UK police will monitor internet for threats during Pope’s visit

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A follow up from the persistent Anna Arco of the UK’s best Catholic weekly:

Police are monitoring internet for threats against the Pope during British visit

By Anna Arco

British police have said they are monitoring the internet for threats against the Pope and attempts to disrupt the papal visit in September.

Chief Constable Meredydd Hughes, who is co-ordinating the national police effort for the papal visit, said police were monitoring extremist websites and other media that appear to be targeting the Pope.

He was reacting to reports that an Islamist website has urged Birmingham Muslims to disrupt the papal Mass at Cofton Park.

Chief Constable Hughes said: “We are aware of this website and are monitoring it closely, as indeed we are monitoring all such websites and media.

“Although we are unable to discuss the content of individual websites, we will of course ensure that such measures are taken as to protect the Pope and all those who are coming to see him.”

Questions about the Pope’s safety arose last week after a post on the Leicester-based website suggested that Muslims in Birmingham use the opportunity of the papal Mass to protest against the Pope.

The website, called the Islamic Standard, urged Muslims to “tell the Pope just what they think of him after his insults against the Prophet Muhammad”.

It also said the Birmingham event was not only a chance to “challenge these evil words of this evil Pope” but that it was also a chance to “call people away from the shirk [idolatry] of worshipping the dead like the Catholics do, calling out to them for help and intercession”.

While most papal events were not being held in Muslim areas, the website said, the Birmingham event “brings the Pope and those who worship him into direct contact with the large Muslim population of Birmingham and offers them the perfect chance to learn about Islam and for the Muslims to forbid the munkar [denounced practice] of worshipping dead men and following the dictates of the sodomite, child-molesting Church of Rome. [How old was one the Prophet’s wives, again?]

“We at the Islamic Standard hope the Muslims of Birmingham take this duel opportunity to give Da’wah [witness] to these 80,000 travelling disbelievers, whilst at the same time telling the Pope in no uncertain terms what Muslims think of his evil slanders against the last Prophet of God and his message.”

Khalid Mahmood, the MP for Perry Barr, told the Sunday Mercury that he feared the post might incite violence and even cause riots on the day.

He said: “These supposed Muslims are doing all they can to incite violence. Sadly, if Muslims do turn up and preach at Catholics it could easily turn to violence.

“The police should look at the comments on this site because they can only serve to increase tensions and perhaps even cause riots on the day.

“This is just the warped product of warped minds and it reveals how ignorant they are about Islam.”

 

 

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34 Comments

  1. Mike says:

    I think we need to add more prayers now, as many are doing, to prepare his way: Cor Mariae dulcissimum, iter para tutum!

    Here’s also hoping the Swiss Guards get extra range time. Please God they won’t need it.

  2. Thomas S says:

    I was just thinking back to the concern aroused for the Holy Father’s person when he traveled to the Holy Land, hotbed of violence. How sad it is that suddenly it’s a concern again as the Holy Father readies to travel to the United Kingdom. What has become of Europe?

  3. shane says:

    It isn’t just Islamists, some of things I’ve been hearing from secularists and militant Protestants is very disturbing. I honestly think something might happen on this trip. I wish they’d just cancel it.

    http://www.secularism.org.uk/
    http://www.protest-the-pope.org.uk/
    http://www.orangereformation.co.uk/
    http://www.calebfoundation.org/

  4. shane says:

    When the Pope does go to Britain, journalists (especially at the Times) will be tripping over themselves to stir things up. New abuse accusations will mysteriously come to light and the Vatican’s alleged cover-ups will be presented, without balance, as responsible, as in the Murphy case.

  5. This is all very reminiscent of the HenryVII/Elizabeth I era.
    As an American, I find this to be political; the Pope is an “alien presence.”
    What do our UK readers think about this?

  6. Supertradmum says:

    I asked a UK reader about this entire situation and he said that the British police are very well trained in counter-terrorist activities. He said that the police take all these types of threats seriously, as that is their job in a densely populated city, such as Birmingham. Their training goes back to pre-Islamic terrorism, to IRA and other such terrorism.

