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NEW YORK — As an anti-Islamic video fuels deadly unrest in northern Africa and the Middle East, and a 15-year-old exhibit mocking Jesus Christ reopens in New York, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) points out that Catholics are frequently the targets of anti-religious bigotry in art and popular media.
His organization condemns the violent Muslim reactions to The Innocence of Muslims, but spokesman Ibrahim Hooper wonders why Christians, and Catholics in general, don’t make more effort to peacefully defend against attacks on Jesus, Mary, the Eucharist and the Church.
“We’ve seen a crucifix in urine, elephant dung on Mary and The Last Temptation of Christ, and mockery of Jesus on TV has become common,” said Hooper, a Muslim. “We oppose violence, but I would like to see Christians speak out more than they do about these insults. We all too often see Jesus mocked.”
Ten years ago, Hooper’s organization began defending Christianity when it called upon the TV Guide Channel to pull a professional wrestling ad that portrayed Jesus gambling at a bar. Since then, it has often asked networks to stop mocking that which is sacred to Catholics and other Christians.
“The tasteless and insensitive portrayal of Jesus, peace be upon him, used in this commercial is an insult to the deeply felt beliefs of Muslim and Christian Americans,” wrote CAIR's executive director, Nihad Awad, in a letter to the TV Guide Channel in 2002.
Hooper believes anti-Catholic attacks in the media — the type that incite violence when directed at Islam — have become so common that most Americans don’t even notice them. Philip Jenkins detailed this in his 2003 book The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice.
“While we actively oppose violence, we also warn about going numb to anti-religious hostility directed at any religion,” Hooper said.
Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, said that if The Innocence of Muslims insults Islam, then a show titled American Horror Story: Asylum should equally outrage anyone who is genuinely concerned about anti-Catholic bigotry. The show will debut on FX on Oct. 17.
“It’s all about a sadistic Catholic nun and people who abuse and torture people in a Catholic asylum,” Donohue said.
The Catholic League bought a $50,000 ad in The New York Times to criticize Comedy Central host Jon Stewart for a TV skit called “Vagina Manger,” which featured a woman with a Nativity scene covering her private parts.
The organization has spoken out against comedians Penn and Teller for referencing Blessed Mother Teresa in an obscene manner. It has an exhaustive list on its website that illustrates the bold anti-Catholicism of Bill Maher, who has accused priests of raping nuns. Maher admits that he works for the demise of the Catholic Church because he believes it “is entirely destructive to the human race. … I also wish for the demise of Hamas and the KKK.”
Pope Benedict XVI spoke about persecution of Catholics on May 11 to officials of Pontifical Mission Societies who were meeting in Rome. He explained that those who proclaim the Gospel “continue to be persecuted like their master and Lord” Jesus Christ.
“However, despite the problems and tragic reality of persecution, the Church does not get discouraged; it remains faithful to the Lord’s mandate,” the Pope said, as reported by Catholic News Service.
The Pope explained that Christ’s message “can never give in to the logic of this world, because it is prophecy and liberation; it is the seed of a new humanity that grows, and only at the end of times will it come to full fruition.”
Donohue points out that Christians are often forced to pay for and sponsor expressions that insult Jesus and Mary.
For example:
- “Piss Christ” was a 1987 art exhibit that portrayed a crucifix in a jar of the artist’s urine. The depiction won an award that was sponsored and paid for by the federal government’s National Endowment for the Arts. The blasphemous exhibit will reappear in New York on Sept. 27, as part of an exhibit at the Edward Tyler Nahem gallery in Midtown Manhattan that runs through Oct. 26.
- Last March, musician Tim Minchin took to the stage on the National Mall in Washington, which is federal property, and performed an amplified song that maligned Pope Benedict XVI as no better than a “(expletive) rapist.” The song characterized all priests and other Catholics as facilitators of child molestation. It contained more than 75 obscenities directed at Catholics, the Pope and that which is sacred to them. It was part of the weekend-long Reason Rally, which presented a litany of speakers and performers who blasphemed Christianity with accusations and vulgarity.
