A traditional Catholic Mass to bless a rally for motorcyclists has been cancelled due to bad behaviour at last year's event.

"/> A traditional Catholic Mass to bless a rally for motorcyclists has been cancelled due to bad behaviour at last year's event.

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OFFBEAT

Priest cancels biker blessing after bread theft

A traditional Catholic Mass to bless a rally for motorcyclists has been cancelled due to bad behaviour at last year's event.

Published: 28 April 2011 14:15 CEST

The motorists reportedly drank beer and stole the communion bread and wine to distribute them among their friends during last year’s ceremony on the Simplon Pass.

As a result of the their actions, the priest is refusing to celebrate the Mass this year.

According to the daily Corriere del Ticino, the local motorcycle club has tried to contact other priests unsuccessfully, before turning directly to the Sion Bishop, identified as Mons. Norbert Brunner. The Bishop reportedly opted for a simple liturgy without Communion, said the report.

The blessing of the bikes is a 25-year-old tradition celebrated every year on May 1st which gathers several hundreds participants, the paper said.

RELIGION

Al-Azhar university calls for Sweden boycott over Koran burning

The Sunni Muslim world's most prestigious educational institution, Al-Azhar in Egypt, has called for the boycott of Swedish and Dutch products after far-right activists destroyed Korans in those countries.

Published: 26 January 2023 15:10 CET
Al-Azhar university calls for Sweden boycott over Koran burning

Al-Azhar, in a statement issued on Wednesday, called on “Muslims to boycott Dutch and Swedish products”.

It also urged “an appropriate response from the governments of these two countries” which it charged were “protecting despicable and barbaric crimes in the name of ‘freedom of expression'”.

Swedish-Danish far-right politician Rasmus Paludan on Saturday set fire to a copy of the Muslim holy book in front of Turkey’s embassy in Stockholm, raising tensions as Sweden courts Ankara over its bid to join Nato.

EXPLAINED:

The following day, Edwin Wagensveld, who heads the Dutch chapter of the German anti-Islam group Pegida, tore pages out of the Koran during a one-man protest outside parliament.

Images on social media also showed him walking on the torn pages of the holy book.

The desecration of the Koran sparked strong protests from Ankara and furious demonstrations in several capitals of the Muslim world including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Yemen.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry “strongly condemned” the Koran burning, expressing “deep concern at the recurrence of such events and the recent Islamophobic escalation in a certain number of European countries”.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson condemned Paludan’s actions as “deeply disrespectful”, while the United States called it “repugnant”.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price on Monday said the burning was the work of “a provocateur” who “may have deliberately sought to put distance between two close partners of ours – Turkey and Sweden”.

On Tuesday, Turkey postponed Nato accession talks with Sweden and Finland, after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned Stockholm for allowing weekend protests that included the burning of the Koran.

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