Did Pope Francis Preach Salvation by Works??

…and not just salvation by works, but universalism–that all will be saved?

The Huffington Post has a screaming headline, Pope Francis says Atheists Who do Good are Redeemed, Not Just Catholics. Vatican Radio reports on the homily here.

In a homily at daily Mass in the chapel of the Saint Martha hostel, Pope Francis spoke on the principle that “doing good” is a principle that unites all of humanity. Commenting on the gospel where the disciples want to exclude a person who is doing good, but is not of their number, the Pope observes that Jesus says, “Let him be.”  The Holy Father then goes on to make his main point, that rabid intolerance and exclusion eventually leads to violence.

He explains that it does no good to exclude and scapegoat atheists or other non believers. Instead they too should be expected to do good and that is where we encounter them and the dialogue begins. This is too much for some, and the Pope is being accused of Pelagianism and Universalism. (Salvation by works and “Everyone will be saved.”)

Here’s the offending passage:

“The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone! And this Blood makes us children of God of the first class! We are created children in the likeness of God and the Blood of Christ has redeemed us all! And we all have a duty to do good. And this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace. If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: we need that so much. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.

This might seem on first reading to be teaching just what the Huffington Post proclaims: “Pope says Atheists are Saved by Doing Good Works.” One can’t blame a HuffPo journalist for getting the wrong end of the stick, and I suspect Todd Unctuous will have a few words to say about this later. However, the Huffington Post writer doesn’t understand the underlying theology.

Unfortunately for those who wish to paint Pope Francis as a lovable liberal, in fact, the Pope is simply affirming certain truths that any somewhat knowledgable Catholic will uphold. First, that Christ died to redeem the whole world. We can distinguish his redemptive work from the acceptance of salvation. He redeemed the whole world. However, many will reject that saving work. In affirming the universality of Christ’s redemptive work we are not universalists. To say that he redeemed the whole world is not to conclude that all will be saved.

Secondly, the Pope is also affirming that all humans are created in God’s image and are therefore created good. Yes, created good, but that goodness is wounded by original sin. Thirdly, he is affirming that all men and women are obliged to pursue what is beautiful, good and true. Natural virtue is possible–even obligatory, but natural virtue on its own is not sufficient for salvation. Grace is necessary to advance beyond natural virtue to bring the soul to salvation. The Pope does not say atheists being good on their own will be saved. He says they, like all men, are redeemed by Christ’s death and their good works are the starting place where we can meet with them–the implication being “meet with them in an encounter that leads eventually to faith in Christ.”

This method of evangelization is no different from the classic method of missionaries from St Paul onward. We meet the non believer on his territory, affirm what is good and beautiful and true about his belief and behavior, and move from there to introduce them to Christ.

VISITOR FLAG COUNTER

started November 13, 2011

Blasphemy charges against Christians surge ahead

A wave of blasphemy cases against Egyptian Christians has the community complaining it’s being hounded with flimsy evidence.

By Kristen Chick | Christian Science Monitor – 4 hrs ago

From

[It is not so far away from us here in America as we may think.  While not an outright religious challenge, the current spate of government harassment, i.e. the IRS and others targeting Americans, is on the same dangerous road.  We are just nearer to the starting line.

Fr. Orthohippo]

In Brotherhood Egypt, blasphemy charges surges ahead. A blasphemy trial against a Christian teacher in this Egyptian city renowned for its Pharaonic monuments is among a wave of cases that have Egyptian Christians worried they can be jailed for insulting Islam on the flimsiest of evidence.

Dozens of lawyers crowded a small, hot courtroom yesterday, eager to participate in the case against Dimyana Abdel Nour, a primary school teacher from a village near Luxor. Three students accused her of insulting Islam while teaching a social studies class last month. Such blasphemy cases have become much more frequent since the 2011 uprising that brought Islamists to power in Egypt.

Ms. Abdel Nour is now in hiding, and did not attend the court hearing. Her lawyers and local activists say the case is unjust, and local Christians are watching the proceedings with worry. They say the Islamists’ rise to power, including the election of the Muslim Brotherhood‘s Mohamed Morsi, has encouraged extremists to discriminate against Egyptian Christians, known as Copts, who make up around 10 percent of the population.

RECOMMENDED: How much do you know about Egypt? Take this quiz.

