"The president of the Pakistani bishops' conference has called for the arrest of a U.S. Protestant pastor whose decision to burn the Islamic sacred book has caused fury in the Muslim world and the deaths of more than 20 people.
Archbishop Lawrence Saldanha of Lahore, conference president, said the U.S. government should seek to diffuse mounting tensions by detaining the Rev. Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center Church in Gainesville, Fla., who oversaw the burning of the Quran by the Rev. Wayne Sapp, his assistant.
"The U.S. government should detain the pastor for some time," Archbishop Saldanha told the British branch of Aid to the Church in Need, a Catholic charity for persecuted Christians around the world."
Catholic News Agency
I'm curious. What exactly does the good bishop think that Rev. Jones should be arrested for? Burning the Koran may be provocative, it might be stupid and it was probably simply an act of self promotion. But illegal? Hardly. The act itself harmed no one and didn't damage another's property. It didn't offend the natural law rights of another; in fact it was an exercise of the natural law right to freedom of expression and religion that the pastor possesses as a part of his humanity.
It's frightening how quickly a bishop is willing to excuse the truly horrendous, immoral and illegal behavior of the Muslim rioters and to then turn around and place the blame on an innocent man.
I have some questions that I'd love to hear the bishop answer. When Christian missionaries are arrested and executed for the crime of preaching the Gospel, are they guilty of causing their own deaths? If a person hands out Bibles in a Muslim country and is killed because of that, who should be arrested? The killers or the church leader that sent the person in the first place? If the bishop sends someone to preach the gospel and riots erupt because of it, should the bishop be arrested? Or, in the bishops way of thinking, is the preservation of peace and ecumenism so important that he wouldn't send the missionary or preach the Gospel in the first place?
Just wondering.
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