Intolerable Christianity?

It is no surprise that in the modern, secularised, relativist, pluralist world Christianity and the Church is attacked more and more severely. Christians are more and more often discriminated and persecuted all over the world.

Although the motivation is very different in each case, sometimes the political and economic factors are very strong, eventually it happens in the name of tolerance (when the “enlightened west” turns against its own

“mother”, Christianity) or for tolerance (when Islam fi ghts for its “rights”).

In the eyes of the world the greatest and unforgivable sin of Christianity is that it professes the cross of Christ as the ultimate and entire truth. It is not possible to examine the political and world hegemonial motivation in a detailed manner within the frames of this study. Nevertheless, we must mention the responsibility of the United States and its allies, the Zionist movement and different subversive organisations (e.g. free masonry) in the fact that due to the change in the legal environment and social atmosphere and because of Islam terrorism and especially the emergence and develop-ment of ISIS, Christianity is being prosecuted spiritually, culturally and physically in an unprecedented measure.

Negative manifestations against Christianity can be basically divided into two parts: intolerance (these are anti-Christian manifestations and the endeavour to oust Christians from public life and the media) and discrimi-nation, which is the legal limitation of freedom of religion, which is even more serious than intolerance. We can mention anti-Christian activities which were committed against freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and the discriminative equality policy. Let’s see some illustrations which include, but are not limited to the following.

Christmas, the main celebration of the bodily birth of Lord Jesus, has been the victim of misinterpreted tolerance. In the US city of Santa Monica, near Los Angeles, which was named after Saint Monica, mother of Saint August the great western Church-father, the local atheists initiated with the

local authorities that all “unvisited exhibitions” in public places should be closed. The idea admittedly was against the cribs.⁴³ According to Annie Laurie Gaylor⁴⁴, the president of Freedom from Religion Foundation, re-ligion simply does not belong to public places, it is amply enough to see a

“tax-free” church at every corner. Furthermore she thought that the decision would serve sustaining the separation of state and religion.

In 2012 in the City hall of Brussels there was a decision made to stand a strongly simplifi ed stylized “electronic winter tree” instead of a traditional Christmas tree on the main square of the city. This installation was meant to honour the sensitivity of the Muslims who represent nearly a quarter of the population of the city⁴⁵, but according to other sources, they only wanted to demonstrate their modernity.⁴⁶

In 2014 Femen-furies destroyed the crib in Brussels – probably in the name of tolerance and female rights. One member of the same anti-Christian and feminist organisation shortly after the Urbi et Orbi blessing of Pope Francis at Christmas snatched the statue of Baby Jesus from the crib at Saint Peter Square and run away with it yelling loudly. The following words were written on the breasts of the half-naked woman: God is woman.

But it is not only the endeavours to reinterpret or destroy Christmas that demonstrate open attacks against Christianity. It happened in 2011 that the Christian holidays, even Christmas and Easter, were left out from the cal-endar made for students by the European Committee, while all the Jewish, Muslim, Hindi, Sikh and Chinese holidays were included.⁴⁷

The prosecution of Christian belief is demonstrated even on the highest political level of EU. We can all remember the case of Rocco Buttiglione, the Minister of European Affairs of the Italian government in the autumn of 2004. It is well known that due to the strong pressure of the left wing and liberal parties of the European Parliament, the Italian philosopher and

43 http://mandiner.blog.hu/2012/11/21/szekularis_monica-show_tilos_betlehemezni (L.d.:

16.06.2015.)

44 http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/11/nativity-scene-ban-the-atheists-won-on-this.html (L.d.: 16.06.2015.)

45 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-20302574 (L.d.: 16. 06. 2015.)

46 http://www.euronews.com/2012/11/12/many-are-not-fans-of-brussels-modern-art-christmas-tree/ (L.d.: 16.06.2015.)