- Taxpayers subsidized the display of “Sensation” at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, which featured the Virgin Mary splattered with elephant dung and adorned with close-ups of female genitalia cut from pornographic magazines. This week, a Sept. 24 Wall Street Journal commentary on the Obama administration’s public apologies for the U.S.-made video noted that when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was a New York senator she criticized the attempt by then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani to cut off public funding for the museum exhibit. “Our feelings of being offended should not lead to the penalizing and shutting down of an entire museum,” stated Clinton.
- The University of Minnesota currently employs P.Z. Myers as an associate professor of biology, though Myers, a leading public atheist and opponent of "Intelligent Design," desecrated the Eucharist on the Internet.
- Colorado taxpayers subsidized a display of a pornographic depiction of Jesus in 2010 at the Loveland City Museum.
- Kansas taxpayers commissioned and hosted a sculpture at the municipal Washburn University in Topeka that depicted a bishop in an obscene way. The Thomas More Law Center sued, claiming the statue was an “impermissible message of hostility to Catholics and the Catholic religion” by a government-funded institution. A federal judge ruled in favor of the university, saying the court could not conclude that a reasonable person would construe the depiction as a state-sponsored attack on Catholics.
- Countless YouTube videos feature desecrations of the Bible, the Eucharist and symbols sacred to Christians.
“Instead of getting plaudits from Washington and Hollywood for not getting violent, Christians get more abuse precisely because they do not react with violence,” Donohue said. “It’s really a sick message, because it says: ‘As long as you don’t get violent and harm us, we will abuse you.’ We can’t seem to motivate them to respect us for living in peace.”
David Kopel, a First Amendment law professor at the University of Denver, said the practice of taxpayer subsidies for “childish and obnoxious” expressions against Christianity should stop. A devout Catholic with a website about Mary, Kopel said he understands President Obama’s diplomacy toward insulted Muslims while governing a country that tolerates anti-Christian bigotry.
“They are having to explain … how free speech works,” Kopel said. “It’s probably worthwhile to try it, but this is an uphill battle. They hear hateful lies about Jews drinking the blood of Gentile kids, and these are messages emanating from governments. Their governments have told them that attacks on the World Trade Center were a Zionist conspiracy. So they would confuse anti-Muslim hate speech as something from the United States government and condoned by our society.”
Hooper agrees and says CAIR is distributing a video in parts of the Islamic world that explains in Arabic the whole concept of free speech.
“We are trying to explain to them that they should not hold the American government and the majority of the American people responsible for this video,” Hooper said. “We are trying to teach them that most Christians do not hate Muslims. All we can do is try to educate them about free speech.”
Jimmy Akin, senior apologist for Catholic Answers, a San Diego-based Catholic apologetics organization, and a Register blogger, said Scripture warns Christians that they will suffer hostility and persecution for their beliefs. He quotes John 15:20, which states: “Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.”
Akin also quotes Matthew 5:39: “Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”
“This advice is meant to be applied situationally. It does not mean that we need to be doormats or that we should not protest outrages against the faith,” Akin said in an email to the Register. “We can use legitimate means to defund such outrages or refuse to do business with those who sponsor them. Ultimately, how to respond in a particular case is a judgment call. This is the point made by a couple of verses that are right next to each other in Proverbs.”
Akin notes that Proverbs 26:4, “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself,” is followed directly by: “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.”
Wayne Laugesen writes from Colorado.
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The Islamic faith sees self-control and patience as weakness. If you are offended, destroy the offender. Very few, especially in this “meme” age can comprehend the strength and wisdom of the Scriptural verses quoted in this article.
This was an excellent article except for the fact that the white house (finally) has admitted that the video was not the cause of the unrest in the middle east. I wish the reporting of that would stop. It was naive to surmise that a video would cause the death of the ambassador to Libya in the first place—and the rest of the unrest. Common sense points to its absurdity.