    He also stated that the British anti-Catholicism, especially the atheist brand, is according to him, anti-Papist, the Pope, qua Prince of the Vatican, seeing that type of anti-Catholicism as seeing loyalty to any other “country” as treason or for the atheists, treason connected with crimes against humanity in the wake of the sexual scandals. So, these people are trying to stop the Pope’s visit in the courts.

    What the Muslims are doing is planning terrorist activities, including violence, outside the law and without any reference to “treason” in the more national English sense. As Muslims, they hate Christians, Catholics, and therefore the Pope.

    The results of such hatreds may be the same, but the Muslims want the Nation of Islam and not any Christianity, period. Some of those against the Pope’s visit who are not Muslim, obviously, do not fall into this category. In answer to nazareth priest, the non-Muslim opposition, outside of Ian Paisley, is political. The Muslim terrorist threats are a combination of religion and the desire for all nations to be under Allah and sharia law. The Pope’s appeal to reason threatens them.

    The person who told me this is a political observer and writes on immigration.

  7. Penguins Fan says:

    Henry VIII Tudor was a greedy, bloody tyrant who ruled nearly 500 years ago and apparently there are English today who cannot get past it all.

    I don’t think much of his daughter by Anne Boleyn either.

    England was Catholic for over a thousand years and all it took was a nasty, greedy glutton to ruin it.

    The UK is exactly the kind of place Pope Benedict needs to go. The English Catholics need this visit. As for the opponents of the Holy Father, they have always existed.

  8. Supertradmum says:

    shane,

    Did the North American Martyrs, some of whom went back to France after visiting the Iroquois and returning to certain death, cancel their trips? Did St. Francis Xavier cancel his trip to China? Did the priests in Mexico stop saying the Mass in the 1920s, facing the death penalty if found? One of my sons is named after Edmund Campion and Thomas More. We need to be of such stern stuff, as I am sure our dear Pope is….

  9. shane says:

    There’s a difference between Mexican priests remaining in their homeland during persecution and this particular trip. Pope Pius XI did not personally decide to go visit Mexico in the 1920s. Pope Benedict is going on a state visit, not a pastoral visit. I think, overall, it will be to the detriment of the Church and should be cancelled until the abuse scandal has blown over (as it will eventually).

  10. Jack Hughes says:

    Personally I think that the Holy Father should come to the UK; he can use the occasion to remind the UK of its Catholic roots and higlight the soon to be Bl.John Henry Newman as an example of how it can be done- admitedly I am slightly biased as I am amongst the fortunate few to have a ticket to the Beatification Mass in Coften Park.

  11. Supertradmum says:

    shane,

    I do not think scandals or difficulties will ever leave the Church. The next years will be full of horrors, such as more persecution from nations who will see the Church’s stand against homosexual/lesbian marriages as illegal, or for not allowing women priests or women bishops. This negativity will not disappear, but get worse, as the world darkens. May God bless the Pope and all Catholics in Great Britain.

  12. Supertradmum says:

    By the way, do not forget that the Pope is to have a private meeting with the Queen and Prince Philip. This historical visit is amazing and worth all the fears. The Queen and the Prince are setting an excellent example to the rest of the British people in their hospitality and sympathies.

  13. Jack Hughes says:

    @ supertradmom As Br. Stephen, O.Cist of Subtuam said a couple of weeks ago “why bother reading about the Roman empire when they’re having a replay outside your door”

  14. AnAmericanMother says:

    shane,

    You’ll have a long wait for things to “blow over” as you put it. There are too many secularists who know that the Church stands right athwart their plans, and they will not stop if the Holy Father’s visit is canceled. They will just dream up some other scandal, real or imagined.

    In fact, such a foolish move would simply embolden them.

    If you allow bullies to threaten you and shove you around, you will get more of the same.

