‘Democrats,’ But Not ‘Christian’?

DEUTSCHE PRESSE-AGENTUR, July 11 — The political party that led the reconstruction of postwar Germany was dubbed the “Christian Democrats,” in part to distinguish the new regime from the paganism of the Nazis. But Germany has changed and so has the party, which has proposed policies offering special rights to homosexuals and which recently appointed Katherina Reiche, a pregnant, unmarried mother, as its spokeswoman for family issues.

Noting this resurgence of pagan values in the party, Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne has asked the party to change its name, the German news service Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported.

“If he is going to keep Frau Reiche, he should take the ‘C’ off the CDU,” said Cardinal Meisner. “If the CDU leadership want to take on the Church, then they had better be prepared to fight it out.”

China Locks Up Nun for Teaching Religion

ASSOCIATED PRESS, July 22 — In China, where the Catholic Church has been illegal since 1951, authorities continue to persecute believers for the most basic of Christian practices.

Associated Press reported late last month on the arrest and detention of Sister Chen Mei in Linjiang County of Fujian province for “teaching a summer vacation religion class for children” at a private home. Some 26 students and four chaperones were also arrested and later released. The Cardinal Kung Foundation of Stamford, Conn., broke the story.

A local Chinese government official confirmed the arrests for “attending an illegal religious activity.” The catechism class was organized by underground Chinese Catholics, who reject the schismatic China Patriotic Catholic Association created by the Communist government.

British Seize Islamic Tapes that Inspired Pearl's Murderer

THE WASHINGTON TIMES, July 22 — Ahmed Omar Saeed, the Islamic terrorist who killed Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and was sentenced to death last week in Pakistan, was won over to extremism by a propaganda videotape, The Washington Times reported.

The tape, called “The Destruction of a Nation,“ is still being sold and passed around in British mosques and Islamic bookstores, according to the Times, which cites a British security source who calls it “part of the process of brainwashing.”

In 1999 Saeed said that watching the tape — which purports to show Serbian soldiers butchering Bosnian Muslims — shook his heart and led him to volunteer alongside “jihad fighters” in Bosnia. Saeed first saw the tape in 1992 when it was shown by the London School of Economics Islamic Society, to which he belonged.

British police have seized thousands of audiotapes recorded by Muslim extremist preachers after complaints in Parliament and by moderate Muslim clerics. The Times cited recent reports that “at least 3,000 British Muslims have been trained in al Qaeda and Taliban camps in the past decade … showing that the recruitment of militants in Britain has been far more effective than previously believed.”