To them, Abdel Nour’s case is an example of an increasingly grim reality.

“This case is not just about Dimyana,” says Archbishop Sarabamon El Shayeb, head of the monastery in Abdel Nour’s village. “It’s about organized repression of the Copts. The Islamists are giving out the accusations of blasphemy generously and openly, mostly against Christians.”

Blasphemy cases occurred under former president Hosni Mubarak too, but they have increased since the uprising that toppled him. Egypt’s new constitution, drafted last year by an Islamist-led committee, criminalizes blasphemy, bolstering a pre-existing law against insulting religions. Rights groups say blasphemy laws restrict freedom of expression and are often used against minorities, but most Egyptians support such laws.

From 2011 to 2012, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) tallied 36 accusations of blasphemy that were dealt with extra-legally, sometimes with village residents forcing the accused Christians to leave their village. In Cairo, several cases against prominent figures ended in acquittals. But in southern Egypt, where Luxor is located, all recent cases that have gone to trial have ended in convictions, according to EIPR. Throughout Egypt, most cases are brought against Christians.

EIPR’s Ishak Ibrahim says there were six blasphemy convictions in the last two years in Upper Egypt (as southern Egypt is called because of the direction the Nile flows). Last year a Coptic teacher in the city of Sohag was sentenced to six years in prison for insulting Islam and the president. During his trial, Islamist lawyers surrounded the courthouse, chanting and trying to block the defendant’s lawyers from entering.

FALLOUT

Abdel Nour began working as a substitute teacher at the Naga El Sheikh Sultan primary school in April. Soon after she started, three students accused her of insulting Islam during a social studies lesson. They say she put her hands to her throat while mentioning Islam, as if she wanted to vomit, and then said that the late Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenouda III was better than the Prophet Mohamed.

Mostafa Mekki, the school principal, says he conducted an immediate investigation. According to his handwritten report, he questioned all students in her class, and all but the three who originally accused her denied the accusations.

Speaking in his home in the small village where the controversy began, Mr. Mekki calls the parents of all three children who accused her “extremists.” At least one of them is known for inciting sectarian strife in the past, he says. The principal said the parents were not happy with Abdel Nour, partly because she wore jeans instead of skirts, and didn’t cover her hair.

Mekki decided that the accusations against Abdel Nour were unfounded,

A wave of blasphemy cases against Egyptian Christians has the community complaining it’s being hounded with flimsy evidence.

By Kristen Chick | Christian Science Monitor – 4 hrs ago

A blasphemy trial against a Christian teacher in this Egyptian city renowned for its Pharaonic monuments is among a wave of cases that have Egyptian Christians worried they can be jailed for insulting Islam on the flimsiest of evidence.

Dozens of lawyers crowded a small, hot courtroom yesterday, eager to participate in the case against Dimyana Abdel Nour, a primary school teacher from a village near Luxor. Three students accused her of insulting Islam while teaching a social studies class last month. Such blasphemy cases have become much more frequent since the 2011 uprising that brought Islamists to power in Egypt.

Ms. Abdel Nour is now in hiding, and did not attend the court hearing. Her lawyers and local activists say the case is unjust, and local Christians are watching the proceedings with worry. They say the Islamists’ rise to power, including the election of the Muslim Brotherhood‘s Mohamed Morsi, has encouraged extremists to discriminate against Egyptian Christians, known as Copts, who make up around 10 percent of the population.

To them, Abdel Nour’s case is an example of an increasingly grim reality.

“This case is not just about Dimyana,” says Archbishop Sarabamon El Shayeb, head of the monastery in Abdel Nour’s village. “It’s about organized repression of the Copts. The Islamists are giving out the accusations of blasphemy generously and openly, mostly against Christians.”

Blasphemy cases occurred under former president Hosni Mubarak too, but they have increased since the uprising that toppled him. Egypt’s new constitution, drafted last year by an Islamist-led committee, criminalizes blasphemy, bolstering a pre-existing law against insulting religions. Rights groups say blasphemy laws restrict freedom of expression and are often used against minorities, but most Egyptians support such laws.

From 2011 to 2012, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) tallied 36 accusations of blasphemy that were dealt with extra-legally, sometimes with village residents forcing the accused Christians to leave their village. In Cairo, several cases against prominent figures ended in acquittals. But in southern Egypt, where Luxor is located, all recent cases that have gone to trial have ended in convictions, according to EIPR. Throughout Egypt, most cases are brought against Christians.

