Holy cities and revered places: not just for Muslims anymore
By John David Powell (06/28/07)
Have you ever thought about the criteria that make a "holy city" holy? And while you're contemplating this, come up with the answer to the question of why western journalists believe Christianity doesn't have holy cities.
You would be hard-pressed to find news stories referring to the birthplace of Jesus Christ, THE SON OF GOD, as “the holy city of Bethlehem.” Journalists would never describe as Christian holy cities the ancient patriarchates of Constantinople, Rome, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria.
Constantinople is now Istanbul, but at one time, it was the seat of the Byzantine Empire and the ecumenical center of the Christian world. Rome, Jerusalem Antioch, and Alexandria are still around, but journalists and their editors back home go out of their way to avoid the hint of Judeo-Christian bias.
This is why you won’t read about the 22-year-old man arrested for swimming nekked in the “historic” Baraccia fountain in the holy city of Rome, as happened this week and reported by Reuters.
Nor will you read about responses from the holy city of Vatican City about a proposal for Roman Catholic pope Benedict XVI and Russian Orthodox patriarch Alexy II to chew the holy fat in Cyprus sometime during the year, as reported this week by the Associated Press.
Anglicans won’t read about controversial housing development plans accepted by the holy city of Canterbury’s city council this week, as reported in The Times of London.
Folks in Japan and China never see their capital cities referred to as holy cities or former holy cities, even though the emperors of both countries claimed divine status. Maybe the lack of a recognized holy city led the Chinese to take control of Tibet, home to the holy city of Lhasa
Latter-Day Saints never hear the Mormon mecca called the holy city of Salt Lake City.
Gays, however, can read the Agence France Presse story about an ultra-Orthodox Jew arrested last week for trying to blow up a Gay Pride parade route in the holy city of Jerusalem. In case the reader starts feeling distressed about the use of the term, and experiences an overriding desire to apologize for religious insensitivity, the writer included the following disclaimer: “Jerusalem (is) revered as a holy city by millions of Christians, Jews, and Muslims all over the world.”
Maybe the title of holy city doesn’t mean what it used to mean. Think of a holy city and you may think of a peaceful place populated by people filled with some kind of holy spirit. The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines holy city as a city that is the center of religious worship and traditions.
These days, though, a holy city may find itself as the center of a story about a natural or political upheaval. “Another quake jolts holy city of Qom in Iran,” read a Payvand News headline on the last day of spring. Historians of the twentieth century know the Punjab holy city of Amritsar for the martyrdom of 206 Sikhs in 1984. In February, officers from Saudi Arabia’s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice set out to protect the rectitude of the holy city of Mecca by arresting more than 200 Saint Valentine’s Day observers from Bangladesh and Myanmar.
Even though western journalists try hard to play up the religion-of-peace aspect of Islam, they find themselves writing stories of gunmen killing six people riding a minibus near the holy city of Karbala, or of soldiers guarding the funeral of a police officer in the holy city of Najaf.
Samarra, also in Iraq, may not be a holy city, but it has a revered mosque bombed by al-Qaeda earlier this month. (Please note that western journalists only use the word revered with Islamic places of worship. God forbid, so to speak, that the reporter for an Irish newspaper describe the “ancient” Basilica of Saint John and Saint Paul in the [holy city] of Rome as revered, even though it is the administrative headquarters for the Passionist order to which the newly canonized Charles of Mount Argus belonged.)
Pity the poor United States. We’re not old enough to have anything that’s ancient. We reserve revered for really old actors or professors who just died.
But we do have Charleston, S.C., named after King Charles II of England, and a self-proclaimed Holy City, because of the abundances of places of worship.
Charleston also is the home to Sammie Smalls, the inspiration for the Porgy character in “Porgy and Bess” and a guy who used to ride around James Island on a goat cart. Charleston will be a mecca this weekend for people attending the “Comin’ Home to Porgy” celebration, a Lowcountry version of a haj.
Others can have their holy cities and revered places. We have our own holy city, complete with a revered goat cart rider.
We’re doomed.
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