Soccer Dad

Osama and the pope

Fausta's Blog mentions the Jawa Report's review of the latest bin Laden video. The Jawa Report concludes that the video is a few years old.

Fausta wonders if that means:

"... for the time being I'm wondering if Fidel and Osama are playing canasta together right now."

Both wonder what the Pope has to with bin Laden's rant. Though I doubt that bin Laden's grievance was this, Daniel Pipes writes about a victory the Pope had in his dealings with the Gulf States.
A church called Our Lady of the Rosary opened Doha Qatar. Discussions are underway about the presence of churches in Saudi Arabia.

Archbishop Paul-Mounged El-Hashem, the papal nuncio to Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen, says that "Discussions are under way to allow the construction of churches in the kingdom. … There are around three or four million Christians in Saudi Arabia, and we hope they will have churches." Father Federico Lombardi, the pope's spokesman, adds: "If we manage to obtain authorisation for the construction of the first church, it will be an outcome of historic dimensions."

Pipes observes how this came about.

Should even a single church open in Saudi Arabia, no matter how restricted, hidden, and threatened in, it will be truly significant step, a tribute to both the Vatican's new, tougher policy and to King Abdullah's reform efforts.

News like this should have Osama spinning is cave or grave. I guess that a chance of a synagogue would still be a bit much.

UPDATE: via Instapundit The Anchoress writes:

So, a few days before Easter, Osama bin Laden - who may or may not be dead - claimed a conspiracy against Islam being headed up by an 81 year old feller who likes cats and plays Mozart.

At the Vigil for Easter, the old feller, who also wields a crozier, writes tirelessly and uses the soft answer to turn away wrath, made his gentle response. He baptized with his own hands, and publicly, one Magdi Allam, who chose the baptismal name “Christian”.

Magdi Christian Allam — or Christian Allam, however this very brave man wishes to style it — told reporters, after receiving baptism, confirmation and his first Holy Communion, “this is the happiest day of my life,” and he also had a few words to say about the current state of Islam.

So if a church in Qatar is round one, performing a baptism of a prominent Muslim is round two.