Pope Francis from behind (Photo by Nacho Arteaga on Unsplash)
(THE WASHINGTON STANDARD) – Pope Francis is “indignant and disgusted,” according to a Sunday news report, but not over what you might expect. The pontiff is not enraged over the industrial-scale clerical sex abuse that has plagued the Church, or about the escalating persecution of Christians worldwide, or about the wholesale abandonment of Christianity in Europe. Instead, he is furious because an Iraqi refugee in Sweden set fire to a copy of the Qur’an.
Last Friday, the Iraqi refugee in question, Salwan Momika, stood outside a mosque in Stockholm and mounted a one-man protest. He placed a strip of bacon inside a copy of the Qur’an, put the book on the ground and stomped on it, and tore some pages out and set fire to them. Now, if he had done this to a Bible, he would have been celebrated all over Europe and North America for being stunning and brave, but since he did it to a Qur’an, the reaction was a bit different.
Momika explained: “I want to protest in front of the large mosque in Stockholm, and I want to express my opinion about the Quran… I will tear up and burn it.” He announced his plans beforehand in a video: “My demonstration will take place on the first day of Eid,” the Muslim festival commemorating Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son Ishmael (not Isaac, as in the Judeo-Christian tradition). “My demonstration,” Momika continued, “will be in front of the big mosque in Stockholm where I will burn the Qur’an.” He added: “My loved ones, who are living in Stockholm, and would like to participate in the demonstrations, and contribute both financially and emotionally, my information is below.” He emphasized the importance of the freedom of expression: “This is democracy. It is in danger if they tell us we can’t do this.”
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