An Italian Roman Catholic priest was shot and killed in the courtyard of his church in the Black Sea port city of Trabzon in Turkey.
A witness said she heard the culprit shout "God is great" as he escaped, a priest said.
Officers were searching for a teenage boy who witnesses said carried out the attack, according to a police official.
The police official would not say if the attack might have been linked to the printing in European newspapers of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, which has caused anger in Muslim countries. Earlier, hundreds of Turks protested in Istanbul against the printing of the cartoons.
"Whether the killing is linked to the caricatures will emerge when the culprit has been caught," said Trabzon’s Governor Huseyin Yavuzdemir said. [Source]
Well if there is a connection it looks like these protests have taken an even worse turn then the burning down of conciliates and threatening violence. Gerald Augustinus has a post of some funny Photoshopped images of the pictures of the protest signs much displayed in the blogosphere. The whole episode just seems so surreal and if somebody had written this storyline in a novel it would have been laughed at. From Danish cartoons, to arson, and now possibly murder.
My own take on the whole thing is closer to Hugh Hewitt’s, The Anchoress, and Catholic Outsider. The Catholic Outsider specifically said:
I still believe Catholics should not show fear to Islamic fanaticism, but neither enthusiasm on any kind of religion bashing.
It seems to me that some have gone so far into saying that bashing of Moslems is a God given right. Telling the truth with charity is what we are called to do. Prudence is a major component in telling the truth. This does not mean that we have to deny that Islam is a heresy or that both historically and currently that it has mainly relied on the sword and not reason and apologetics to gain followers. Whether the Danish newspaper should have published the editorial cartoons is a matter of prudence, though the government should not be involved in their decision at all.
Now I have to admit that some of the cartoons made me laugh and I think there is an element of truth in some of them, and that bit of truth is probably what irks some more than the fact that they used a caricatured picture of Mohammed. Though I still don’t get the prohibition of his image because of the danger of idolatry.
On the other hand many Muslims need a wake up call and a real good P.R. firm to advise them. I don’t exactly see the logic in responding to cartoons stereotyping Muslims as violent by threatening beheadings, holocausts, extermination, annihilation, burning down buildings, etc. Don’t say we are violent or we will kill you. Yeah that will really change hearts and minds. Just too bad that cartoons are denounced so forcefully but mosques or kids getting blown up while receiving candy from soldiers gets hardly any outrage.
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One of the big aspects of this story that I haven’t seen given much airtime is the fact that the chief Imam of Denmark went to the leaders of many arab nations and showed them images of the prophet NOT TAKEN FROM THE ORIGINAL DENMARK PUBLICATION.
I was watching BBC’s Hardtalk interview and the Imam could not say how these images (which included far more offensive ones like Mohammed portrayed with a pig’s face) came to appear in the dossier that he intentionally brought to the leaders of these arab nations.
So, in effect, most of the rioters in the middle east havent even been given the truth about what the images are by their leaders – sounds like deliberative provocation to me.
Then again, some of the images in the original 12 would have been inflamatory enough, but golly, those Imams sure are zealous folks.
One doesn’t really need to bash them, just tell it like it is, that’s bad enough. Sure, the media will say it’s only a tiny minority. But a) I don’t believe that and b) that doesn’t help one much if they riot in your neighborhood. Islam does not fit in the West. Islam considers land occupied by Muslims Islamic. Therefore, conquest is the goal. Therefore, decent regular Muslim folks notwithstanding, it’s not a good idea to have millions of them immigrate. A “small percentage” of millions is still a whole lotta crazy people.
Yet these Danish cartoons are disneyesque in comparison to the vile slurs, slanders, libels, lies, and utterly obscene portrayals by Islam of Israel, Judaism and Jewish people. Today’s “Jerusalem Post” has a reasoned reply to the present Islamic outburts that are sweeping arcoss the earth: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1138622555872&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull.
Beyond these facts, there is a pattern growing here, first with the violent “reactions” by mostly Islamic youth in France to the accidental electrocution of two young men; and now this violence, plus threats all across Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Each time, the outbursts grow more insane, and are sparked by suspicious circumstances, such as the added cartoons (not Danish) added it appears by some imams themselves as noted in a previous post here.
And what does a nuclear armed Iran bode for all of us given the complete, psychopathic reaction to some cartoons in the Danish press–which by the way were publish last September?
The whole concept of an “International Day of Anger” seems like a blatant rip off of the whole World Day of Peace Thing. Wonder if an anti-encyclical is on the way: Deus Fermentum Est
See here for information about the International Day of Anger:
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004441.htm
And don’t you get tired of American journalists constantly comparing Catholics and other Christians to fundamentalist Muslims? Anyone know of anyone killing, setting fires, etc. because Washburn U has a statue of a bishop with a leering face and a male organ for a mitre, entitled “Holier Than Thou?” Or burning buildings in NYC when an art museum had pictures of Our Lady smeared with elephant dung?
Let’s be clear. The so-called prohibition has more loopholes than the U.S. tax code. Taken at their most extreme, some verses of the Koran could be used to justify banning any representation of any creature. Mohammed has been depicted in Islamic art, and it’s easy to find such images on the web. Since Moses and Jesus are counted among the Prophets, one can point out the inconsistency in that images of them are never condemned by Muslims.
U.S. newspapers should print these comics, because they are newsworthy. Rioting and deaths have resulted from the controversy. By lying about the reason for not printing the caricatures, U.S. media moguls have only highlighted their cowardice with dishonesty.
Remember: self-imposed Sharia is still Sharia.