Editorial

By Paul Schratz

It was the sort of incident that more commonly appears in gossip magazines, but there it is being reported in the daily newspapers. A Vancouver photographer went to police and asked them to lay charges because his girlfriend had been racially insulted by the bodyguard of a Hollywood actress in Vancouver filming a movie.

In the grand scheme of important things like war, recession, and Oprah getting her own TV channel, it might not amount to much, but it could also be seen as reflecting a growing tendency in western culture to silence and punish those with whom we disagree.

For many, the first response to ideas they don't like is to shut them down. It's a trend that can be seen in small ways and in large.

• Pro-life groups are being excluded from university campuses for presenting ideas that "offend" other students.
• The city of Hamilton has pulled a pro-life ad (the same one on the front page of this week's B.C. Catholic) from its bus shelters after three people complained.
• Across Canada, human rights tribunals are taking action against speech and behaviour deemed offensive.

At this very moment, the publisher of the former Western Standard magazine is before a tribunal for publishing content deemed offensive to Mulsims. So is Macleans magazine. Meanwhile, Catholic Insight magazine is being cited for writing nothing more offensive about homosexual behaviour than what appears in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Don't misunderstand. An idea might not be worthy of public distribution, yet still deserve protection against censorship and worse.

Last year, when the Dutch cartoons deemed offensive to Islam were printed, I agreed that they were offensive and should not have been printed because they were disrespectful. Yet the right of their publishers to print them without being firebombed should not have been at issue.

Last year reaction to a speech by Pope Benedict gave us a singular example of the fanaticism of those who would shut down discussion. His Regensburg address was an effort to bring to the forefront the need for discussion on the relationship between faith and reason. His point was driven home by the wave of outrage that swept around the world following his remarks about Islam.

Now it's happening again in response to a planned talk at Rome's Sapienza University. Scheduled to deliver a lecture on the Church's role in science, the Pope had to cancel after protesters rose up in opposition, at one point occupying the rector's office.

Professors and students signed a letter claiming the Pope is "hostile to science" because of a 1990 speech at Sapienza by then-Cardinal Ratzinger. In that talk, in which he discussed the trial of Galileo, Cardinal Ratzinger presented a range of viewpoints on the subject. He quoted an Austrian philosopher who defended the trial as "rational and just," while offering his own personal disagreement.

According to Zenit.org news agency, Renato Guarini, the university rector who invited the Pope, had been looking forward to receiving the Pope, who besides being Pontiff is a noted theologian, professor, and "messenger of peace." It was to be a "moment of high culture" and an "interchange of ideas that would be fruitful for the entire university community."

Apparently a discussion on how faith and reason embrace truth in separate ways is not a permitted topic for some students and professors.

The most perceptive word on the subject came from a Jewish mathematician at the university, who criticized the gagging of the Pope.

"It is surprising," the mathematician said, "that those who have chosen as a motto Voltaire's famous phrase, `I don't agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,' oppose the Pope pronouncing a discourse at the university of Rome."