Thousands of Catholics rioted in London today, burning cars and battling police while protesting what they called a “blasphemous” portrayal of Pope Benedict XVI in a Times of London cartoon.
Other Christian leaders called for the death of the cartoonist Peter Brooks for his appalling caricature of the Pope wearing a condom instead of his normal triregnum.
Oh, wait. We got our stories slightly confused. It was the Muslims who rioted over a cartoon of Allah. The Catholic response was a bit milder. They wrote letters.
“I was appalled at the tasteless cartoon depicting Pope Benedict XVI,” Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor wrote in a letter to the Times. “No newspaper should show such disrespect to a person who is held in high esteem by a large proportion of Christians in the world. To pillory the Pope in this way is totally unacceptable.
“We will not accept the Pope being made the object of mockery and offence, in the media or elsewhere,” said Angelo Bagnasco, an Italian Bishop. “He represents for everyone a moral authority, which this journey has made people appreciate even more.”
No word yet on whether cartoonist Brooks has gone into hiding to avoid a potential Catholic fatwah.
Source: MediaWatchWatch.org
