RU 39/2006 - FRANCE, VATICAN

- FRANCE: The French daily 'Le Figaro' is in the red, at least for the Muslims. Mr R.R., a high school teacher for philosophy in the region of Toulouse, had published on September 19th a reader's letter in this newspaper about Mohammed and Islam, and one week later he felt obliged to hide and ask for police protection, after having received death threats by telephone, e-mail and Internet. His wife and his children also received threats. What had he written? About Mohammed: "He was a merciless warlord, a looter, a mass murderer of Jews and a polygamist". About the Koran: "a book of an incredible violence". About Islam: "Jesus is a master of love; Mohammed is a master of hatred... Whereas Judaism and Christianity are religions whose rites forsake violence and remove its legitimacy, Islam is a religion that, in its very sacred text, as much as in some of its everyday rites, exalts violence and hatred. Hatred and violence dwell in the very book that educates any Muslim, the Koran." The persecution and threats against R.R. are massive: his photograph was published on Internet on an Islamist site, as well as his personal address, directions to his home, his cellphone number etc. On September 29th, R.R. declared in a secretly organized interview on 'Europe 1': "You never will feel secure on this earth. 1 billion 300,000 Muslims are ready to kill you!" Already 'Le Figaro' also received the first warnings, notably in Egypt and Tunisia where the day's issue was banned. The Al Jazeera television began denunciations against R.R. in its broadcasts watched in all the Arabian Orient. First the 'caricatures', then the pope, today R.R. and 'Le Figaro' (without mentioning the ten thousands of despised and mistreated Christians throughout the Muslim countries). Who will be the next one? R.R. in the newspaper 'Depeche du Midi' of September 28th: "What is happening to me, corresponds fully to what I denounce in my writing: the West is under ideological surveillance by Islam". One thing is certain: the true dialogue with Islam - or let's better say 'the dialogue with the true Islam' - did only start, thanks to the Holy Father. Latest news: The French politician Philippe de Villiers asked in a public letter to the president of the Republic Jacques Chirac to protect R.R. symbolically in the Elysee Palace, in the name of the liberty. Will it become necessary to install soon the whole editorial department of Le Figaro there? - (ru; cf. IHT Oct. 30)

- VATICAN: On August 16th, 2006, on the first anniversary of the violent death - some people speak of 'martyrdom' - of Brother Roger Schutz, Benedict XVI declared about the founder of the Taize movement: "His testimony for the Christian faith and the ecumenical dialogue was a precious teaching for entire generations of young people." Already at the time of the WYD of Cologne, one year before, the pope had called him "the great preparer of unity". Today Benedict XVI continues: "Does he visit us now from above (?) and encourage us? I think that we should lend him internally our ear and let us be guided, all the more, by his invitation to a really internalised and spiritualized oecumenism." One always remembers that photo where one can see cardinal Ratzinger, at the time of the funerals of John-Paul II in April 2005 in Rome, giving the Holy Communion to the 'protestant' brother Schutz in his rolling chair... - With all the respect and the filial love that we owe to our pope, let's yet dare to formulate this question which haunts us: how can one be so sure that Brother Schutz "visits us from above"? Was he not a Protestant, therefore schismatic auto-excommunicated, deprived by this fact of the sanctifying grace (except in the case of an extraordinary act of mercy of God)? Someones say that Br. Schutz had converted to Catholicism 'in pectore', i.e. secretly. But this is not sure, neither visible, and the scandal is there. If one can save one's soul in Protestantism, why Father Sten Sandmark, pastor of the Lutheran parish of Oskarshamn in Sweden, converted on July 30th, 2006, to Catholicism, "in order to save my soul"? Was he wrong? - (ru; cf. TD Sept. 15)