  15. mike cliffson says:

    But there’s the synergy of all three, and the MSM with all standards thrown windward.
    50 yrs ago that it should be more than words was unthinkable. Now?
    Come what may, the hym I hope be sung again, goes “God bless our pope, the great the good”

  16. Supertradmum says:

    Thanks, AnAmeicanMother, for the back-up in muscular Christianity. No giving in to bullying, and as Father Corapi always states-“No pain, no gain. No Cross, no glory”.

  17. Supertradmum says:

    Jack Hughes,

    Love the Cistercian quotation…

  18. JARay says:

    I really fear for the Pope on this visit. No matter what monitoring of Internet sites and the like, that the police might do, it is very difficult to prevent determined riots or terrorist attacks. We can only pray that such things will not happen.
    There is another matter, which Damian Thomspon reports on in his blog, and that is that a splendid exhibition of Vatican treasures was to have been shown at the Victoria and Albert Museum but someone has scuppered the full extent of what was to be shown and it is now to be scaled back to some tapestries. There’s more than Muslims and atheists want this visit to be scaled down or even cancelled. The suspicion has been sown that some members of the hierarchy are not exactly supportive of the visit.

  19. Steve K. says:

    It’s in God’s hands. We know the Muslims are enemies of Christ – they have been since the 7th century, but the Holy Father’s example is important to win those souls over. Cowering in fear in Rome wouldn’t help the cause. His example is important for all the lost heathen souls in Britain, too.

  20. Seraphic Spouse says:

    These Islamic extremists are only the tip of the iceberg. Ever since the papal visit was announced, there has been a steady drip-drip-drip of anti-pope commentary in the British mainstream media. An ant-pope activist has been commissioned by a mainstream TV station to film a “documentary” about the Holy Father that will be aired around the time he is here. I can’t find myself getting upset about a handful of nutters by whom most other Muslims in Britain are horribly embarrassed. It’s the BBC, ITV, the Times and other mainstream tastemakers that I’m worried about. It’s almost as if they want to incite the public–the general public, not a bunch of foreign weirdos–to violence.

  21. asperges says:

    I think we need to keep a sense of proportion. That the Pope is coming is a wonderful opportunity for us Catholics in the UK.

    Let it be clearly stated also that most Moslems in this country live in peace and have much respect for Catholics in particular, in whom they often see shared beliefs and values. You would think from some posts that the UK was like a scaled down Afghanistan with militants on every corner. It is not. The troubles come from a very small number of extremists.

    What I see as a greater threat is (as Sepraphic Spousecorrectly mentions) the recent and huge rise in vocal militant secularists here. Where before we could rely on friendly criticism or polite debate, there is now all-out war by atheists and others in the media in particular. Nothing seems to be held as sacred any more.

    There is a tradition here of irreverence to authority (eg Hogarth and others) which you can see it as early as Chaucer. The change now is not simply poking fun but radical, nasty attacks in any form that can carry them. The trouble is that mud sticks and the Church has done itself no favours in the last few years.

    Fortunately there are many who can make up their own minds and are not taken in, but there are others who are more easily influenced. We need much prayer and much grace.

  22. Traductora says:

    The Muslims are always a threat, but I think the greatest threat in England will come from radical gays. They are completely unhinged – if you’ve ever seen them shrieking outside the Vatican (or even St. Pat’s in NYC) in one of their demonstrations, you’ve seen what demons look like. England has always had a problem with its homosexual subculture, which is barely “sub” and even seems to be the dominant culture in certain circles, and many of these people are also radical leftists. Most of Britain’s major Soviet spy rings were in one way or another connected with high-ranking gays in the British government.

    What they are really angry about is that BXVI is calmly and methodically rooting out the homosexual influence in the Church (which is much more the source of the “child molestation” incidents than is genuine pedophilia) and they are reacting the way any demons do when they are expelled: they become enraged.

