Misdirection

The Vatican accused a comedian of terrorism today for criticizing the pope.

The Vatican's official newspaper accused an Italian comedian on Wednesday of "terrorism" for criticizing the Pope and warned his rhetoric could fuel a return to 1970s-style political violence.

In an unusually strongly worded editorial, L'Osservatore Romano said a presenter of a televised May Day rock concert, which is sponsored by Italy's labor unions, had launched "vile attacks" on Pope Benedict in front of an "excitable crowd".

"This, too, is terrorism. It's terrorism to launch attacks on the Church," it said. "It's terrorism to stoke blind and irrational rage against someone who always speaks in the name of love, love for life and love for man."

So did this guy incite a riot or organize a terrorist plot to destroy Vatican City? Nope. He just criticized the church's stance on evolution ("the Church has never evolved") and their refusal to give a Catholic funeral to Piergiorgio Welby, an Italian poet diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, because he campaigned for euthanasia ("I can't stand the fact that the Vatican refused a funeral for Welby but that wasn't the case for [Chilean dictator Augusto] Pinochet or [Spanish dictator Francisco] Franco").

This is hardly the language of terrorism, and the church should perhaps direct its overwrought hyperbole elsewhere. Especially when one of the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention signed a petition in support of a real terrorist. Wiley Drake, vice president of the SBC, recently put his name on a petition in support of James Kopp, who has been convicted of killing an OB/GYN for performing legal abortions. The SBC is the largest Baptist organization in the world, and their support of this guy is far more likely to incite violence than the remarks of some comedian at a concert. Perhaps the Vatican newspaper should write an article about that rather than pretending to be a victim.