Threat to burn Quran has damaged U.S. image worldwide

Ahlul Bayt News Agency - ABNA - A U.S. pastor’s threat to burn copies of the Quran has damaged the image of the United States, the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican said.

“The deliberate destruction of any holy book is an abhorrent act,” said the ambassador, Miguel H. Diaz.

Plans by a small Florida Pentecostal church to burn the Quran Sept. 11 represent “disrespectful acts” and in no way reflect “the sentiments of the American people or the U.S. government,” he said in a written statement Sept. 10.

The ambassador’s remarks came after a Florida pastor who leads a small congregation announced he had called off the event, even though later he said he was going to “rethink” that decision.

Diaz’s comments were the latest in a series of condemnations by international church leaders and officials. Catholic bishops in Iraq and Pakistan joined a growing chorus of international religious leaders denouncing the planned burning.

Chaldean Catholic Bishop Shlemon Warduni, the auxiliary of Baghdad, called the proposed act “totally against the spirit of Christianity.”

Bishop Warduni said the Florida pastor “must know and understand the consequences for Christians all over the world: Violence brings violence, not peace.”

It is “act of violence against the Islamic religion but also all religions,” Archbishop Sako said.

“I call upon the American government to stop this senseless and insane plan because it injures the feelings and sentiments of our Muslim brethren and will seriously damage interfaith relations and peace throughout the world, especially in Pakistan,” Archbishop Lawrence Saldana of Lahore said.

As Christians, Father Mouannes said, “we have to respect the beliefs of other religions and other societies. Our Gospel doesn’t permit hate and condemnation against people. The core of the Gospel is respect and forgiveness.”

“Imagine what damage he (the Florida pastor) can do for Christian minorities in the Islamic world,” he added. “We have to think of all the Christian people in the Islamic world, especially, in the Middle East.”

On Sept. 1, Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, said the plan was a “totally insensitive and disrespectful act” and was “all the more shocking because such a campaign goes totally contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ.”