To the Editor:
The Rhode Island Catholic’s excellent editorial on the placement of crucifixes in classrooms at Boston College brought to mind an excerpt from a homily I gave back in 1998. This was written at a time when sacred images were being removed from buildings at BC and many other Catholic institutions of higher learning:
Dr. Peter Kreeft is a philosophy professor at Boston College. Several years ago he taught an evening class on world religions which had 24 students in it: 22 of them were Catholics, one was Jewish and one was a Muslim. The class was three hours long, with a 20 minute break in the middle of it. One evening during the break, Dr. Kreeft was speaking with the Jew, the Muslim, and several of the Catholic students. The Muslim happened to notice the faint outline of a cross on the front wall of the room, and so he said to Dr. Kreeft, “Was there ever a cross on that wall?” One of the Catholic students immediately spoke up and said, “Oh yes, there used to be crucifixes in all the classrooms years ago, but we took them down.” (He said it rather proudly.) The Jew responded, “You took them down? Why?” The Catholic student replied, “Because we wanted to be ecumenical.” The Jew said, “Who are you kidding? You took them down because the government wouldn’t give you any money if you were a sectarian school. Well, I hope you got more than thirty pieces of silver from the government this time!”
The Muslim then chimed in and said, “I don’t understand this word ‘ecumenical’; could someone define it for me, please?” Another Catholic student answered him: “Ecumenical means that we love everybody equally, and we don’t want anyone to feel offended.” The Muslim responded, “I see. Well, I must tell you that I am offended — greatly offended. You’re telling me that you took down your crucifixes not to insult people like me, a Muslim, and my friend here, the Jew. Well, imagine for a minute that you came to my country and enrolled in a Muslim university — knowing that it was a Muslim school — and when you came into the classroom you saw quotations from the Koran on the walls. Would you be offended?” The Catholic students answered, “No, not at all.” The Muslim said, “And why wouldn’t you be offended? It’s because you’re not bigots, right? Only a bigot would be offended at that. And by the same token, only a bigot would be offended by a Catholic symbol in a Catholic school. So you see, by taking down that crucifix, in effect, you’re calling me a bigot! I am highly insulted.”
The Jew said, “So am I!”
The Muslim continued. He said to the Catholic students, “Do you really believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?” They said, “Yes.” The Muslim shot back, “I don’t think you believe that at all. As a Muslim, of course, I don’t. The Koran says that’s a blasphemy. But we do have a very high regard for Jesus. We believe he’s one of the greatest prophets of all time. He performed miracles; he was virgin-born; and, next to Mohammed, he’s probably the greatest man who ever lived. Therefore, if we had pictures of him (which we don’t; but if we did) we would never take them down — not even if government soldiers came into the room and threatened us! We would be very happy to position our bodies in front of his pictures and die for his honor. And now, you have taken him down voluntarily! I think that makes us better Christians than you are!”
This story is poignantly instructive. It reminds us that watering down the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not only offensive to Almighty God, it also can be deeply offensive to people of other faiths who rightly consider religious conviction to be a virtue, not a vice.
Rev. Raymond N. Suriani
St. Pius X Church, Westerly
