Germany’s Carnival – OK to Bash Catholic Church but Islam off Limits
COLOGNE,
March 2, 2006

(LifeSiteNews.com) - Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday and Pancake Tuesday are among the many names for the custom of keeping a festival on the last day before the beginning of the Christian penitential season of Lent. In most countries that have European roots, Mardi Gras has always included elements mocking Catholic ceremonies and customs.

But the tone has changed since the growth of what Christians are recognizing as a new militant secularism that specifically fosters hatred of Christianity. One skit planned for Cologne features the Pope and the Cardinal Archbishop of Cologne as homosexual pop stars who end up in bed together. Last year, a float in the Dusseldorf parade showed Cardinal Meisner striking a match to a pregnant woman tied to the stake, the words "I had an abortion" written on her. The float’s caption read, “Fostering Tradition.”

The custom for making fun of Cathlic symbols goes back to the middle ages said Matthias von der Bank, a historian from Cologne's Carnival Museum said, “In the Middle Ages, carnival was a festival of reverse worlds and a playful expression of this," von der Bank said. "So Christian symbols, for example, were turned upside down.” Story