  23. dcs says:

    disconnect …

    We at the Islamic Standard hope the Muslims of Birmingham take this duel opportunity to give Da’wah [witness] to these 80,000 travelling disbelievers, whilst at the same time telling the Pope in no uncertain terms what Muslims think of his evil slanders against the last Prophet of God and his message.

    for the Muslims to forbid the munkar [denounced practice] of worshipping dead men

  24. irishgirl says:

    Jack Hughes-that’s quite the quote from the Cistercian. And it’s so true…

    I am praying fervently for the safety and protection of the Holy Father in the UK. i haven’t been back there since 1999. It was horrible to read Traductora’s post about the militant homosexuals protesting outside places such as the Vatican and St. Patrick’s in New York. The devil has possessed the hearts and souls of these misguided and deluded people. We can’t give in and give up-we’re supposed to be the ‘Church Militant’, not the ‘Church Wimp’!

    The Holy Father is made of sterner stuff-and we Catholics should be, too! We should be following our Shepherd, and in following him, we follow Our Lord….even if it means following Him to Calvary!

  25. Jack Hughes says:

    @irishgirl

    believe me its gotten alot worse over the past decade- at least in the ’90s section 28 forbade the promotion of sodomy in schools; children were not taught sex ed until they reached the age of 14 and for a homosexual to be public about it was rare- now they are teaching 1st and 2nd graders about sex ed, fornication and promescuity are rife, sodomy is promoted as valid lifestyle choice and don’t get me started on the number of girls who are consenting to the murder of their unborn children.

  26. Oleksander says:

    well, i guess a polish state as its occasional benefits

  27. Oleksander says:

    LOL i meant POLICE state – Freudian slip

  28. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    I have read in an academic university textbook that in 1968 the Blessed Virgin Mary was seen to appear more than once in the sight of Moslems as well as Christians on a church tower in the Cairo neighbo(u)rhood, Zaytun, and that many people took this as a sign testifying to the holiness in his own lifetime of the Coptic Patriarch Cyril.

    I wonder if such Moslems would understand this as evidence of the Bodily Assumption?

    I wonder if (some? many?)other Moslems would deny that the witnesses were Moslems, unless they recanted?

    I wonder if there are (any? many?) Moslems who would think the Moslem witnesses would deserve to be killed, if they refused to recant?

  29. Penguins Fan says:

    Oleksander, a Polish state does have its benefits, especially when it is governed by Polish, and not Germans, Russians, Austrians or Swedes…such as…abortion is illegal…and no gay marriage……

  30. Robert B. says:

    Well there’s some good news at least – Ken Clarke, the Justice Secretary, has proposed changes to the rules on Universal Jurisdiction, the legal principle which Dawkins’ deranged “Arrest the Pope” campaign hinges on.

    It’s long overdue. The whole anti-Catholic slant aside, the system has been abused by preening leftists for far too long. It’s nigh on impossible for a foreign dignitary to set foot in the UK these days without some wannabe Peter Tatchell trying to clap them in irons.

  31. pelerin says:

    It is now less than two months until the visit to England and Scotland of Pope Benedict. The visit is starting to become newsworthy though for the wrong reasons. I have just learnt that a group has paid £10,000 to have posters put on London buses for a month from the end of August saying ‘Pope Benedict ordain women now’. What a pity the money has not not used for a more worthy cause.

  32. pelerin says:

    I should add that the group behind the advert campaign are not militant atheists or Anglicans but a Catholic Womens Ordination group. One of their spokeswomen is quoted as saying ‘We love the Church.’ – so much it seems that they want the Church to follow them.

  33. Supertradmum says:

    Yes, the women say they are “Catholic”, and the money is theirs to waste. All this reminds me that we need to pray for Christopher Hitchens, for his cure and conversion.

  34. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    I am working my way through Dr. Gustav Schnürer’s book about the Catholic Church and Culture in the 18th century (first published in 1941) and it is striking to see how Boulainvilliers apparently praises Mohammed over Alexander and Caesar as a more ambitious (cultural) imperialist, while Montesquieu uses fictional ‘Persian letters home’ to ridicule the Trinity and the Eucharist, and suggest that it will be impossible for ‘the Catholic religion’ to survive for another 500 years due to the moral corruption among the secular clergy and in the monasteries. “The more things change…”?

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