The Knucklehead of the Day award

Today's winner is Roman Catholic Cardinal Francis Arinze. The Nigerian Cardinal gets the award for his statements about the book and movie The DaVinci code. The comments were made in a documentary.

"Christians must not just sit back and say it is enough for us to forgive and to forget," Arinze said in the documentary made by Rome film maker Mario Biasetti for Rome Reports, a Catholic film agency specializing in religious affairs.

"Sometimes it is our duty to do something practical. So it is not I who will tell all Christians what to do but some know legal means which can be taken in order to get the other person to respect the rights of others," Arinze said.

"This is one of the fundamental human rights: that we should be respected, our religious beliefs respected, and our founder Jesus Christ respected," he said, without elaborating on what legal means he had in mind.

To start off Arinze apparently has forgotten Matthew 18:21-22 where Peter asks Jesus how many times he should forgive his brother? Arinze isn't practicing what he preaches.

Also Arinze statements border on the fanatical. Professor Bainbridge who does some fine commentary points out that the risk of being offended is one of the prices we pay for a free society.

Author Dan Brown has a right to his beliefs. I haven't read the book and won't ever do so. Nor will I watch the movie. Cardinal Arinze should have just called for a boycott by Catholics but he overreached instead. For that Cardinal Francis Arinze is today's Knucklehead of the day.

Jay at Wizbang and The Volokh Conspiracy are also commenting.
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