Situations in which Christianity is mocked provides opportunities to evangelize and correct misconceptions and errors. This can be done peacefully and with reason.
This is all too horrible to even read!!! I want to cry about how much blasphemous insults our Lord endures! :((
There are only so many times that we Christians can turn the other cheek. If we were to start litigating for OUR rights, like every other maligned group does so successfully, perhaps it would cease.
“His organization condemns the violent Muslim reactions to “The Innocence of Muslims,” but spokesman [for the Council on American-Islamic Relations] Ibrahim Hooper wonders why Christians, and Catholics in general, don’t make more effort to peacefully defend against attacks on Jesus, Mary, the Eucharist and the Church.”
Perhaps it’s because Christians and Catholics don’t feel as inadequate as the Muslims who require validation of their religious beliefs by non-Muslims or else they go berserk from hurt pride. Obama and the State Department have to soothe them with diplomatic statements equivalent to “Your wife is beautiful and your children are gifted, and no one should say otherwise.” That’s the response a crazy person holding a bomb detonator gets from the SWAT team negotiator, and it’s nothing to covet.
It would also be a good idea for Donohue to stop conflating “insults, “persecution,” and “abuse.” A skit, picture or song ridiculing Jesus isn’t the same thing as allowing employment or lending discrimination sgainst Christians, much less is it equivalant to imprisoning or killing them for worshipping as they wish. When Christians assume the long-suffering-eyes-cast-upward pose of a martyr in stained glass because Bill Maher has a potty-mouth they just look self-dramatizing and pompous.
When lawsuits are brought to try to stop taxpayer money from going to support “disrespectful” art it just wastes more taxpayer money in court and brings unhoped for publicity to the artist. Chrisians can go for it if it makes them feel better, but what is actually being accomplished?
O’ God is it not tempting to flood these arrogant peoples in muddy water?
Oh right, You promised not to do that again. How about fire? Right, they’ll have enough of that later on. I’m not only really saddened what these people do to You, but for what I have done to You and for what I’ve failed to do. When there’s even something small that I can do for YOU, please Holy Spirit inspire me. I was nice to someone today who didn’t deserve it (in the world’s eyes) and I picked up some litter. I offer these to You. That’s all I can do some days, but it’s for You.
We turn our face and give the other side and grit our teeth as Jesus would have done. Besides, Our Lord said this would happen.
What a wicked world we live in. I try to be a good Christian, mass media I love it, and at the same time..well, I’m kinda messed up. I have hope in the Lord. Try to do the next right thing. God bless us all of us.
If Bill Maher and his admirers had any measureable intelligence, they would know that the Catholic Church over the centuries has been responsible for educating, healing, and protecting the poor and minorities throughout the world, including the USA. Many faithful Catholic Christians have been martyred for these causes! Although the Church, like the world obviously, is made up of imperfect human beings no organization has contributed more to the betterment of humanity. If not for their own bigotry, Maher and his like would recognize that and show a little humility for their own shortcomings!
We need to write and call the people who put such atrocities out for the public to feast upon while at the same time always remembering that the true feast is held in the Mass.
It is important to remember that when someone strikes you on the right cheek they are striking you as inferior, so offer them the other that you may be seen as an equal.
I believe that the quote concerning the other cheek refers to personal insults. We have an obligation as soldiers of Christ to defend Our Lord and the Church when they are attacked, peacefully and legally of course, but you defend what you love.
“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you made me welcome, lacking clothes and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to see me.”
That’s why we can’t spend alot of our time defending our Lord against gossip. He has other work for us to do.
Wayne, Great article,great writing, but you forget to mention the blatant attacks from HHS on not just Catholic Colleges and Hospitals, but ALL Christian Colleges and Hospitals. These will only increase if Obama gets another 4 years…
Why do “artists” feel the need to desecrate religious icons? Are they so certain of their place after death?
