I don't approve of Dan Brown's book The Da Vacini Code. It's just an amalgam of old heresies. Yet, it strikes me that the Vatican's reaction to the forthcoming movie version is starting to go way over the top. Case in point, Cardinal Francis Arinze's statement that:
"Christians must not just sit back and say it is enough for us to forgive and to forget."
Um, what about Matthew 18:21-22 (Then Peter approaching asked him, "Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?" Jesus answered, "I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.')?
Or Arinze's statement that:
"This is one of the fundamental human rights: that we should be respected, our religious beliefs respected, and our founder Jesus Christ respected."
This sounds perilously close to the Muslim fundamentalist's reaction to those Danish cartoons. The right to practice one's religion freely without interference by government or one's fellow citizens may well be one of those inalienable rights, but since when does anyone have a right to have their beliefs respected by non-believers? The risk of being offended - even as to one's core beliefs - is one of the prices we pay for a free society.
