A month ago the entire Western world was in an uproar over the prospect of erecting a mosque in lower Manhattan near the former site of the Twin Towers.
Even more vocal and more united were the simultaneous outcries of the Western world at the prospect that a Florida minister would burn copies of the Qu’ran to protest Islam’s increasing influence. L’Osservatore Romano and the New York Times, Hilary Clinton and Cardinal McCarrick blasted this obscure pastor for his defiant activity. Frankly the media should have denied this minister his 15 minutes of fame, thus frustrating his dramatic statement. Then his irreverence toward the Islamic tradition might have been limited to his immediate neighborhood rather than pushed onto the world stage by television, radio and the press. Even though the vast majority of vocal Americans would not know the Qu’ran from the Upanishads, this bold disregard for Mohammed’s writings was universally viewed as disreputable, dishonorable and disgraceful. Apparently some things are still sacred.
Readers of the “Quiet Corner” might recall, however, that not many years ago a crucifix was submerged in a bottle of urine by photographer Andres Serrano. The piece was a winner of the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art's “Awards in the Visual Arts” competition, which was sponsored in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, a United States government agency. While Bill Donahue and the Catholic League were outraged at this impertinence, the action was not publicly deemed irreverent by the general media; after all, this was modern art. Again in the recent past, a depiction of the Blessed Mother was smeared with human excrement by the artist Chris Ofili and then hung in the Brooklyn Museum to less than universal horror. Although the crucifix is not the Bible, it certainly is emblematic of Christianity and, frankly, even pre-dates the Bible as an expression of a basic Christian truth. Yet disgust with these alleged works of art was generally muffled and rather limited. Religious spokesmen were incensed but national leaders were for the most part mute.
People of faith are rightly disgusted when a time-honored religious symbol is desecrated, be it the Qu’ran, the Veda, the Bible, the crucifix, or even a holy card. Today people of faith and the American population in general should be appalled as another sacred tradition is being destroyed in the name of personal liberty and free choice. The permanent and exclusive union of one man and one woman open to new life is a sacred institution that pre-dates religious symbols, even history itself. Marriage, the union of one man and one woman leading to new life, was the one blessing that Adam and Eve were allowed to bring out of Eden. God himself is the author of marriage just as surely as God is the author of the Bible and the author of life itself. The world community was rightly outraged at the perversion of the Qu’ran by a single community in Florida. The world community should be even more candidly outraged at the perversion of the basic unit of society – holy matrimony – which another tiny minority would re-fashion to their own ends.
The old Catholic wedding homily read at virtually every wedding until the middle of the last century evoked the sanctity of marriage quite clearly: “My dear friends: You are about to enter upon a union which is most sacred and most serious. It is most sacred, because it is established by God himself”. … The Protestant ceremony echoed the same sentiments perhaps even more powerfully: “Dearly beloved: We have come together in the presence of God to witness and bless the joining together of this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony. The bond and covenant of marriage was established by God in creation, and our Lord Jesus Christ adorned this manner of life by his presence and first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. It signifies to us the mystery of the union between Christ and his church, and Holy Scripture commends it to be honored among all people.” Tampering with marriage is like tampering with the Bible. Or, to put it into terms that appeal to modern Americans, tampering with marriage is like tampering with the Qu’ran. It is unthinkable. Marriage is not called holy matrimony idly. Matrimony is a union crafted by God. American society should be just as aghast that a handful of citizens want to pervert marriage as they were that a handful of Floridians wanted to desecrate the Qu’ran.
