What does a bishop care if we call him Fool?

If Dutch Catholic bishops didn't exist, Satan would have to invent them.

Even in a Church whose first pope was Peter -- not the sharpest knife in the drawer -- this is truly exceptional. Bishop Tiny Muskens, of the Breda diocese in the southern Netherlands, think we all should just call God "Allah" to ease tensions with Muslims.

This is an idea so insane that even, according to a newspaper poll, 92 percent of the famously heterodox Dutch think +Delusional is full of it. According to The Associated Press:

A Roman Catholic Bishop in the Netherlands has proposed people of all faiths refer to God as Allah to foster understanding, stoking an already heated debate on religious tolerance in a country with one million Muslims.

Bishop Tiny Muskens, from the southern diocese of Breda, told Dutch television on Monday that God did not mind what he was named and that in Indonesia, where Muskens spent eight years, priests used the word "Allah" while celebrating Mass.

"Allah is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn't we all say that from now on we will name God Allah? ... What does God care what we call him? It is our problem."

A survey in the Netherlands' biggest-selling newspaper De Telegraaf on Wednesday found 92 percent of the more than 4,000 people polled disagreed with the bishop's view, which also drew ridicule.

"Sure. Lets call God Allah. Lets then call a church a mosque and pray five times a day. Ramadan sounds like fun," Welmoet Koppenhol wrote in a letter to the newspaper.

Gerrit de Fijter, chairman of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, told the paper he welcomed any attempt to "create more dialogue", but added: "Calling God 'Allah' does no justice to Western identity. I see no benefit in it."

A spokesman from the union of Moroccan mosques in Amsterdam said Muslims had not asked for such a gesture.

INSTEAD OF LESSENING TENSIONS, my guess is that such a hare-brained move would really hack the Dutch Muslims off, just because it is so patronizing and such a silly rip-off of their culture and religion. I know I would be furious if I were in their wooden shoes.

But what do you expect from an allegedly Catholic bishop, who allegedly believes in God . . . Allah . . . whomever, and "has raised eyebrows in the past with suggestions that those who are hungry may steal bread and that condoms should be permissible in the fight against HIV and AIDS."

Then again, asking Westerners to call the Almighty "Allah" -- as opposed to God, Dieu, Gott or Dios -- is small potatoes for someone who pretty much has used his office to tell the faithful, in effect, that "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."

ALL IN ALL, I can't do a better job of justly ridiculing this idiot in a mitre than did Welmoet Koppenhol, a true Dutch hero. I'll repeat his great, spot-on quote from the AP article excerpt:

"Sure. Lets call God Allah. Lets then call a church a mosque and pray five times a day. Ramadan sounds like fun."

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