Fatwa envy and Clemens Bittlinger. Police called.

Harry de Quetteville reports that Clemens Bittlinger has become yet another target of fatwa envy.

The German protestant pastor has been performing his songs for 25 years.  Recently he put a song on Youtube, Oh man, Benedikt, a walk with the Pope, and he has been receiving hate mail that has attracted the interest of the police.

The song is particularly critical of Pope Benedict’s attitude to contraception: “Why do you revile other Christians?…Why are you openly looking for a fight, saying: Yours is not a church…. You ban condoms, even for the poor of this world. So you encourage the spread of AIDS even if you do not like it. Meanwhile you abandon limbo for babies who haven’t been baptised. Did you seriously believe that the Lord had something like that in the first place?”

He has received communications that are, Harry says, being investigated by the police.

Fatwa envy makes a particularly ugly appearance:“When a newspaper prints a Mohammed cartoon, entire cities burn. But when the Holy Father is ridiculed in blasphemy, we are supposed to just accept that? No, not like that Mr. Bittlinger – you will surely receive the justice you deserve.”

As Harry puts it: “while the vast majority of Christians condemned the outpourings of violence after the Mohammed cartoon polemic, some found such determination to respond to perceived offence something to admire.”