This is nothing to get cross about or anything, I guess, but the OSCE reports that there were 414 cases of anti-Christian abuse and attacks in Germany last year.
The offences included acts of violence, church desecration and theft.
Zu den erfassten Delikten zählen Gewalttaten, Kirchenschändungen und Diebstahl.
I mean Tebartz-van Elst, of course.
“I got your church and state for ya right here, pal.”
What’s all the excitement about? Religious Germans contribute freely to their churches. It’s not as if the money this guy burned had been levied by taxation or anything. Uh, wait a second. OK. So I guess it had been.
Germany separates church and state much less clearly than does America but more explicitly than Anglican Britain or Orthodox Greece. Its post-war constitution, in a clause carried over verbatim from the Weimar constitution of 1919, favours no particular faith but lets all churches levy taxes on their members through the income-tax system (8% or 9% of a taxpayer’s bill, depending on the state).
OK, OK. The German Pope dude actually was a Pope but he did that typical German Frührente (early retirement) thing that Popes don’t normally do so technically speaking you could be a real devil advocating jerk if you wanted to be and claim that the guy never was a real Pope in the first place (and no, of course I’m not Catholic and yes, I clearly don’t have the slightest idea what I’m talking about here – except for that Frührente part).
As for the Cardinal dude, I think he looked rather convincing while hanging out with several unsuspecting eminences in Rome the other day. Except for the sneakers he was wearing, maybe. And his crucifix, which was too short, or so I’m told. And his sash turned out to be just a purple scarf. But still. The Cardinal question here is, well, is not having a life something you can actually make your living at?
He was thrown out by the Swiss Guard after someone noticed his crucifix was too short and his sash was just a purple scarf.
Pope Benedict XVI shocked the world by resigning today following allegations in Berlin that his entire bibliography had been plagiarized.
This is now the four-hundred-and-forty-seventh time in the past two years that a high-ranking German politician and/or Pope has been forced to quit over accusations of cheating on doctoral dissertations and/or religious meditations.
“Wow. We’ve had ministers resign here right and left, like freakin’ flies,” one source near Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government said. “But a Pope? Holy Moley!”
“I’ve accepted his resignation heavy-heartedly,” Ms. Merkel is said to have said.
Infidel is in, again. Or at least it is for the 27-year-old German who had travelled to Waziristan with his wife intending to free the area from the “infidel occupiers” after they had converted to Islam.
He has now returned to Germany because, well, he was “disheartened by the violence and annoyed with the group’s macho and drug-taking world.”
The former fighter also complained of the unhygienic conditions in the war-torn lands of Pakistan’s Waziristan province and Afghanistan that left him infected with hepatitis, and which were, in his opinion, “incompatible with the teachings of the Koran”.
Holy crap. The Taliban is violent? Wow, like nobody had told me about that either, dude. We feel your pain (in the ass). So welcome back to the real, as in infidel world.
Germany has decided to take precautionary measures and will now be closing its embassies in Muslim countries after word got out that Bettina Wulff is currently planning to produce a Muhammad film.
“We have intensified security precautions everywhere in the region, and in some cases increased security personnel too.”
To protest against restrictions on circumcision, that is. They’ll be getting together in Berlin to holler and shout and raise hell this Sunday, for instance. Warms your heart, don’t it?
When it comes to “flagrant interference” in religion, Germans may indeed have a long and proven track record and all, but as expected, they have clearly bitten off more than they can chew this time with their latest perfectly pointless and completely unnecessary stab at this ancient Jewish and Muslim practice.
They’re backpeddling as fast as they can, of course, but it’s too little too late and now everybody has hurt feelings and, well, that’s what you get for fixing things that ain’t broken.
“Gut gemeint ist leider nicht unbedingt gut gemacht.”
Not that there was ever much doubt about it. That it would come to a big backpedaling Aktion, I mean.
The German government says Jewish and Muslim communities should be able to continue the practice of circumcision, after a regional court ruled it amounted to bodily harm.
That’s what can happen when you have that pressing need to fix things that aren’t broken.
“Circumcision carried out in a responsible manner must be possible without punishment.”
“We urge the Jewish community in Germany and circumcisers to continue to perform circumcisions and not to wait for a change in the law.”
A German court’s ban on circumcising baby boys has provoked a rare show of unity between Jews, Muslims and Christians who see it as a threat to religious freedom, while doctors warn it could increase health risks by forcing the practice underground.
Die Positionen zur Beschneidung waren bei Anne Will unversöhnlich, am härtesten stritten ein Rabbiner und ein Strafrechtler.
And may need a revision.
Leaders of Germany’s Jewish and Muslim communities have criticized a court ruling they fear could make circumcision a punishable offense in the country.
Talk about having short vision.
German courts need more tight supervision.
There was no provision for all the derision now caused by that little incision.
“This is an unprecedented and dramatic intrusion on the right to self-determination of religious communities.”
Observing Hermann 