On yesterday's Tonight Show (3-21-08), Jay Leno commented on the talks about building a church in KSA.
"A church in Saudi Arabia? Yeah, I hear they're gonna call it the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Terror."
Yes, the parishoners would be pretty nervous. Still, it would be an amazing development.
Daniel Pipes writes about it here:
"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'."
"...Should even a single church open in Saudi Arabia, no matter how restricted, hidden, and threatened in, it will be truly significant step, a tribute to both the Vatican's new, tougher policy and to King Abdullah's reform efforts."
It would be an amazing development . . . until it gets bombed. Then it would be back to business as usual:
www.asecondlookatthesaudis.com
Although given the Saudis' proclivity for lies and false promises, I'd be surprised if it actually gets built in the first place.
Posted by: Bill in Chicago | March 22, 2008 at 09:18 PM