, I don't understand what sort of "legal action" he's contemplating, but what if I were to say that I would like to take legal action against the Catholic Church for offending me with almost two-millenia of human-rights abuses, censorship, the suppression of free thought, and the time that I almost blew out my ACL during a six-hour Catholic wedding?         

    There are many people out there who consider the Bible to be a work of fiction along the same lines as Dan Brown's book, and no one is required to give either book any weight whatsoever in their personal lives or their personal relationship with whatever God they choose to worship or not worship.

    Cardinal Arinze goes on to say:

    "Christians must not just sit back and say it is enough for us to forgive and to forget," Arinze said in the documentary made by Rome film maker Mario Biasetti for Rome Reports, a Catholic film agency specializing in religious affairs.

    "Sometimes it is our duty to do something practical. So it is not I who will tell all Christians what to do but some know legal means which can be taken in order to get the other person to respect the rights of others," Arinze said.

   "This is one of the fundamental human rights: that we shouldbe respected, our religious beliefs respected, and our founder Jesus Christ respected," he said, without elaborating on what legal means he had in mind.

 

    Hopefully, I am not the only one who sees the glaring hypocracy of these statements.  He doesn't want respect.  He wants to silence other beliefs.  By calling for the censorship of a set of beliefs which differ from his own, Cardinal Arinze is demanding that Christians violate the very "fundamental human rights" that he himself is expecting us to respect.  It's baffling how this man is looked upon as a learned member of the Catholic Church when he openly displays his complete and utter lack of both tolerance and understanding.  It's ridiculously arrogant and ignorant to assume that Christianity is the ONLY belief-system that deserves respect in accordance with human rights. 

 

    Personally, it's infuriating to see that there are members of the Catholic Church who still have yet to free themselves from the mindset present during the days of the Inquisition.  And, considering Cardinal Arinze's statements, it's clear that he is perhaps the LEAST qualified to discuss "fundamental human rights."   

 

Okay, now I can end my rant....