Christians caught up in cartoon whirlwind

Italian priest dies amid Muslim backlash, reports Freddy Gray
A Catholic priest in turkey has been shot dead by an Islamic extremist amid increasing fears for the safety of Christians in Muslim countries after several secular European newspapers published cartoons that ridiculed Mohammed, the founder of Islam.
In many parts of the Muslim world Islamist extremists have vowed to avenge the insult by taking Christian lives.
Leading Catholic figures and groups are outraged by the threats, particularly since Christians have nothing to do with the cartoons. Furthermore, Church leaders have strongly condemned the cartoons.
Neville Kyrke-Smith, UK director of Aid to the Church in Need, a charity which offers help to oppressed Christians all over the world, said that many Muslims fail to distinguish between the secular West and Christianity.
"The problem is that in the Fast anything from the West is
seen as being Christian. There is no justification for the persecution of Christians for their faith in any circumstances and violence against Christians for something that is in no way their fault is even more appalling.
"We have to understand the dire impact our words and actions in the West can have for Christians in the Middle East and beyond."
It is widely thought that the killing of Fr Andrea Santora, a 60-year-old Italian priest serving in Trabzon, on the Black Sea coast, is linked to the anger over the cartoons. Witnesses say that the gunman, believed to be a teenager who was arrested on Tuesday, screamed "Allahu Akbhar" ("God is Great") as he fired two bullets into Fr Santoro, and earlier that day there had been fierce riots in Istanbul in protest at the cartoons.
The Turkish government, however, has played down the connection. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that he hoped the shooting was unrelated. The priest's work rescuing prostitutes in the area has been suggested as another possible motive.
Elsewhere, in Beirut, angry Islamic protestors ransacked the Christian quarter of Ashrafieh, smashing cars, windows and a large church. Pakistani anti-cartoon rioters beat up Christians, while in the Palestinian territories the terror group Islamic Jihad has warned the Christian community there that it will pay in blood for the caricatures.
In response to a barrage of press inquiries the Vatican issued a press statement about the cartoons and the uproar.
"The right to freedom of thought and expression, sanctioned by the Declaration of the Rights of Man, cannot imply the right to offend the religious sentiment of believers," it said.
"However, it must be said immediately that the offences caused by an individual or an organ of the press cannot be imputed to the public institutions of the corresponding country, whose authorities might and should intervene eventually according to the principles of national legislation. Therefore, violent actions of protest are equally deplorable." • Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, told Vatican Radio that the demonstrations show how deeply Muslims have been offended by the depictions of their Prophet. "We shouldn't diminish the love and respect Muslims have for their prophet Mohammed," he said.
In London, Cardinal Connac Murphy-O'Connor said he was "shocked" by the Muslim reaction but added that freedom of speech did not mean freedom from responsibility.
"I really do think that our writers, our media, must be aware of the sensitivities of faith communities," he said.
"Maybe we as Christians haven't been strong in protesting in a proper away about the images and writings that treat Jesus Christ with derision. But obviously I deplore the violence."
The Cardinal suggested that Muslims could learn from the successful Catholic protests against Popetown, the satirical BBC cartoon that portrayed the Vatican as a farcically corrupt institution led by an infantile Pontiff, which was pulled after sustained complaints from Catholic groups.
However, Charles Moore, a former editor of the Spectator, the Sunday Telegraph and the Daily Telegraph, berated the official Catholic response. He argued that Church leaders, in focusing largely on the offensive cartoons, have ignored the "more serious pattern of violence against Christians" in Muslim countries.
"There is a village of international ecclesiastical bureaucracy and diplomacy," said Mr Moore. a Catholic. "They meet pleasant Muslim leaders and everyone says very nice things to each other, but this has very little to do with the persecution of Christians in Islamic countries and leaves those Christians terribly isolated."
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