An American protestant pastor, Terry Jones, has been in the news.

He is calling for tomorrow, 11 September, to be a “Koran Burning Day”.

This “brainwave” of his has caused a lot of outrage — and a lot of muddled thinking

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Many Catholic leaders have made statements protesting against Jones’s plan. For example:

(1) Cardinal Oswald Gracias, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, saying, “I condemn this completely insensitive threat that is disrespectful to the Holy Koran.”

(2) Archbishop Lawrence Saldanha, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Pakistan, said, “We strongly condemn this intention and this campaign, as it is contrary to the respect due to all religions.”

These bishops rightly fear that Koran-burning by alleged Christians might result in their Catholic communities being persecuted.

For that reason they are right to point out how imprudent that act would be.

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But for Cardinal Gracias to call the Islamic scripture “the Holy Koran” is something else . . . .

To a Christian, the Koran is anything but holy.

Catholics must insist that the nature of the deity described in the Koran, plus its denial of Christ’s divinity, make it very un-holy.

Cardinal Gracias must well understand this point.

Likewise Archbishop Saldanha’s comment about “the respect due to all religions”.

To a Catholic, no respect whatever is due to religions that are untrue.

Because we consider it untrue, we can have no respect for Islam itself. But we must, and we do, have respect for Islamic people.

Burning Korans is wrong because it causes unnecessary distress to other human beings.

Our religion forbids us causing such distress — whether the people involved have the true religion, a false religion, or even no religion.

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Our first duty to every Muslim person is to act in the ways most likely to help him find God.

Ideally God wants them all in the Catholic Church.

We will more likely succeed in that by offering them love, than by getting their backs up.

As Saint Francis de Sales said, “You can attract more bees with a spoonful of honey than with a barrel-full of vinegar.”