Vatican: Quran burning ‘outrageous’

(CNN) — Burning the Quran would be an “outrageous and grave gesture,” the Vatican said Wednesday, joining a chorus of voices pleading with a small Florida church not to burn Islam’s holy book on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The Vatican body responsible for dialogue with other religions expressed “great concern” about the plan by Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it would be a “disrespectful, disgraceful act.” She was speaking Tuesday night at a State Department dinner in honor of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Her statement came a day after the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, warned that the plan “could cause significant problems” for American troops overseas.

But despite the growing pressure, the pastor of the Florida church, Terry Jones, said Wednesday that “as of this time we have no intention of canceling.”

Jones all week has rebuffed pleas to call off the event, saying radical Islamists are the target of his message.

“The general needs to point his finger to radical Islam and tell them to shut up, tell them to stop, tell them that we will not bow our knees to them,” Jones said on CNN’s “AC360.”

“We are burning the book,” Jones said. “We are not killing someone. We are not murdering people.”

Jones announced Wednesday that the church’s website provider has “canceled” Dove World Outreach Center’s accounts, though its website, and another URL for a book written by Jones titled “Islam is of the Devil,” were still accessible Wednesday evening.

“We feel that it’s definitely an indirect attack on our freedom of speech,” Jones said, adding that the provider, Rackspace, is “trying to shut us down.”

But he said, “This is not going to affect the event going forward.”