A CATHOLIC PRIEST in Australia has called on his parishioners to forgive Osama bin Laden saying he could not think of anyone who needs to be prayed for more than the former Al Qaeda leader.
Father David Hofman included bin Laden in a ‘We Remember’ section of the Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish newsletter, reports the Australian newspaper the Herald Sun, saying that although it would be a controversial choice, “this is a man in need of prayer.”
Yesterday, we reported how a Catholic church in north Dublin had mistakenly advertised a mass in memory of Osama bin Laden later this week.
Officially, the Catholic Church has said that said that the death of bin Laden is a time for reflection and not celebration, according to Catholic News.
The Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has also called for compassion to be shown to towards bin Laden.
The Buddhist monk had previously been quoted in the LA Times as having thought the death was justified.
However, as TIME.com reports the Dalai Lama’s representatives have been keen to stress that this was not the entire gist of what he meant and that in fact “as a fellow human being, even bin Laden deserves our compassion and forgiveness.”
Elsewhere, the noted intellectual and philosopher Noam Chomsky has commented in Guernica on the celebratory reaction of many to news of bin Laden’s demise.
He asks how might people have reacted “if Iraqi commandos landed at (Former US president) George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and then dumped his body in the Atlantic. ”
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