Pope Francis recently made some ostensibly refreshing remarks. During an early morning Mass in memory of Fr. Jacques Hamel—the 85-year-old priest who was slaughtered by Muslims while conducting mass in his church in France—Pope Francis said:
This cruelty that asks for apostasy, let’s say the word, is satanic… Today in the church there are more Christian martyrs than in the first times. Today there are Christians who are assassinated, tortured, jailed, their throats are cut because they don’t deny Jesus Christ…. To the first Christians, apostasy was proposed – that is, say that our god is the true one, not yours. Make a sacrifice to our god, or our gods. And when they didn’t do this, when they refused apostasy, they were killed. This is repeated today. How much we would like that all of the religions would say that killing in the name of God is satanic.
He concluded by saying we should pray to have “the courage to say the truth: To kill in the name of God is Satanic.”
The Pope is to be applauded for these statements, for they are certainly true. Indeed, “there are more Christian martyrs [today] than in the first times” and “killing in the name of God is satanic.”
But his assertions are somewhat compromised in that they are incomplete and thus vague. Listening to him, one might conclude that all sorts of people are coercing Christians to accept “our god, or our gods” or else the sword; that all sorts of people are “killing in the name of God.”
In reality, there is only one group of people today—Muslims—that is forcing Christians to choose between their god and death.
Yet Francis does not merely omit mentioning the religious identity of those “killing in the name of God”; even when he is asked point blank he wavers. Thus when a journalist asked the pope if Fr. Jacques was “killed in the name of Islam,” Francis adamantly disagreed; he argued that he hears of Christians committing violence every day in Italy: “this one who has murdered his girlfriend, another who has murdered the mother-in-law… and these are baptized Catholics! There are violent Catholics! If I speak of Islamic violence, I must speak of Catholic violence.”
Apparently for Pope Francis, violence done in accordance with Allah’s commandments is no more troubling than violence done in contradiction of the Judeo-Christian God’s commandments. By this perverse logic, if we hold Islam accountable, so must we hold Christianity accountable—regardless of the fact that Islam does justify violence while Christianity condemns it.
The reality is that Francis wants to say just enough to satisfy those calling on him to acknowledge reality—that Muslims everywhere are persecuting Christians—without jeopardizing his true project: “dialogue.” This is why he only speaks about Christian persecution during unremarkable church gatherings with little media attention; but when he has the world by its ears—through encyclicals or when speaking for an hour in front of the UN—there is no talk of Christian martyrs.
Thus ten days after denouncing the “satanic” attack on Fr. Jacques during a memorial service with little media coverage, Francis met with the grieving relatives and survivors of France’s Bastille Day attack—another Islamic attack that claimed the lives of 86 and injured hundreds. He told them: “We need to start a sincere dialogue and have fraternal relations between everybody, especially those who believe in a sole God who is merciful,” a reference to monotheistic Muslims. He added that this was “an urgent priority…. We can only respond to the Devil’s attacks with God’s works which are forgiveness, love and respect for the other, even if they are different.”
And there it is: Francis offers strong (but vague and little heard) words to placate those outraged at the nonstop Islamic attacks on Christians; but he never mentions—worse, he covers for—the ideology that fuels these nonstop attacks.
Yet how can one solve a problem without first identifying its source? To this, Francis replies: “We can only respond to the Devil’s attacks with God’s works which are forgiveness, love and respect for the other, even if they are different.” This is certainly a different approach than that of his courageous namesake.
Needless to say, Francis’ passive behavior is futile vis-a-vis Islam and will only be taken advantage of. How does one have “fraternal relations” with adherents of a religion that calls on them to hate all non-Muslims, including family members and wives? Or as the Koran puts it: “There has already been for you [Muslims] an excellent example in Abraham and those with him, when they said to their people… ‘We have rejected you, and there has arisen, between us and you, enmity and hatred forever until you believe in Allah alone’” (60:4).
Why not “respond to the Devil’s attacks” with forthrightness and truth—in this case, by calling Islam out as a creed that does teach “killing in the name of God,” the way countless popes and other Christian leaders since the seventh century—when Islam burst onto the scene slaughtering Christians and burning churches—have done?
It appears Pope Francis must continue to pray for, in his own words, “the courage to say the [whole] truth” about who or what is behind the tremendous rise of Christian persecution in the modern era.
The Christians to whom Pope al YimYamYum refers to as commiting violence do not do so in the name of their God, nor do they demand the apostasy of others.
I’d Like to say even though you criticized me in a post and I was arrogant in my response that looking at what you say in other post, we are on the same side! prayers to you friend 🙂
Moral Relativism, Francis; shame on you!
Yes, many people from any religion kill for themselves, as if in their own personal name. And that is evil and rightly condemned. But the muslims demanding others to leave their religion and accept islam kill in the name of islam, sura 9, its sisters, and ‘allah akbar’. Muslims who have been raised to obey the laws of their lands will condemn such killing, which is right and which brings a little comfort and a little hope for sanity. But other muslims become devoted to sura 9, its sisters, and to examples of jihad war. That must be doubly condemned, as Ibrahim regularly does. The acts are evil and the sources that inspire them are evil. Thank you, Ibrahim, for sanity and a little moral clarity in this crazy world.
pope JUDAS ISCARIOT profits off martyrs but is too much a COWARD to call for a crusade.