EIPR’s Ishak Ibrahim says there were six blasphemy convictions in the last two years in Upper Egypt (as southern Egypt is called because of the direction the Nile flows). Last year a Coptic teacher in the city of Sohag was sentenced to six years in prison for insulting Islam and the president. During his trial, Islamist lawyers surrounded the courthouse, chanting and trying to block the defendant’s lawyers from entering.

FALLOUT

Abdel Nour began working as a substitute teacher at the Naga El Sheikh Sultan primary school in April. Soon after she started, three students accused her of insulting Islam during a social studies lesson. They say she put her hands to her throat while mentioning Islam, as if she wanted to vomit, and then said that the late Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenouda III was better than the Prophet Mohamed.

Mostafa Mekki, the school principal, says he conducted an immediate investigation. According to his handwritten report, he questioned all students in her class, and all but the three who originally accused her denied the accusations.

Speaking in his home in the small village where the controversy began, Mr. Mekki calls the parents of all three children who accused her “extremists.” At least one of them is known for inciting sectarian strife in the past, he says. The principal said the parents were not happy with Abdel Nour, partly because she wore jeans instead of skirts, and didn’t cover her hair.

Mekki decided that the accusations against Abdel Nour were unfounded,……….

Rest of story

By Kristen Chick | Christian Science Monitor

The Arab Spring has unleashed the Arab Collapse

• By RALPH PETERS

The entire Arab world is in the process of reordering itself.

The Arab Spring has unleashed the Arab Collapse. Everybody still standing in the region is picking the flesh of the helpless. The Islamist cancer proved more virulent than Arabs themselves expected, while dying regimes behave with unrestrained ruthlessness.

And our diplomats still think everyone can be cajoled into harmony.

We’re

ZUMAPRESS.com

The next country to go: Rescuers working at the site of a car bomb in Kirkuk, Iraq, last week. Violence is rising rapidly across the country.

We can’t stop it, we can’t fix it, and we don’t understand it. But we can stay out of it.

When the US is in the Middle East, the Arabs want us out. When we’re out, they want us in. But our purported Arab (and Turkish) allies consistently agree that Uncle Sam should pay the party bill, while they take home all the presents.

Yes, Syria’s humanitarian crisis is appalling. And no, I don’t like to see innocents dying or suffering. But the calls from the region for American action are nakedly cynical.

Turkey has the largest military in NATO after our own, but cries “helpless” crocodile tears over Syrian refugees — while dreaming of rebuilding the Ottoman Empire upon their ruined lives. Our Saudi “friends” spent decades building the most-sophisticated military arsenal in the Middle East, apart from Israel. Now the Saudis wring their hands over Syria’s misery — but won’t intervene directly to stop the killing.

The Saudi position is always “You and him fight!” As long ago as Desert Storm, Saudis joked about renting the American army and our bumpkin gullibility. (Try to find one US officer who’s worked with the Saudis and doesn’t hate their guts. . .) Now they want Washington to spend our blood and treasure to open the mosques of Damascus to their Wahhabi cult.

Well, the Assad regime is horrible, but not al Qaeda horrible. Better poison gas than poisoned religion, as far as our own security’s concerned. This is an Arab struggle (with Turkish and Iranian vultures overhead). This time, we need to let them fight it out.

The region’s outdated order is disintegrating. But Washington’s still mesmerized by the artificial boundaries on the map.

Nine decades ago, the diplomats at Versailles ignored the region’s natural fault lines as they carved up the Middle East, forcing enemies together and driving kin apart (while Woodrow Wilson turned his back on the Kurds). Only brute force and dictators kept up the fiction that these were countries. Now the grim charade has reached its end.

Iraq was carved out for British interests, while Syria was France’s consolation prize. Now Syria’s collapsing in a too-many-factions-to-count civil war. And Iraq’s in the early stages of its own dissolution; even a would-be dictator — another of our one-time “friends,” Nouri al-Maliki — can’t keep the “country” together.

We don’t even know how many new states will emerge from the old order’s wreckage. But the Scramble for the Sand is on, with Iran, Turkey, treacherous Arab oil sheikdoms and terrorists Sunni and Shia alike all determined to dictate the future, no matter the cost in other people’s blood.

