The Arch of Cant says he is “horrified” by the stoning to death of a Pakistani woman (by her friends and family) who had married a man of whom her relations disapproved. Justin Welby added, “And every Pakistani I have spoken to is also horrified.” What did he mean by that remark? Did he mean to suggest that no Pakistanis approve of stoning? Clearly, he had not spoken to the victim’s family and friends who so enthusiastically perpetrated this murderous atrocity – and especially not to her brother and father who, after the mob had done their worst, went in and (as reported by The Daily Telegraph) “finished her off.” Neither did Welby speak to any of the hundreds of lawyers inside the court near which the murder took place, and who might have intervened. Nor to the hundreds of bystanders who witnessed the stoning and were clearly not horrified enough to help the victim.

But we can guess what Welby intended to convey: that most Pakistanis – i.e. Muslims – were horrified by the stoning. I don’t believe that to be the case, otherwise these and similarly appalling events would not take place as often as they do. The awful truth is that while our Archbishops and Bishops have set up a useless everlasting talking shop with “moderate Muslims,” there is a very considerable faction in that country which, far from being horrified by such atrocities, is willing to condone them by inaction. We must assume tacit approval. Why else are churches burned down every day, individuals slaughtered for converting from Islam to Christianity; terrorised, tortured, mutilated and murdered for “blasphemy”?

Such appalling events would not be tolerated in a country in which the majority of the population disapproved them. Blood-soaked fundamentalist Islam, Sharia in practice, is alive and well – I mean alive and sick – throughout Pakistan. If, by his remark about so many being horrified, the Archbishop meant to play this down, to pretend that things are other than what we know them to be, then he is by implication an appeaser of those who commit such barbarous acts in the name of their religion.