47 http://erdely.ma/hitvilag.php?id=83357&cim=kihagytak_a_kereszteny_unnepeket_az_

eu_s_naptarbol (L.d.: 16.06.2015.)

politician stepped back from his nomination of European Union Commis-sioner.⁴⁸ Buttiglione was attacked for his comments about homosexuals and single mothers – which the European left wing deemed negative, but which were actually twisted out of their original meaning. “I can consider homosexuality a moral sin, but it has no political relevance whatsoever, since moral sin is not a political category. In politics it is the prohibition of discrimination which is important.” This is how he summarised his statement, which was criticised at the hearing of the Commission, in the interview he gave to Heti Válasz.⁴⁹

According to the Italian politician at least four different lobby groups joined forces against him: there is a strong anti-Christian lobby in the Eu-ropean Parliament, that is why the parliament turned against the Christian Church in several of its resolutions. As Rocco Buttiglione said: “Anti-Christians are relativists, and they think that anybody, who as opposed to them, preserves his religion and seeks the truth, is an enemy. The other group in the attack against me was the homosexual lobby... they represent a minority according to whom the discrimination against homosexuals will end when the critical opinions against them can be discriminated. The third was the anti-Italian lobby who think Berlusconi is devil incarnated. I know him personally and I can assure everybody, that though fallible, he is a just man. Finally, the fourth lobby was the anti-American group.⁵⁰

Buttiglione stated in his speech given at Lublin, Poland: the European Parliament “introduced a new inquisition regardless of political direction and opinion. The body judges on the ground of conscience, to introduce a new orthodoxy, a kind of atheist religion in the Union. There is only one truth for this atheist religion: it is that truth does not exist.⁵¹

In 2012 the European Court of Justice approved of the ruling of the Swedish court, on the basis of which four men distributing fl iers criticising homosexuality must go to prison. According to the ruling of the Strasbourg Court the judgement of the Swedish court did not violate freedom of speech.

Consequently, while criticising Christian teaching anti-Christian manifesta-tion, public blasphemy (like on homosexual marches, some art exhibitions) are to be understood as part of freedom of speech, at the same time mere

49 http://valasz.hu/vilag/nem-adja-fel-10746. (L.d.: 16.06.2015.)

50 Ibid

51Ateista térhódítás Strasbourgban?, Magyar Nemzet, daily paper, 14.01.2005. friday, 8. p.

expounding or defending the Christian teaching about homosexuality is regarded as hate speech or homophobia by the international human rights defender organisations, it is sanctioned by local authorities, which is also approved by the international courts as precedents.

On 2rd April 2013 André-Joseph Leonard, the Archbishop of Brussels was attacked by four half-naked Femen-activists on the Free University of Brussels at the conference “Blasphemy: Crime or Freedom of Opinion”.

While the Chairman of the Bishops’ Conference was giving his speech, four half-naked activists stepped shouting and screaming on the platform and spilled water on the archbishop from a bottle with the picture of the Madonna of Lourdes – in front of the cameras. At the same time one naked fury held a poster with the words: “Stop Homophobia”. All four activists painted provocative and sacrilegious words on their upper bodies: “My body, my rules”; “Anus Dei is coming”; “God save the gouine”; “In gay we trust”.⁵² Archbishop Leonard quietly waited until the end of the attack and did not protect himself. Sometimes he closed his eyes and clasped his hands. After the incident the drenched archbishop kissed one of the fi g-ures of the Madonna of Lourdes thrown to the ground. The activists were led away by the security guards. The archbishop was attacked earlier too both physically and legally for representing and proclaiming the faith and teaching the Church.

Art is also a constant ground of anti-Christian manifestations. Sad ex-amples of this is the work of the Jewish artists Nitsch and Serrano abusing Christ – which was also exhibited in Hungary or Győrffy László’s scandalous and appalling work shown in Szeged. It is important to note that typically it is never for example the Tora, the Talmud, the Menorah, which is the object of such offence, against which the authorities and human right defenders would take the most serious possible action, and not even symbols of any far-eastern religion. Progressive left wing ideologists love anti-religious art – as long as it is anti-Christian.⁵³

Another well-known case is that of Siv Kristin Sællman one of the best known and liked presenters of the Norwegian public television. The leaders of the local Muslim community started protesting because in one programme she

52 http://www.katolikus-honlap.hu/1301/brusszel.htm (L.d.: 16.06.2015.)

53 http://www.nationalreview.com/article/418083/liberal-hypocrisy-blasphemous-art-jo-nah-goldberg (L.d.: 16.06.2015.)

was wearing a cross on her necklace. “The cross on the necklace abuses the Islam”, “this symbol abuses the neutrality of the TV channel” – they said.