We had our chance to extend the peace and keep both Iran and Wahhabi crazies at bay after we defeated Iraq’s insurgencies. But a new American president, elevating politics over strategy, walked away from Baghdad, handing Iraq to Iran. Now it’s too late. If George W. Bush helped trigger the Arab Spring, Barack Obama made this Arab Winter inevitable.

We must not be lured into the current fighting — centered, for now, on Syria — by cries of humanitarian necessity. The local powers could step in to stop the killing. But they won’t. Once again, they want us to pay the bill. (It’s time for the Saudis, especially, to give their own blood.)

We’ve paid enough. Rhetoric and red lines notwithstanding, we need to back off from Syria, if for no other reason than a strategist’s golden rule: If you don’t understand what a fight’s about, stay out.

Ralph Peters is the author of the new Civil War novel “Hell or Richmond.”

Diversity, not Jesus, saves says Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church

Diversity, not Jesus, saves says Presiding Bishop: Anglican Ink, May 20, 2013 May 20, 2013

Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ink, The Episcopal Church.
Tags: Atonement, diversity, Katharine Jefferts Schori, soteriology

The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church has denounced the Apostle Paul as mean-spirited and bigoted for having released a slave girl from demonic bondage as reported in Acts 16:16-34 .

In her sermon delivered at All Saints Church in Curaçao in the diocese of Venezuela, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori condemned those who did not share her views as enemies of the Holy Spirit.

The presiding bishop opened her remarks with an observation on the Dutch slave past. “The history of this place tells some tragic stories about the inability of some to see the beauty in other skin colors or the treasure of cultures they didn’t value or understand,” she said.

She continued stating: “Human beings have a long history of discounting and devaluing difference, finding it offensive or even evil.  That kind of blindness is what leads to oppression, slavery, and often, war.  Yet there remains a holier impulse in human life toward freedom, dignity, and the full flourishing of those who have been kept apart or on the margins of human communities.”

Read it all in Anglican Ink.

TIMES A BIT TOUGH FOR SOME PASTORS AND PRIESTS

Sandwich priest suspended for plagiarism

By George Brennan

gbrennan@capecodonline.com

May 17, 2013

SANDWICH — One of the Ten Commandments is “thou shall not steal,” but an Episcopal priest has been suspended for allegedly lifting more than a dozen Sunday sermons verbatim from a book.

The Rev. John E. McGinn, 65, who has led the 300-plus families at St. John’s Episcopal Church since 1993, was placed on administrative leave amid allegations that he plagiarized sermons dating back to 2006, said the Rev. Mally Lloyd, canon to the ordinary for the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, a position equivalent to the bishop’s chief of staff.

As many as 15 sermons have been identified as direct copies, Lloyd said.

They were allegedly taken from a book called “Dynamic Preaching,” which can be accessed only with an online subscription.

The bishop’s office pointed out a Dec. 11, 2011, sermon as an example. The sermon is still on the church’s website.

“I keep saying that one of these days I’m going to sit down and write a book because some of the things that have happened in my ministry need to be written down so that people can read them,” the opening line of McGinn’s sermon states. “They probably will think they are fiction but in reality they really happened.”

The sermon goes on to tell a detailed story of officiating at the funeral of a man who died suddenly and had “Jingle Bells” sung at his funeral instead of “Glory Bells.” An Internet search shows the same story, with slightly different wording, has been told at other churches.

Members of the tiny, wood-shingled 1899 church with vibrant red doors in the heart of Sandwich’s historic village were notified of McGinn’s alleged plagiarism through a May 9 letter from Bishop M. Thomas Shaw of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. The letter announced that the rector had been removed from the pulpit.

“This is a serious breach of the pastoral relationship between John and each of you, the congregation of St. John’s,” Shaw wrote in his May 9 letter to parishioners. “I am sorry that this matter has caused pain and will likely cause further pain in the parish. As difficult as this situation is, we know that truth telling helps to bring about healing, and our renewal follows repentance.”

In his letter, Shaw said plagiarism allegations first arose a year ago. McGinn said at the time that it was an isolated incident and would not happen again, Shaw’s letter said. “We investigated further and have documentation that not only did he continue to copy sermons and preach and publish them verbatim, in print and online, as his own, but he had been doing so for many years,” the letter states. “He admits to having done so.”

