Free Republic

Pope Francis Doesn’t Understand Islam “Is the pope Catholic?” used to be a punch line. Now, sometimes, you almost have to wonder. Of course, I’m not suggesting that Pope Francis is a secret apostate or a Masonic agent. It’s just that he seems dissatisfied with certain Church teachings.What apparently rankles him most are Catholic claims to exclusivity. For example, the belief that all men are saved through Christ can be looked upon as an impediment to interreligious harmony. Francis, for whom interreligious harmony is a top priority, seems to see it that way. Many of his statements seem to suggest...

Pope Francis received a noteworthy honor last week when Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Cairo’s al-Azhar, thanked him for his “defense of Islam against the accusation of violence and terrorism.” Has any other Pope of Rome in the history of Christianity ever been heralded as a “defender of Islam”? Of course not. But the Catholic Church has come a long way since the days of Pope Callixtus III, who vowed in 1455 to “exalt the true Faith, and to extirpate the diabolical sect of the reprobate and faithless Mahomet in the East.” If time travel could be arranged and...

In an impassioned address Friday, Pope Francis denied the existence of Islamic terrorism, while simultaneously asserting that “the ecological crisis is real.” “Christian terrorism does not exist, Jewish terrorism does not exist, and Muslim terrorism does not exist. They do not exist,” Francis said in his speech to a world meeting of populist movements.

The Islamic State responded to statements by Pope Francis that their war is not religious in nature. ISIS disagrees. ISIS tells the Socialist Pope that the Islamic State is in a war against the infidels approved by Allah. Translated from FDESouche, Via Vlad Tepes: The Islamic State has publicly responded to statements by Pope Francis that the war waged by the Islamic terrorists is not religious in nature. The article answers the pontiff that their only motivation is religious and approved by Allah in the Qur’an. Highlights of the latest issue of Dabiq – the official propaganda magazine of the...

“#NotMyPope.” In the wake of Pope Francis’ equivocal response to the murder of a French priest by two Islamic jihadists, that’s the top trending hashtag in France and in Belgium. Which raises a question: Is the Pope doing more harm than good by continuing to deny—in the face of a mountain of evidence—that Islam has anything to do with violence? As I’ve noted several times in the past, the Church’s handling of the Islamic crisis may prove to be far more scandalous than its handling of the sex abuse crisis. The main scandal surrounding the revelation of priestly sex abuse...

At a time when Muslims all around the world are terrorizing and slaughtering non-Muslims in the name of Islam, Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church, continues trying to distance Islam from violence. Last Sunday a journalist asked him about the recent and “barbarous assassination of Fr. Jacques Hamel” in France, and how the priest was clearly “killed in the name of Islam.”

Pope Francis, in an interview with the French newspaper La Croix, suggested a likeness between ISIS and Jesus by explaining that while “the idea of conquest is inherent in the soul of Islam,” it was quite possible to interpret certain passages of the Gospels, particularly in Matthews, as a call for Christians to go forth with this “same idea of conquest” in their discipleship. He also faulted the free market for driving poverty, saying economies need “a state to monitor and balance them;” gun manufacturers for fueling wars; and the failures of Christians in Europe to properly assimilate with Muslims...

The man known as the pope and the vicar of Christ – but who in light of what follows is probably best referred to by his real name, Jorge Mario Bergoglio – recently gave an interview demonstrating why "so many people think he is the anti-Christ." The more salient features follow: Christ as Warmonger In classic relativistic fashion, Jorge claims: It is true that the idea of conquest is inherent in the soul of Islam. However, it is also possible to interpret the objective in Matthew's Gospel, where Jesus sends his disciples to all nations, in terms of the same...

Questions that need to be asked about Islam were asked by Pope Benedict nearly ten years ago.On a plane ride between Sri Lanka and the Philippines this week, Pope Francis made headlines while talking with reporters about the moral limits to free expression. The issue came up, of course, in the wake of the attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in France, which Pope Francis has strongly condemned. The attacks in Paris — including one at a kosher deli — along with the slaughter that Boko Haram inflicts in Nigeria, the terrorist attack in the Lindt café in Sydney...