No, hate messages should be stopped. Sorry, that First Amendment thing gets in your way all the time but its something you need to learn to live with.
Look, no one likes hate speech but like it or not it is protected. The responsible thing isn’t to file lawsuits and call for boycotts of the organization that posts the message but to challenge the message’s author. Just because someone’s artwork is in poor taste or offensive to you is not a reason to block someone’s right to free speech. Respond to it, inform the public who might otherwise be misled. Make videos of your own, write articles like this all explaining what the hate speech is and why its inaccurate. In other words give the rest of the country your side of the story. Stop being a spoiled bully who just wants to shut everyone up, that is neither healthy nor productive for society.
cowalker, as much as you might hate it, I completely agree with your comments here.
I hope this doesn’t hurt your street cred to much.
The CAIR is an Islamist public relations firm thinly disguised as a civil-rights lobby. Here is their spokesman shrewdly pretending to be sympathetic with Catholics by wondering aloud why they “don’t make more effort to peacefully defend against attacks dn Jesus, Mary, the Eucharist and the Church”, and the writer wants to organize a love-in. The Christian image of “the flock” is very appropriate in this case.
Romans chapter five tells us the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. In the Beatitudes Jesus makes it plain how we should treat our enemies. Only God’s love will convince people His way is he only way. I have not had to endure what many are currently going through for the sake of the gospel, can pray for boldness, wisdom and love to fill their hearts.
Appeasement does not work! We need to get out the Catholic vote or we will either be converted, slaves, or dead. These are they only outcomes for infidels! Let us pray that GOD will still bless America even after many have turned their back on HIM. If there are only 50 believers in America, will HE save our country???
Bill Mahar is a bully and a bigot! Like all bullies and bigots
he has a “problem” that is only solved by cutting down those he
deems beneath him. His behavior is stupid and idiotic and those who
laugh at his inane jokes appear in much the same light. As my late
sainted mother used to say when confronted with such inanity, “Consider
the source”....and it then is no longer difficult to turn his monstrous
remarks aside.
I am sad to see all the mockery on the most innocent Jesus. We have no alternative to what he taught us namely ” Love your enemies” Who knows why the modern day terrorism reigns ! These Christ haters have no courage to criticize Mohammed because they are afraid of events similar to 9/11. I feel these haters specially in the western world will one day come under such inhuman Muslim rule and it may serve them
People such as Bill Maher will see the truth one day….either here on Earth or when they meet our Lord. I’ll be praying for his soul. We will keep up the good fight.
“When lawsuits are brought to try to stop taxpayer money from going to support “disrespectful” art it just wastes more taxpayer money in court and brings unhoped for publicity to the artist. Chrisians can go for it if it makes them feel better, but what is actually being accomplished?”
I am sorry, but this misses the point. Money is not the Christian’s concern in these matters, but the (apparently successful) attempt to convince people that these displays are “normal” and acceptable. On a secular level, it is not that different from denouncing and fighting public displays of pornography.
What is actually being accomplished is standing up for what is true and good. It is a demonstration that Christians still recognize falsehood when they see it, are willing to call it what it is and insisting that it should not be. It is a statement made by people who make a bold claim that they will continue to insist that claim is true, even when they are mocked or treated with indifference. It is not a matter of making anyone “feel good” about the situation.
I agree with this article - my thoughts exactly. Christians haven’t gone berserk over that piece of whatever that says Jesus had a wife. I also think the National Endowment for the Arts should be eliminated. Taxpayers should not have to pay for any art that is offensive to any religion.
re: “like to see Christians speak out more than they do”
When it comes to doctrine or defending Truth, we do. But for the insults and mockery made by the world, we Christians know that it is by God’s grace we are not joining in with them.
Rover Serton posted on Tuesday, Sep 25, 2012 4:47 PM (EST):
“cowalker, as much as you might hate it, I completely agree with your comments here.