The sermons were published on the church’s website, as well as in the church’s newsletter, where they were signed by McGinn.

At the mailbox outside his East Sandwich home, McGinn declined to comment on the allegations.

“I’m going to retire,” he said. “I loved my time at the parish. That’s all. I think I did a good job.”

Members of the congregation reached by phone, among them former Selectman Linell Grundman and Police Chief Peter Wack, referred calls Thursday to the diocese office in Boston.

Sean Randall, senior warden of the church vestry, issued a statement on behalf of the local parishioners.

“For 17 years Fr. John McGinn has raised thousands of dollars for local charities and provided pastoral care for hundreds of people on the Upper Cape. Our prayers are with him as the diocese, St. John’s Church and Fr. McGinn work to resolve this,” Randall said.

The Rev. John Thomas, the retired rector of St. John’s and one of the few willing to comment publicly on the allegations, said he wished McGinn had retired earlier. Thomas, who retired in 1993 and left Sandwich for several years to fill in at other churches, returned 10 years ago to sing in the St. John’s choir. He said he has been unimpressed with McGinn’s leadership.

“I’m sorry for him. I like the man,” Thomas said. “I have been critical of his function as parish priest.”

Thomas predicted it will be a “tough road ahead” for the parish as it seeks to heal.

“There are a full range of emotions,” said Lloyd, who met with parishioners this week to begin mapping the church’s future.

The church, through its canon of regulations, concentrates on healing and forgiveness, rather than punishment, Lloyd said.

Over the next few weeks, the diocese will work with church leaders to make sure they can cover services and ceremonies such as baptisms and wedding…..

The Cape Cod Times has the rest.

TEACHERS AND OTHERS CHARGED WITH BLASPHEMY

• 

  View PhotoAssociated Press/Ibrahim Zayed – Abdel-Nour, the father of 24-year-old school teacher Dimyana Abdel-Nour, who is accused of insulting Islam while teaching fourth graders history of religions, speaks on the …more

  Egyptians targeted with blasphemy charges

  By MAGGIE MICHAEL | Associated Pres

Related Content

   

• View PhotoThe mother of 24-year-old school …
• View PhotoThis Saturday, May 11, 2013 photo, …

CAIRO (AP) — The pale, young Christian woman sat handcuffed in the courtroom, accused of insulting Islam while teaching history of religions to fourth-graders. A team of Islamist lawyers with long beards sang in unison, “All except the Prophet Muhammad.”

The case against Dimyana Abdel-Nour in southern Egypt’s ancient city of Luxor began when parents of three of her pupils claimed that their children, aged 10, complained their teacher showed disgust when she spoke of Islam in class. According to the parents, Abdel-Nour, 24, told the children that Pope Shenouda, who led the Egyptian Coptic Church until his death last year, was better than the Prophet Muhammad.

Blasphemy charges were not uncommon in Egypt under the now-ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak‘s regime, but there has been a surge in such cases in recent months, according to rights activists. The trend is widely seen as a reflection of the growing power and confidence of Islamists, particularly the ultraconservative Salafis.

“Salafis are the engineers of these stories,” said Abdel-Hamid Hassan, a Muslim and the head of the parents’ council at the primary school where Abdel-Nour teaches. Hassan’s daughter was among several students who denied any wrongdoing by Abdel-Nour.

“If the pope himself came here from the Vatican and tried to spread Christianity among us, he would fail. We learn about our religion starting from the age of 5,” he said, alluding to the allegation against Abdel-Nour, since withdrawn, of “spreading Christianity.”

Criminalizing blasphemy was enshrined in the country’s Islamist-backed constitution that was adopted in December.

Writers, activists and even a famous television comedian have been accused of blasphemy since then. But Christians seem to be the favorite target of Islamist prosecutors. Their fragile cases — the main basis of the case against Abdel-Nour’s case the testimony of children — are greeted with sympathy from courtroom judges with their own religious bias or who fear the wrath of Islamists, according to activists.

The result is a growing number of Egyptians, including many Christians, who have been convicted and sent to prison for blasphemy.

In at least one celebrated case, the offense was clearly provocative: Seven Coptic Christians living in the United States received death sentences in absentia for producing an anti-Islam film that sparked waves of protests by ultraconservative Islamists in front of U.S. embassies across the Arab world on Sept. 11, 2012.

