There have been a few people on mind lately for various reasons. An Amazon delivery man who recently delivered a package to us. This gentleman patiently waited at our front door until I was able to open it. Most amazon delivery persons drop the package and book it. He kindly greeted me as “sir” (even though he was at least twice my age) and with a warming personality wished me good night. Two of my admittedly favourite people to speak are two of my wife’s friends from her days in university. Warm hearted, compassionate, and loving are the first three ways I can describe them. One my good friends, who has a great sense of humour, is classy, and just a joy to hang out with. My sister is hard working, always puts her whole being into tasks and is a loving aunt of whom my daughters can’t get enough of. Finally, last year, at an interfaith event I spoke at I had a brief discussion with a young woman who had two toddlers who were about the same ages as my daughters. We shared a few laughs about the similarities of our experiences.
Besides being exceptional human beings they all share something else in common. They all have different belief systems then myself. The Amazon delivery gentlemen, one of my wife’s friends, and the young woman with toddlers are Muslim. My wife’s other friend is Hindu. My close friend and sister are agnostic, based on previous conversations we’ve had about religion. Oh by the way, I respectfully disagree with their belief system and I love asking them critical questions.
Wait a minute…. So I am delighted to be around these human beings, I respect and even love some of them, but I am critical of what they believe? For some, the idea of caring for individuals, disagreeing with them and potentially offending them is oxymoronic, even if the criticisms are regarding matters of facts. It is in this “oxymoronic” mode of thought that I witnessed the closing of the Canadian mind this past weekend.
A Pakistani Bishop’s Experience
This past Saturday and Sunday a Pakistani Catholic bishop visited our parish as part of a campaign to raise awareness of the persecution of religious minorities (predominantly Christians and Hindus) in Pakistan and to raise funds for the Church in the country. In his sermon, the good bishop shared some of the hardships that religious minorities encounter. In a moment I will share what he said, but first I must bring up a particular reaction to the cardinal’s words.
Our church received an email this morning from a gentleman who labeled the bishop’s words as “Muslim bashing.” Now I know few Canadian (for that matter American and European) news agencies on both sides of the political spectrum are not used to promoting intelligent and respectful discussion around ideologically inconvenient facts, so part of me was not surprised. I am waiting for the gentleman to clarify which words of the bishop he perceived to be “Muslim bashing.” If that’s the case I must have taken a nap like a good Catholic. Nevertheless, allow me to recall the bishop’s “Muslim bashing.”
Tolerating Intolerance is not Tolerance. Most importantly, it’s not loving.
As I mentioned before, he was there to share some of the difficulties that religious minorities, especially Christian encounter. To set the context of the situation in Pakistan the bishop pointed our attention to the Pakistani blaspheme laws that are encoded in the Pakistani penal code in section 295-A, 295-B, 295-C and 298. 295-B states that it is illegal to defile the Holy Quran. Section 295 states – it is illegal to “Use of derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of the Holy Prophet.” In section 298 it is illegal to utter “words, etc., with deliberate intent to wound religious feelings.” The bishop claimed that these laws have been liberally used (not in a progressive sense) to incriminate Christians and other religious minorities punishable by death.
A common practice according to the bishop, is that in villages it is common for some Muslim neighbours to incriminate their Christian neighbour if they feel they have been offended in anyway. In this case, according to the bishop, the names of the accused individual are announced through loudspeakers in the towers of the mosques. If this happens the individual has no option, but to try and escape with their life.
The bishop also demonstrated an example of persecution by briefly sharing the, now famous, story of a young Christian mother of five, Asia Bibi, who was sentenced to death under the blaspheme laws for a row of over water with Muslim women. She has been accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammed.
Another example the bishop gave is the example of Christian and Hindu children being coerced into conversion to get better treatment from teachers in schools.
In addition, he shared that young girls are sometimes taken from families, forced to convert, and forced to marry.
He concluded with the sad thought that many young Christian men end up committing suicide because they, unlike Muslim men, have to pay for post-secondary education and as a consequence have trouble raising their families out of a vicious circle of poverty.
Pakistan’s persecution of religious minorities is well known and documented by Human Rights Organizations such as Human Rights Watch (http://hrw.org).
Dealing with Uncomfortable Facts
At no time did the brave bishop ever said a harsh word about his Muslim neighbour with whom he lives in Pakistan. He did two things. He criticized an unjust legal system and recalled first hand experiences at the mercy of this legal system.
He and the church indiscriminately educate and help the poor independent of religious affiliation.
This is simply a case of being faced with uncomfortable truths that a Canadian politically correct culture desperately tries to shield us from. If the gentleman (or anyone for that matter) believes the bishop was being dishonest, I would encourage them to accompany the good bishop back to Pakistan and commit some time to remedying the injustice in the country. Be assured, that time will be a lot better spent than time being offended.
If we as Canadian are truly the virtuous open minded people we claim to be then we shouldn’t be selective of what we are open about. J.K Chesterton famously once wrote that we ought to be careful not to confuse open-mindedness with empty-mindedness.
In Peace,
Greg Garda
