Human Rights, Freedom of Speech, and the Catholic Church

It would seem that not all Catholics are thrilled about the new annoyance laws put into place to "guarantee" that pilgrims are not annoyed or inconvenienced during the World Youth Day festivities.

Father Frank Brennan (pictured), who also happens to be a lawyer, feels that the new police powers are not only excessive but an interference of the civil liberties of people and in fact the new laws run contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church. Fr. Brennan cites the Pacem In Terris, the 1963 encyclical of Pope John, where it is clear that responsibility of all authorities was "to safeguard the inviolable rights of the human person". Perhaps the NSW Government has interpreted this to mean the inviolable rights of the Catholic pilgrim.

However, the Catholic Church holds no such reservations. The Church has in fact indicated that it fully supports the laws and that it lobbied the government to ensure that the laws were enacted on the grounds that everyone wants WYD to be held in Sydney and that the people of Sydney, not only the pilgrims, were in favour of such measures because they want the event, which will be full of enthusiasm and joy, to run smoothly. I am not sure who the Catholic Church has been talking to on this.

Whether the laws are contrary to Catholic teachings is neither here nor there in that sense. I would have thought that pedophilia was contrary to Catholic teachings as well but it still happens. The laws are simply an affront to basic human rights that the majority of us take for granted but that the Catholic Church does not. In any event putting laws like this into place is like showing a red rag to a bull. Those groups that might not have been inclined to protest will now come out of the woodwork and protest on principle.

It is interesting that the organizers of the WYD and the Catholic Church want to have their cake and eat it too. An argument could be made that Jesus was the protester of his time. There were many in power who disagreed with his message and his teachings for which Jesus paid the ultimate price. The analogy drawn by Dr John Sweeney, the co-ordinator of research at the Edmund Rice Centre, says the following, "It would rather be like Jesus calling for a police escort on Palm Sunday. Obviously, he wouldn't and when Jesus went into Jerusalem people yelled out things the religious leaders in their time didn't like and they rebuked Jesus and he said he couldn't quieten his supporters."

This is a thought worth pondering. If Jesus really was about free speech and the right to preach his message then isn't it a little rich that the organizers want to curtail that very freedom for which Jesus died?

As you can see these increased police powers bother me.

Tempo and the Last Supper

Religious satire and the question of blasphemy rises again in Indonesia. The furore that accompanied the publishing of cartoons depicting the image of the Prophet Muhammad has now turned to Indonesian Catholics being offended by a cover on Tempo Magazine depicting the Last Supper with Jesus and his Disciples replaced by the happy and smiling heads of Soeharto and his kiddies!

This is a case of making a mountain out of a mole hill and the fact that some Indonesian Catholics are forcing the issue by suing Tempo is another attack on the freedom of the press. That said, the cartoons of the Prophet, and Koran / Haddith teachings aside that prevent the rendering of the image of the Prophet in any form, the question of double standard is sure to be asked.

When it is all said and done, and even giving much leeway to the genius of Leonardo Da Vinci, the painting of the Last Supper is no more than one artists interpretation of what might have been. Any reader of Dan Brown's DaVinci Code will probably be able to provide you with all sorts of conspiracy and trivial pursuit knowledge of the coming into being of DaVinci's Last Supper. But it is but a painting.

What is more surpising is the rapid nature in which Tempo backed down and apologized for the offence. There is nothing to apologize for here...

On the cartoon front. It is being reported that Danish police have foiled a murder plot that was being hatched to target and kill the cartoonist who dared publish cartoons depicting the image of the Prophet.

A threat to the freedom of thought and expression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere -- freedom of thought, expression, religion, and democracy must be defended wherever it needs to be...as Thomas Jefferson once said:

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

May we one day find the tolerance that this world will so desperately need to survive its human occupation!