But rights groups say the vast majority of blasphemy cases are merely attempts by Islamists to crack down on their opponents.

“Islamists are using the law to hunt down critics to the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Christians are the weakest,” said Medhat Klada, a Switzerland-based Coptic Christian activist whose organization Copts United tracks such cases. “The numbers of Christians implicated is unprecedented,” he added.

Many believe that restrictions on freedoms are more severe under Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s first freely elected president, than during his predecessor’s 29-year reign.

Under Mubarak, “you might have had 50 cases, which means a case or two a year on average, but now you have like 10 cases in a year,” said Mamdouh Nakhla, who leads The Word Group for Human Rights and focuses on Christian-related persecution.

Freed Tuesday on nearly $3,000 bail after almost a week in detention, Abdel-Nour is due to stand trial on May 21. Her family refused several requests by The Associated Press to speak to her. Her father, Ebid Abdel-Nour, said: “She is innocent. God be with us. She can’t talk because she is in very bad condition.”

Emil Nazeer, a Christian activist who visited her, says she is suffering a “nervous breakdown.”

Rights advocates see cases like Abdel-Nour’s as politically motivated persecution. They say the verdicts tend to be harsher in southern Egypt, where Islamists are particularly powerful and Muslims are more conservative.

“Any move or word by a Christian is enough to get the rumor mill working,” said Amr Ezzat, a prominent researcher in Islamic groups at the Cairo-based Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR). “Rumors quickly spread in villages or the towns where the radar of Islamist activists detect them and turn them into a rallying cry under the pretext that Islam’s supremacy is endangered.”

Salafis advocate an uncompromising and literal interpretation of the Quran, believing society must mirror the way the prophet and his immediate successors ruled in the 7th century. Some Salafi-based political groups are at odds with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group from which Morsi hails, while others are avid supporters of his government.

Part of the Salafis’ antagonism toward Christians is rooted in the belief that they were a protected group under Mubarak’s regime while they, the Salafis, were persecuted. Now empowered, they may be out to exact revenge on the Christians, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s 90 million people.

The Egyptian Federation for Human Rights, led by former judge Naguib Gibrael, detects a trend in the number of lawsuits and court rulings leveled against Christians and school teachers in particular over the past year.

Gibrael, a lawyer who is representing Abdul-Nour, says it’s his 18th case defending Christians — several of them teachers — detained over insulting Islam. He says his 17 other clients received three to six years in prison. They go to appeals courts, hoping for retrials or lighter sentences.

Another rights group, the EIPR, said it chronicled at least 36 blasphemy cases in 2011 and 2012, including more than 10 convictions, and that Christian school teachers were frequent targets.

“Teachers are an easy target,” said Gibrael. “Any two students can say anything about their teachers. Islamist teachers collect signatures, and quickly Islamists move a case, then terrorize the court by holding protests and besieging the court building until the judge issues a verdict. I have seen it all,” he said.

In Cairo, public figures who have lately faced blasphemy accusations or trials like movie star Adel Imam were all cleared, thanks to media attention, lobbying by rights groups and heavy police presence.

In rural areas, according to EIPR researcher Ishak Ibrahim, even those acquitted or otherwise cleared of blasphemy accusations face social or administrative punishment, with some forced by villagers to leave their homes, pay a fine or get demoted or suspended by their state employers.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood likes to project itself as a more moderate Islamist group when compared to the ultraconservative Salafis, but they still play a role in the blasphemy cases.

The top Brotherhood leader in Luxor, Abdel-Hamid el-Senoussi, is a lawmaker and the head of the legal team representing the families whose children testified against Abdel-Nour.

He acknowledged that two investigations by the school found no justification for the children’s claims, but said he does not trust those findings.

“They just want to avoid discord. But we prefer to get to the bottom of it,” he said. “Even if the court clears the teacher and rules that she is innocent, she must be fired from the school.”

“There are people who want to mess up with the ship of the nation and this teacher is one of them,” he said.

For him, the penalty for contempt of religion is not harsh enough. “I prefer 10 years imprisonment and, in case the judge clears the defendant, a fine that goes toward the upkeep of places of worship.”

“Anyone who insults religions must be punished to deter further assaults,” he said.

___

AP writer Haggag Salama contributed to this story from Luxor, Egypt