“I hope this doesn’t hurt your street cred to much.”
LOL! If I have any street cred, I am unaware of it. I’m glad you and I agree. I suspect there are many other believers and non-believers who don’t take pride in being thin-skinned and childish.
Tax dollars should not fund ANY art. Let the art lovers fund it! Our country is headed for bankruptcy!!
Serrano received $15,000 for his faux art, part of it from the taxpayer-funded National Endowment for the Arts. We are a VERY sick culture!!!! I stand behind my last comment. De-fund all non-essential initiatives. Art would be one of the first to go. Let the perverts fund their perverse faux art!
Now that the white house has told us the truth we can relax. And Salmon Rushdi can come out of hiding. I’m sure we can all get together and work out this little problem; the white house probably is taking care of everything as I type this.
WE KNOW BETTER!!! WE CAN RESPOND TO ATTACKS UPON THE R. CATHOLIC FAITH WITH OUR OWN CHRISTIAN RESISTANCE BASED ON SELF-RESTRAINT, HOLINESS AND PRAYER.
Indeed, Christians should be more active in boycotting and defunding vulgar blasphemy.
Really, the CAIR guy said he doesn’t know why Christians in America don’t stand up to defamation by arts and the like? Funny, I just wonder why Mr. Hooper doesn’t speak out about the slaugther, literally, of Christians and converts to Christianity in his Muslim countries…a bit hypocritical and deceptive and dishonest about his concern for “Christians” I would say.
Anti-CAIR says it best in this post:
CAIR’s Hooper: Feigned Outrage At Christians For Not Defending The Faith?
In the National Catholic Register, a column titled “How to Respond to ‘the Last Acceptable Prejudice’” has interesting commentary by none other than Ibrahim Hooper, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) spokesman.
While discussing the “violent Muslim reactions” to the The Innocence of Muslims film trailer, Hooper apparently feels the need to take Catholics to task for not defending their faith. He begins by saying:
“We’ve seen a crucifix in urine, elephant dung on Mary and The Last Temptation of Christ, and mockery of Jesus on TV has become common.”
Hooper then clearly attempts to goad Catholics into reacting more aggressively to insults to their faith. Is he really recommending Catholics take the current ungodly form of “protesting” over slights to one’s faith by going on a wild rampage of screaming, murdering, crucifying, or burning down cities over insults to the Catholic faith? It certainly appears he’s pushing for a more aggressive reaction when he says:
“We oppose violence, but I would like to see Christians speak out more than they do about these insults. We all too often see Jesus mocked.”
Hooper, whose organization still claims to speak for Muslims in North America and was founded by terrorists to support HAMAS, attempts to paint a picture of an Islamic organization dedicated to protecting the rights of all faiths. Is CAIR really trying to play the protector of the faith? Or are they attempting something more sinister in order to downplay the ugly realities that plague the ideology of CAIR?
What Hooper and the rest of the Muslim Brotherhood supporters at CAIR fail to accept is the very real nature of Christianity. Christians are taught from day one to forgive and love everyone, including their enemies. This is why you won’t see Christians screaming, murdering, crucifying, or burning down cities when Christianity is “insulted”. These murderous traits are not Christian, so Christians don’t do them. However, screaming, murdering, crucifying, or burning down cities are sadly all hallmarks of many Islamic radicals in response to any “insult”, real or imagined, to the Islamic faith. Hooper and CAIR can’t have that. It makes them look bad.
Are all Muslims violent, misogynistic supremacists who murder, crucify, and destroy at the drop of a hat? Of course not.
Too bad CAIR only seems to care about the worlds few million Islamic radicals who do behave like savages, and is apparently trying to draw Catholics and Christians into reacting the same way to insults to the Christian faith.
Catholics should beware of speaking to, let alone quoting, members of CAIR. Supremacist, fascist propaganda like that of CAIR does not belong in the National Catholic Register nor any other publication that supports Christianity.
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