Following this the presenter was forbidden to wear this little, only 1.4 cm cross – informed Vatican Insider.⁵⁴

This story recalls the case of Nadia Eweida, who as the employee of British Airways on the instruction of her boss was not allowed to wear a cross at work. The European Court of Human Rights passed a judgement after seven years: fi nally acknowledging that this was a discriminative measure from her bosses.⁵⁵

There is open destruction going on against Christians. Pope Francis declared: nowadays the Church has more martyrs than in the fi rst centu-ries.⁵⁶ Christianity is the most persecuted religion. According to surveys 75-80% of the persecutions for religious reasons worldwide is directed against Christians, annually 170 000 Christians lose their life because of their faith and the number of believers suffering persecution is nearly 200 million – according to the report of the Council of the Bishops’ Conference of the European Union.⁵⁷

Open Doors International, the Italian editorial offi ce of Radio Vatican collected the data of the Kirche in Not, the Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch⁵⁸, which affi rm what Pope Francis drew up very sharply on 15th March 2015 during the Angelus: “Christians are persecuted”.⁵⁹ In the last ten years the number of Christians killed for their faith has become fourfold from 1201 to 4344 according to the data compiled by them. In this period 1602 Christian churches were set on fi re or demolished.

54 http://magyarkurir.hu/hirek/keresztet-viselt-nem-vezetheti-teve-hiradot (L.d.: 10.06.2015.)

55 http://www.magyarkurir.hu/hirek/pert-nyert-keresztje-miatt-elbocsatott-no (L.d.: 10.06.2015.)

56 http://www.magyarkurir.hu/hirek/ferenc-papa-ma-tobb-vertanu-van-mint-az-elso-szaza-dokban/?q=kereszt%C3%A9ny%C3%BCld%C3%B6z%C3%A9s (L.d.: 16. 06. 2015.)

57 http://mno.hu/kulfold/riaszto-valosag-a-leguldozottebb-vallas-a-kereszteny-seg-1062355 (L.d.: 16.06.2015.)

58 http://www.magyarkurir.hu/hirek/ket-ev-alatt-negyszeresere-nott-meggyilkolt-keresz-tenyek-szama/?q=kereszt%C3%A9ny%C3%BCld%C3%B6z%C3%A9s

(L.d.: 16.06.2015.)

59 http://www.magyarkurir.hu/hirek/ferenc-papa-isten-ingyenesen-es-igazan-szeret-min-ket (L.d.: 16.06.2015.)

According to Vatican Radio eight of the ten countries on the black list for Christian persecutions are Muslim. However, North-Korea is on the top of the list, where Christians are exterminated in the name of communism and presumably 50 thousand Christians are held in camps. There is per-secution in China too, where the Catholic Church is divided between the underground and the offi cial patriotic church. In Iraq in 2000 there were 1,5 million Christians but in the chaos following the American war most of them had to fl ee or were killed, only one third is left in the country.

In Muslim countries persecution of Christians can be economic, ethnic or religious in character. The situation of the Christians is the most diffi cult in the Near-East in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and in Africa in Libya, Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia and Kenya. The Islamist al-Shabaab, and the Boko Haram terrorist organisation terrorises everybody: they burn villages, take hostages, making them sexual slaves or killing them. In Iraq, Syria and Libya the gunmen of the Islamic State terrorist organisation terrorise the people and force the Christians to fl ee. The horrifi c pictures taken of the massacres of Christians are known by the whole world. In June 2014 the Islamic State overran the second largest city of Iraq, Mosul, built on the site of the ancient Nineveh, which has had a large number of Christian inhabitants for two thousand years. Before the civil war broke out there were 1.8 million Christians in Syria. Now their number is about 1.1 and lot of them are displaced.⁶⁰

On 27 March 2015 the Security Council of the United Nations dealt with the issue of anti-Christian persecution, which is increasing worldwide. The international community and the public opinion of the world is more and more aware of the fact that anti-Christian persecution is a global phenom-enon, the main target of terrorist attacks in recent years was Christianity.

According to statistics nearly 70% of the terrorist attacks committed for religious causes in the last twenty years was against Christians, and this tendency is becoming stronger.⁶¹

60 http://www.magyarkurir.hu/hirek/okumenikus-imaorat-tartanak-martirhalalt-halt-keresztenyekert-budapest/?q=kereszt%C3%A9ny%C3%BCld%C3%B6z%C3%A9s (L.d.: 16.06.2015.)

61 http://www.magyarkurir.hu/hirek/az-ensz-biztonsagi-tanacsa-keresztenyuldozesrol-targ yalt/?q=kereszt%C3%A9ny%C3%BCld%C3%B6z%C3%A9s (L.d.: 16.06.2015.)