Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Churches in Saudia Arabia?

Daniel Pipes reports on the purported news of Catholic churches arrival in Saudi Arabia ( ... !?). Says Pipes:

For some years now, the Vatican has made reciprocity the key to its relations with Muslim-majority states. For example, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the Vatican equivalent of foreign minister, commented in 2003 that "There are too many majority Muslim countries where non-Muslims are second-class citizens" and pushed for reciprocity: "Just as Muslims can build their houses of prayer anywhere in the world, the faithful of other religions should be able to do so as well."

That sounded good, but does anyone actually expect churches to be built in Saudi Arabia, the country that most severely represses non-Islamic religious expression?

Of all this, I believe the most operative word is reciprocity. Stay tuned.

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