H
Harry Dope
Guest
Ani-war protesters attack Catholic parishioners in Chicago
A group of anti-war protesters interrupted an Easter Mass in Chicago
yesterday, stunning parishioners with their shouts during Cardinal Francis
George's homily. They then squirted stage blood on the congregation, leading
to their arrest and an angry confrontation in the gathering space outside
the hall. As it turns out, the protesters not only were mostly incoherent,
but also very, very late (via Memeorandum):
Six people were arrested at Holy Name parish's auditorium Sunday after
disrupting an Easter mass to protest the Iraq war.
The group-whose female and male members identified themselves as Catholic
Schoolgirls Against the War-stood up at the beginning of Cardinal Francis
George's homily and shouted their opposition to the conflict, which marked
its fifth anniversary last week. As security guards and ushers tried to
remove them from the service, the demonstrators squirted fake blood on
themselves and parishioners dressed in their Easter finery.
The red substance, which one protester later described as "stage blood,"
initially drew gasps and a few terrified yelps from the 600 worshipers at
the mass. The shock, however, quickly transformed into anger as people booed
the six while they were escorted from the parish auditorium.
Why did they target the Chicago cathedral? Almost three months ago, Cardinal
George met with President Bush. The protesters explained (much later) that
the Cardinal should have challenged Bush to end the war during that private
meeting. They failed to explain (a) how they know that Cardinal George didn't
do that, and (b) why it took them ten weeks to protest the meeting.
I warned people three weeks ago that the anti-war movement was going to
start getting violent. Alan Colmes scoffed at the notion, but assaulting
people sitting in church demonstrates that the fringe of the movement has no
sense of boundaries, and their frustration at losing in the political
process keeps growing. Instead of peacefully protesting outside the
cathedral, which is their right to do, they insisted on breaking the law and
conspiring to commit multiple acts of battery. This time, they used fake
blood. How long before that won't be enough, and they start trying to draw
real blood instead?
Jim Hoft has a roundup of links relating to the story. It turns out that one
of the apparent sponsors of this attack is the International Solidarity
Movement, a pro-Palestinian organization. Why is a sponsor of the
Palestinian cause sponsoring or at least offering apologetics for an attack
on a Catholic Mass? One might expect the news media to ask that question,
and to ask whether this is just an anti-war attack or whether it is an
anti-Catholic, anti-Christian hate crime.
If that's not clear enough, let me ask readers what kind of coverage this
would have provoked had it been conducted against the worshipers at a
mosque. If a group of anti-terrorist protesters had broken into Friday
prayers at a Chicago mosque to spray stage blood all over Muslims in protest
of al-Qaeda and the Taliban - a little stronger connection than that between
the Catholic Church and the war in Iraq - the newspapers would have
trumpeted it as a hate crime against American Muslims, followed by weeks of
human-interest, anecdotal accounts of how terrible America is to its Muslim
citizens.
--
From 'Dreams of my Father', "In Indonesia, I had spent two years at a
Muslim school"... "I studied the Koran.."
Hussein Obama
A group of anti-war protesters interrupted an Easter Mass in Chicago
yesterday, stunning parishioners with their shouts during Cardinal Francis
George's homily. They then squirted stage blood on the congregation, leading
to their arrest and an angry confrontation in the gathering space outside
the hall. As it turns out, the protesters not only were mostly incoherent,
but also very, very late (via Memeorandum):
Six people were arrested at Holy Name parish's auditorium Sunday after
disrupting an Easter mass to protest the Iraq war.
The group-whose female and male members identified themselves as Catholic
Schoolgirls Against the War-stood up at the beginning of Cardinal Francis
George's homily and shouted their opposition to the conflict, which marked
its fifth anniversary last week. As security guards and ushers tried to
remove them from the service, the demonstrators squirted fake blood on
themselves and parishioners dressed in their Easter finery.
The red substance, which one protester later described as "stage blood,"
initially drew gasps and a few terrified yelps from the 600 worshipers at
the mass. The shock, however, quickly transformed into anger as people booed
the six while they were escorted from the parish auditorium.
Why did they target the Chicago cathedral? Almost three months ago, Cardinal
George met with President Bush. The protesters explained (much later) that
the Cardinal should have challenged Bush to end the war during that private
meeting. They failed to explain (a) how they know that Cardinal George didn't
do that, and (b) why it took them ten weeks to protest the meeting.
I warned people three weeks ago that the anti-war movement was going to
start getting violent. Alan Colmes scoffed at the notion, but assaulting
people sitting in church demonstrates that the fringe of the movement has no
sense of boundaries, and their frustration at losing in the political
process keeps growing. Instead of peacefully protesting outside the
cathedral, which is their right to do, they insisted on breaking the law and
conspiring to commit multiple acts of battery. This time, they used fake
blood. How long before that won't be enough, and they start trying to draw
real blood instead?
Jim Hoft has a roundup of links relating to the story. It turns out that one
of the apparent sponsors of this attack is the International Solidarity
Movement, a pro-Palestinian organization. Why is a sponsor of the
Palestinian cause sponsoring or at least offering apologetics for an attack
on a Catholic Mass? One might expect the news media to ask that question,
and to ask whether this is just an anti-war attack or whether it is an
anti-Catholic, anti-Christian hate crime.
If that's not clear enough, let me ask readers what kind of coverage this
would have provoked had it been conducted against the worshipers at a
mosque. If a group of anti-terrorist protesters had broken into Friday
prayers at a Chicago mosque to spray stage blood all over Muslims in protest
of al-Qaeda and the Taliban - a little stronger connection than that between
the Catholic Church and the war in Iraq - the newspapers would have
trumpeted it as a hate crime against American Muslims, followed by weeks of
human-interest, anecdotal accounts of how terrible America is to its Muslim
citizens.
--
From 'Dreams of my Father', "In Indonesia, I had spent two years at a
Muslim school"... "I studied the Koran.."
Hussein Obama
