More than 1,000 Buddhist extremists armed with clubs, swords and stones ferociously attacked a Catholic church in the town of Crooswatta, Sri Lanka on December 6, destroying the altar, statues and pews.The reader who sent me the link to this story writes: "I should start watching TV again. I'm sure the mainstream media are all over this story. I'll bet Bono and Sinead O'Connor are raising money for the oppressed Catholics of Sri Lanka even as I tap this message on my keyboard."[Hat tip to T.P.]
L’Osservatore Romano reported that Father Jude Denzil Lakshman, pastor of Our Lady of the Mystical Rose, said “I still can hear their shouts in my ears, ‘Cut him to pieces, kill him’.” ...
The attack took place after the 7 p.m., Sunday Mass ...
One parishioner told the Archdiocese of Colombo that as the congregation was leaving the evening Mass, they saw a mob coming towards them.
The parishioner added that the mob “set fire to Fr. Lakshman's car and then someone attempted to strike him with a sword,” but a young man heroically pulled him away.
The extremists “then damaged all other motor bikes, ordinary cycles of the poor people including a three-wheeler. Some persons armed with swords and batons went on beating the people. There are six Catholics in the hospital with cuts and injuries."
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Violent Buddhists savage peaceful Catholic parish in Sri Lanka
"Buddhist extremists brutally attack Catholic church in Sri Lanka" (CNA, December 11, 2009):
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2 comments:
You are a douchebag sir. Please leave the internet for everyone's sake. Thank you
Thank you, Anonymous, for your candor, if not your scatological swipe in lieu of an intelligible argument.
The title, I grant you, is ironic. It is intended to be so. Buddhism is widely taken to be peace-loving, while Christianity (and particularly Catholicism) is taken to be violent, invoking tortured images of the Crusades and Mel Brooks caricatures of the Inquisition.
Compare the List of Wars and Disasters by Death Toll, the List of Battles by Casualties, and Selected Death Tolls for Wars, Massacres and Atrocities Before the 20th Century.
There is hardly a comparison. The vastest unconscionable slaughter of human beings in history was not committed in pre-modern history at the hand of supposedly "irrational" religions, but in the twentieth century, systematically, with rational precision, at the hand of supposedly "intelligent" ideologies, like Marx's "scientific" socialism.
As for pre-modern casualties, the results for the An Shi Rebellion in Buddhist-Confucian China in the years AD 756-763 range between 33-36 million deaths, compared to 1.5 million deaths in the Crusades between AD 1095-1291. (Figures taken from aforementioned sites.)
Any wanton slaughter is evil, Buddhist or Christian (or "Scientific" Socialist). A sense of due historical proportion, however, is called for in our reactions.
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