Why have the Bishops, cardinals, not thrown this FALSE SHEPHERD out a window?
Not a PEEP out of the pope about that Priest’s Crucifixion. Pope Judas Iscariot was washing and KISSING the feet of mooslums while his priest was crucified by MUSLIMS in Syria.
pope JUDAS ISCARIOT? Where is his “Call to Arms” for Christian Soldiers?OH! pope JUDAS ISCARIOT is busy washing the feet of muslums.
As a Christian, I already know the outcome………………..”They” LOSE !
Bring back the Crusades !
I wonder if his lips curled up, and a fungus went to his brain to clear it up, after kissing muzzrat’s feet? He is starting to wake up… now he needs to clean up the Vatican II catechism that has blasphemy in it in regards to allah being God. allah is satanic, it is evil.
This is a very weak Pope,he is a traitor to the faith,bragging about Islam when they are killing Christians left an right,pray the Lord our God sends us a Strong an Brave Pope.
So, if he doesn’t understand the difference between Christianity and Islam, obviously, he became Christian by mistake…About time someone explained to him exactly where he belongs and gave him a strong kick out of the Vatican.
It is not true that only Muslims are attacking and persecuting Christians; in India today there is ongoing persecution of Christians by some (a minority) Hindu fanatics while in North Korea there is also widespread persecution of Christians by the secular regime in power.
In our response to the persecution of Christians across the Muslim world we-i.e., Christians, have to be mindful of Christ’s command to love our enemies, doing good to those who hate us etc.
This of course will be very difficult , if not impossible, for most to put into practice.
I believe that Pope Francis is mindful of the Lord’s command and is struggling both in word and deed to come to terms with it. His use of language and explanations of the ongoing persecution is often inadequate , ambiguous and should be more supportive of the persecuted Christians and other minority groups such as the Yazidis. I fear that if Pope Francis were to call a spade a spade i.e., actually blaming the violent exhortations contained in the Islamic scriptures and the example of Mohammad himself for most of the violence committed against Christians, the most likely outcome would be to set off a renewed and even more violent wave of persecution. Are we prepared to accept that risk ?
In the meantime why not pray for peace ?
For a good reason, the Pope weasels as to the inherent and active deadly violence now occurring in the name of Islam. He wants to avoid starting another holy war between Christianity and Islam.
But then to do so the Pope must discount his earlier observation that we now have “a piecemeal World War III.” This observation could only include and condemn the ongoing religious violence via jihad (holy war) against the West.
One could argue, however, that by his failure to call things by their right name, the Pope plays into the hands of the Muslim terrorists who pursue jihad. These religious fanatics who routinely murder innocents thus only take part in a global war under this umbrella, as if simply another warring party.
Instead of trying to pry the necessary words describing actuality from the lips of the Pope, let us look to an old, controlling dictum of war: “One must know one’s enemy in order to defeat him.”
BTW: The Pope calls for forgiveness as a tool of peace. Yet how can a person practice forgiveness when a Muslim terrorist has cut off his head? One must resist such evil, not forgive it.
The remedy for a resurgent Islamic violence calls for identifying, locating, and snuffing every active Muslim terrorist, in order to end the murder of innocents, and to bring peace.
I’m Catholic but I have some serious concerns about Pope Francis’ apparent reluctance to call out Islamists.
With groups like ISIS stating their intention to conquer Rome and behead the Pope and, as the article notes, ISIS supporters in France murdering an 85 year old priest (not that age matters here) while he was celebrating Mass in a Catholic church, I think Pope Francis should be taking a far harder line against Islamists and Islamism.
your article is correct; Pope Francis is wrong, we Catholics need to acknowledge the truth about Islam and call it for what it is. a Satanic cult of evil. When we acknowledge this demonic evil by name, we will have made an important starting point in facing this imminent threat to our very survival. Islam demands its adherents to murder non Muslims and to deceive non Muslims with lies (taqiyya) until the Muslims are strong enough to murder the non Muslims. We have a serious Jihad in Europe and in many global areas. Muslims cannot integrate with non Muslims as their belief forbids this and in the past 1400 years they have not integrated and will not now. At least if we are honest about the imminent threat to our survival from Islam we will be prepared to do something to be ready for the coming battle which will come as their numbers increase with polygamy and forced breeding on their women who are slaves. This forced breeding is Muslim war strategy and in 15 years Belgium will have a majority Muslim population bringing Sharia law and the same for Germany and other E.U states a few years later. Because of negative native population increase with widespread abortion and contraception these E.U states think that these Muslim migrants will plug the gap, but they do not realise the consequences. We have a duty to defend our families and country from an enemy who openly state that they will kill us if we do not accept their Satanic belief. Now is the time to turn back the Muslim hordes who are pretending to be “refugees” in order to get a strong foothold on Europe; after a few years it will be impossible to force them out as they will be in a majority we will have to submit to their pagan and evil Sharia “law” or they state they will behead us.