Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 2:21pm

PopeWatch: Fundamentalists

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In yet another inflight interview, this one as he flew back from World Youth Day in Poland, Pope Francis summoned up one of his strawmen in order to avoid giving an honest answer in regard to Islam:

On a flight back to the Vatican after a five-day visit to Poland, Francis was asked by a reporter about remarks he made following last week’s attack on a church in northern France in which an elderly priest was brutally murdered. The reporter asked the pope why he refers to terrorists but never to Islam when talking about such violent incidents.

Francis responded that the characterization of Islam as violent is untrue and that violence committed by extremist groups such as the Islamic State should not be attributed to the religion as a whole.

“If I speak of Islamic violence, I should speak of Catholic violence,” the pope said.

“I believe that in pretty much every religion there is always a small group of fundamentalists,” he said, adding, “When fundamentalism comes to kill, it can kill with the language — the Apostle James says this, not me — and even with a knife, no?”

 

Go here to read the rest.  Defenders of this Pope sometimes claim that the Holy Spirit selected him.  God, it is said, moves in mysterious ways, but I doubt quite this mysterious.  A Pope who refuses to accept reality when it differs from his cherished beliefs, a Pope who refuses to engage uncongenial facts, a Pope who encourages mass Islamic immigration to Europe, and, when the predictable happens, denounces those who have eyes to see what is going on.  The Pope would prefer to see many of us dead, and the rest of us living under the yoke of Islam, than accept the fact that his peace loving Islam is a myth, and insofar muslims in the West proclaim that Islam is religion of peace, they are either lying or they are heterodox muslims, far from the teachings of their faith, at least as practiced by the overwhelming majority of muslims throughout history.

 

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chris c.
chris c.
Tuesday, August 2, AD 2016 3:42am

Don, I share the angst that many have regarding many of the Pope’s impromptu declarations. But in this case consider that the words of the Pope, unlike comments in an internet piece, can have enormous and immediate consequences for Christians living in Muslim lands. Perhaps in his judgement, he must be circumspect lest his words be an occasion for retribution against those under his direct care as shepherd; namely those Christians who would face the wrath of enraged mobs. There is precedent for violence in response to a Pope’s words, true and innocent as they may be. Church burnings and attacks, some fatal, were reported at Pope Benedict XVI made his Regensberg comments in 2006.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Tuesday, August 2, AD 2016 5:25am

chris c,
He should choose silence then and not falsehood and absurd comparisons. Benedict tried a ventriloquism at Regensburg inter alia and violent Muslims saw through it. He then tried to withdraw from that ventriloquism in subsequent days but the damage was done. Pope Francis on planes is one more oddity of modernity. He never gets cross examined with sequential tough questions….like….” how can you possibly compare religious motivated violence with say the Mafia using violence to acquire money…the categories are incomparable and the Mafia’s actions do not flow from the Bible in any way but Islamic terrorism does flow from Koran 9:2 in many minds etc.?”. Reporters want return access though so great questions or sequential cross examinations never come.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Tuesday, August 2, AD 2016 5:30am

correction Koran 9:5

bill bannon
bill bannon
Tuesday, August 2, AD 2016 6:41am

Oh wait….I missed it. Francis is talking about equating Islamic terrorism with the verbal violence of Catholic fundamentalists. It’s more absurd than I thought.

Steve Phoenix
Steve Phoenix
Tuesday, August 2, AD 2016 10:47am

I don’t consider myself a “sedevacantist”, and I find revolting the idea that we would have an apostate pope—even though both Robert Bellarmine and Suarez considered at least the hypothetical possibility that a false pope could defect from the Vicarship of Christ.

But this interview, and I had to check the text, which is available at Catholic News Service is so disturbing, especially for me, whose daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter live a suburb of Brussesl (they formerly lived in Genk, [where a priest who was attacked by a Muslim on Sunday with a knife was taken for treatment: he is expected to survive] and they had to move because of the danger of the extremely aggressive Muslim presence), “in the line of advance of the coming Euro-caliphate”, that I am considering matters.

After all, what would an anti-pope, or apostate pope, do to the Faith? Well, he would not defend Catholicism; he would blame his own Catholics for sins and crimes that are as bad, or worse, than those of non-believers, and abandon them to the most violent attacks of vicious truly evil forces; he would essentially abandon or at least put into doubt the established doctrines, especially the integral Catholic doctrine about marriage and family (no: we do not practice genital mutilation of females, nor child-rape, nor polygamy, P Francis: are we just as bad as non-Catholics in this area, too?; even when Catholics are being murdered, forced into slavery, flight, or raped, or all the above (the Knights of Columbus site says approx. up to 220,000 Middle East Christians are in this category since approx. 2011, when Hillary started this business of supplying arms from Libya to ISIS in Syria), he would refuse to call it genocide, but downplay it and tsk-tsk the very lives that the Eastern Catholic eparchs say are being brutalized daily; in fact, he would try to “de-centralize” (=de-construct) the very leadership structure of the Catholic Church—what is coming next)—since he sees the central authoritarian structure of the CC, which he holds, as essentially evil and not in Christ’s plan (?).
….
But to relative the murderous violence of Islam, which is Islam just being Islam, with “what Catholics ordinarily do”, is the most incredible falsehood.

May God have mercy on his soul. I hope I am not in line for judgment right after him. I am afraid of the “spill-over.”

If anyone is motivated to help ME Christians, the K of C website directs financial donations where, in my opinion, it will be most directly and immediately provided to our own under attack. You can give monthly, anything, which will help – $10, $20, $50. You can read the articles there about the Eastern Church bishops and the absolutely intolerable conditions our own Faith brethren are subjected to. As for me, this is one thing I thought I could do and not stand silent like this embarrassing pontiff, and help. Here is the link:

https://www.kofc.org/en/charities/christian-relief/medical.html

Pinky
Pinky
Tuesday, August 2, AD 2016 1:08pm

Religious violence is bad. But the fundamentals of Christianity are to love God and others, and the fundamentals of Islam are to submit to God and force others to submit. Francis of Assisi was a fundamentalist Christian. Osama bin Laden was a fundamentalist Muslim.

chris c.
chris c.
Tuesday, August 2, AD 2016 5:59pm

Bill Bannon-

I don’t disagree with your comments. And if I had the Pope’s ear and he respected my advice, the mid-air press conferences would have been over before they started.

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