Stone mason sparks cathedral row with 'Muslim' gargoyle
We read:
"A Lyons stone mason has provoked a row after creating a gargoyle for the city's cathedral in the image of his Muslim foreman with a sign saying "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) in both Arabic and French.
The 12th century Saint-Jean cathedral of Lyons, southeastern France, has hundreds of gargoyles around its roof whose traditional role has been to ward off evil spirits.
Since August, this seat of the Archbishop of Lyons has a new addition – a face remarkably similar to Ahmed Benzizine, a Muslim foreman who has been restoring churches and cathedrals in France for the past 37 years.
Emmanuel Fourchet, a local stone mason decided to immortalise his friend according to an age-old tradition of carving gargoyles resembling associates that stretches right back to the cathedral's construction.
However, while some have praised the initiative as a unifying "ecumenical gesture", the move has sparked cries of blasphemy among the more conservative elements of the churchgoing community who have sent angry letters of complaint.
One hardline youth group, the Jeunes Identitaires Lyonnais, sent the church a statement saying: "While in many Muslim countries, the Christian faith is forbidden and Christians martyred, in Lyons, Muslims have the luxury of quite calmly taking possession of our churches with the complicity of the Catholic authorities."
Church leaders dismissed the criticism. The cathedral's rector, Father Cacaud, said: "They didn't ask me for my explicit authorisation but when they told me about this friendly nod to Ahmed, I was very happy."
Source
If the French church thinks that it is OK to have "Allah Akhbar" on one of their cathedrals, they have completely lost their balls
But if the Muslim objects to being portrayed as a gargoyle, the whole thing will be taken down at once, of course
16 comments:
Isn't there some Sharia Law that allows Muslims to deem property as Muslim property if it is "claimed" in the name of Allah? Isn't this a form of that?
Non-Muslims, in their ignorance, may be giving up their rights to Muslims without even knowing it.
Isn't this a great example of how tolerant Christians could be? Do Muslims have a Christian foreman working on their places of worship? 37 years a Muslim has been working on Christian buildings. This sounds like a good thing to me. This is what religious tolerance should be like. Allow people to work without worrying about beliefs.
Tolerance is a two-way street. When it's practiced by only one side, as in this story, it's called weakness. And in the muslim world, that's exactly how it's viewed. So what's wrong with that? Nothing, unless you understand that in Islam, weakness begets aggression.
The resemblance is uncanny really
As is pointed out, there is a long tradition in religious art of portraying ordinary people or fiends and associates.
I have no problem with that at all.
However, inscribing a fundamental statement of the Islamic faith on a Catholic Cathedral seems to be taking things too far.
Muslim edict: Tolerance is weakness!
Christian/Judeo edict: Tolerance is kindness!
Good guys finish LAST!
bogsidebunny
So (some) Catholics don't think God is great or that such a belief should never be stated in the arabic language - ?
Anon 8:26, not when the phrase is clearly attributed to Islam. Though it may be generic-sounding, it is not. The "God" to which it refers is Allah, who is typically considered to be the Babylonian god Baal. Allah is not the Judeo-Christian God of the Old Testament.
All religion should be abolished. It yields nothing but hate and murder.
I thought the gargoyle rather resembled ex-US President Jimmy Carter.
Anon 12:49, that was an idiotic comment, people use religion to hide their own political or economic goals, not the religions fault, it is the fault of the people in it.
Religion is what the followers make it, and of course they argue and fight over the meaning of their own religions.
You can blather on about religion, but the real-world truth is that Islam is a religion that condones violence, while Christianity does not. Yes, there have been some who, in the name of Christianity, justified violence, but they do not represent Christianity at large, nor do they represent what is written in the Bible. What is written in the Koran, on the other hand, is clearly justification and encouragement to kill non-believers who reject Islam.
-sig
It has always been the case that passages in the Bible or Koran have been selected and used to justify any number of interpretations and actions. And it just becomes a shouting match as to what is true Christianity or true Islam - or a true Scotsman!
"And it just becomes a shouting match as to what is true Christianity or true Islam"
Fvck them both. Problem solved.
There are two possibilities with the depiction of this gargoyle.
Firstly it is what a choir boy looks like when recieving the papal blessing.
Or secondly what the local priest looks like when the cathedral becomes a mosque.
The first is a blatent travesty, the second is inevitable.
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