Who Will Speak for Asia Bibi in Pakistan?

Hat tip Jihad Watch


I am cross-posting a current article by Robert Spencer in Jihad Watch. It is a two-faceted article that begins with the dilemma of a young Pakistani Christian girl in prison and facing execution on charges of blasphemy. She has written a letter to Pope Francis in the Vatican.

At the same time, Spencer is embroiled in a dispute with Worcester, Massachusetts Bishop Robert McManus, who has canceled a Spencer speaking appearance. By his own admission, he feels that speaking out on Islamic persecution of Christians would hurt the inter-faith dialogue and the "special relationship Christianity has with Islam".

Really?

Here is the article with a  link to statements by Bishop McManus.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/01/imprisoned-pakistani-catholic-asia-bibi-writes-to-pope-francis-saying-only-god-can-free-her.html

"Talk about extreme, militant Islamists and the atrocities that they have perpetrated globally might undercut the positive achievements that we Catholics have attained in our inter-religious dialogue with devout Muslims." 

"The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium), specifically on paragraph 16 of Chapter 2 which speaks about the special relationship that Christianity has to Islam."

Spencer has adequately described the present-day relationship that Christians have with Muslims in Islamic nations. I need not add anything here. My point is that we as Christians are being ill-served by clerics such as McManus, who want to ignore the atrocities that are being carried out around the world including atrocities against Christians, not to mention Jews, Baha'i, Hindus, and even internecine killing between Islamic sects. We mustn't say anything because it might endanger our relationships with Muslims.

What relationships? McManus (and his Jewish clerical counterparts) allow themselves to be charmed by sweet-talking Islamic leaders in America who are speaking from a position of being about 1% of our population. Were Muslims a majority in this country, all these inter-faith activities would not exist. 

One Jewish figure who knows better is Charles Jacobs of the Boston-based Americans for Peace and Tolerance (mentioned in the article by Spencer). He has been trying for years to educate the Jewish community about the radical and extremist connections of the Islamic Cultural Center of Boston in Roxbury, only to be excoriated by the Jewish leadership that is so invested in inter-faith activities with that mosque.

People like McManus should be using their positions to publicly call out the American Muslim leadership on the horrors that are occurring in the Middle East and other Islamic nations against Christians and other religious minorities. Instead, McManus heeds the call of some figure in the local community who is linked to a convicted terrorist, Tarek Mehanna, to cancel a speaking appearance by Robert Spencer.

We need to go back in history. During the Third Reich, Jewish communities were led by so-called Judenrats (Jewish Councils), which tried to cooperate with the Nazi leaders in a vain effort to ameliorate the situation for Jews. We know where that led.

This should not be a call to treat innocent Muslims in the US like their co-religionists treat other religions in other lands. We don't need to do that, and we must not. Yet, we must speak out about the  persecution of Christians and other religious minorities. Why is it that our own religious and political leaders right up to President Obama are silent?

If the Barack Obamas and John Kerrys are silent, we can still insist that our religious leaders speak out instead of misleading their flocks. Too many of our religious leaders, both Christian and Jewish, are conducting themselves like modern-day Judenrats.