Common Sense Is In Such Short Supply

But here's some:

Benedict Groeschel: You and I were talking and you told me an anecdote about when they took the crucifixes down from the classroom walls at Boston College. I think this anecdote is a little bit long, but I think our audience would be very interested to hear it.

Peter Kreeft: Well, I was teaching comparative religions, and during the long break, there was a Jewish student and a Muslim student in the front row. The Jewish student noticed a faint cross painted on the wall behind me, so he asked me, "Is that supposed to be a cross?"

I started to explain that that's where the crucifix used to be, and another student, a Catholic, said "Oh, we took the crucifixes down last year."

"Why did you do take them down?"

"Oh, well, we didn't want to offend people."

"When did you take them down?"

"Well, let's see. 1979."

"Aha," said the Jewish student. "It was the Bundy money."

No one understood that, so he explained that President Carter's secretary of state, McGeorge Bundy, had brokered a deal by which federal money could go to private schools if and only if those schools were not sectarian, divisive, discriminatory... something like that. And - by coincidence - all 21 Jesuit colleges took down their crucifixes from their classrooms in the year following that decision. So when he explained that to the students, the students were rather scandalized, and one said, "Oh, no, we wouldn't do that for money."

And he said, "Of course you wouldn't, but I hope you got more than thirty pieces of silver this time." Rather wicked... some of them were so biblically illiterate that he had to explain to them that Judas Iscariot was the first Catholic bishop to accept a government grant.

But then the student said, "No, we did that to be ecumenical."

And then the Muslim chimed in.

"What is ecumenical?"

So the student said, "Oh, ecumenical means we think we're all equal, and we didn't want to discriminate against others, and offend outsiders."

And the Muslim said, "You mean people like me, and my friend the Jew?"

"Well, yes."

"Well, I am highly insulted."

"Why?"

"Well, you're treating me like a bigot."

"No, we hate bigotry."

"Let me explain. Suppose you came to my country. You enrolled in a Muslim university. Now we don't have pictures or images; we think that's idolatry, but when you are in a Muslim university, you know you are in a Muslim university. Who would object to a Muslim symbol in a Muslim university, except a bigot? Now you expect me to be offended by a Catholic symbol - the crucifix - in a Catholic university, so you are treating me like a bigot."

Everyone was thinking.

He didn't stop. He said to the students, "How many of you believe that Jesus is the Son of God?"

And most of them raised their hand.

He said, "Well, we Muslims don't believe that; the Koran says that's blasphemy, that's ridiculous, but we have a great devotion to Jesus. We hardly ever mention his name without saying, 'Blessed be he' or 'Blessed be his name' and we think he's one of the greatest men who ever lived, and he is a great prophet, and we love him and his mother Mary. And if we had pictures of him, we would never take them down, not for any money in the world. In fact," he said, and he was now waxing eloquent, "what if some soldiers came into our classroom and said, 'We demand that you take down this offensive picture of the prophet Jesus'? Every good Muslim would go in front of that picture and say, 'You will take down this picture of our beloved prophet Jesus over our dead bodies. We would be glad to be martyrs for him.' So I think we are better Christians than you are."

You could hear a pin drop.