An excerpt from Catholic World Report written by Carl Olsen “The Pope and Fundamentalism”
A reporter asked Francis about “the barbarous assassination of Fr. Jacques Hamel” in France and noted that the pope had recently insisted that all religions want peace; in fact, Francis had placed the blame on economic inequality: “When I speak of war I speak of wars over interests, money, resources, not religion. All religions want peace, it’s the others who want war.” That is, to put it nicely, nonsense (some commentators were harsher in their assessments). The reporter then asked: “So Holy Father … why do you, when you speak of these violent events, always speak of terrorists, but never of Islam, never use the word Islam?”
The answer given by Francis was painfully shallow and evasive:
I don’t like to speak of Islamic violence, because every day, when I browse the newspapers, I see violence, here 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 . . . and no, not all Muslims are violent, not all Catholics are violent. It is like a fruit salad; there’s everything. There are violent persons of this religion… this is true: I believe that in pretty much every religion there is always a small group of fundamentalists. Fundamentalists. We have them. When fundamentalism comes to kill, it can kill with the language — the Apostle James says this, not me — and even with a knife, no? I do not believe it is right to identify Islam with violence. This is not right or true.
Several observations could be made about the above excerpt; I’ll stick to three. First, Francis either doesn’t understand the simple question or he purposefully reshapes it into a straw man. Every Christian knows (or should) that everyone sins, and that Christians are capable of murder and other horrible sins. We are all deeply flawed and mortally wounded by sin. That is Basic Catholic Theology, just as it is basic common sense, as Chesterton noted in Orthodoxy: “Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.” When Mr. Smith murders Mr. Jones in a fit of jealous rage in a bar in Toledo, Ohio, we don’t think, “Ah, he is following his Christian beliefs to their logical conclusion”, or, “Ha! He merely took the Sermon on the Mount and actualized its inherent violent subtext”, but rather, “Alas, he just committed an act of objective evil and has broken one of the Commandments.” …
For the whole insightful article and the multitude of comments, click HERE.
This Post Has 11 Comments
Right in Steve,
I find our holy fathers comments confusing and lacking clarity.
It’s clear that radial Islam is a global cancer.
The elephant in the room!
George
Sydney
Australia
Maybe it is not “right to identify Islam with violence”, however it is certainly right to identify violence with Islam or at least a significant portion of it.
Fair play Holy Father you hit the nail on the head there. Steve, Nice actual strawman attempt but you clearly don't have a clue what you are talking about as usual due to your naked sectarian hated of everything muslim which I assume is the root cause of your lack of understanding…think!
God Bless!
STEVE RAY HERE: Here's a guy who tells me "to think" but gets it all wrong himself with exaggerations and not realizing I did not even write the article myself. It is published by Catholic World Report which I made clear. I do not hate everything Muslim but I do think what Islam teaches is dangerous and I hate what a lot of Muslims do. And I challenge any attempt to make an equivalency between Christian conduct/teaching and Muslim conduct/teaching. It is the difference between Jesus who taught love and prayer for your enemies with Mohammed who taught to kill anyone who disagrees – use of the sword. The only thing the Holy Father hit on the head is reason and reality. To make the comparison he did — an equivelancy between Catholicism and Islam was a shame. Wouldn't hurt to read a little history about Islam my friend. Start with St. Thomas Aquinas. No animosity intended. God bless you as well.
It’s a historical fact that Islam took over Arabia by force and then conquered all the surrounding lands through conquest. The armies of the Caliphate invaded lands of the Byzantine and Persian empires and ruthlessly imposed Islam on all the populations it came to rule over. You can see on a world map that all the Islamic lands are more or less contiguous which is the result of this violent expansion. The Caliphate existed until WWI and during all that time it was an existential threat to Christendom. Since then all these Islamic movements are attempts to restore the Caliphate and resume Islam’s advance “until all religion is Allah’s”
100% agree with Steve,
As a 1st generation migrant who’s parents left the Middle East to start a new life in Australia- primarily to escape the one thing I.e. Islamists subugating and discriminating against infidels (non-Muslims).
As stipulated in sura 5:51 and 9:29 (and countless verses in the Quran) Mohammad invoked and divinely endorsed violence “Jihad”. Its all recorded and historical.
The Hadith alone (and Ibn Ishaq) is another complication of universal violence commands and concocted falsehood and plagiarism.
Very dangerous and brainwashes millions.
Again, the elephant in the room is radical Islam that invokes their so called holy book as a mandate to violence.
They have 1400 yrs proving this.
And it won’t stop until we wake up.
George
Australia
Caecus, great quote, esp last sentence.
“Since then all these Islamic movements are attempts to restore the Caliphate and resume Islam’s advance “until all religion is Allah’s”””
100% spot on!
Undeniable fact.
George
Australia
Not sure of Chris’ background or experience, but I do not see the “nail on the head” hit by our Pope. The Pope is the boss but sometime bosses take an easy way out and leave the heavy lifting to others. I think that is what we are seeing. Any other stance would not fit well with Francis’s approach so far.
Chris also neglected to point out anything he thought was untrue and explain why it was untrue.
Chris,
Let truth be truth!
1) Islam in practice is not compatible with democracy or assimilation with others.
2) Islamism period is self destructive when in full force and consequently is foreign to any reform.
3) Islamists in practice are fulfilling the words & deeds of the prophet when they use violence to advance Islam.
That’s Islam 101.
It's pretty easy for me to bash Pope Francis' diplomatic style, but maybe Pope Francis is trying to prevent another mass murder similar to what happened to that group of nuns after Pope Benedict's Regensburg address.
Love your work Steve!!
STEVE RAY HERE: thanks for your kind words. The only problem with accommodating air is that we become cowards and are always afraid of retaliation instead of speaking the truth. Somewhere along the line we as Catholics need to state what is true and not be cowards to speak because of fear.
Amen to Steve o Mark's last comment. But Steve, you are talking about a group (Catholics) that cannot even get together to legislatively defeat abortion! Sad.
STEVE RAY HERE: Sad indeed!
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