Pope Francis has said many false things about Islam. He has said that “there is no such thing as Islamic terrorism” and that ‘“authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Quran are opposed to every form of violence.” He has, in turn, been praised by the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed al-Tayeb, who thanked him for his “defense of Islam against the accusation of violence and terrorism.”
He has even obliquely justified the murders of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists who had drawn Muhammad, saying that “it is true that you must not react violently, but although we are good friends if [an aide] says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch, it’s normal. You can’t make a toy out of the religions of others. These people provoke and then (something can happen).” So the murder of a dozen helpless cartoonists is compared to a punch. There is something out of whack in the Pope’s moral calculus.
The Pope seems to think that the more he defends Islam, the more likely it is that Muslims will reciprocate, will display more favorable attitudes toward Christianity. He doesn’t allow for the possibility that Muslims will gladly pocket his praise, but far from offering something meaningful in return, will continue relentlessly in their efforts to defend and spread Islam until it everywhere dominates.
Before he visited the United Arab Emirates on Feb. 3-5, Pope Francis delivered a video message to the people of the U.A.E.:
“I am happy that in a few days I will be able to visit your country, a land that strives to be a model of coexistence, human brotherhood and encounter among different civilizations and cultures, where many find a secure place to work and live freely in respect for diversity.”
What “model of coexistence” and “respect for diversity” is to be found in the U.A.E.? U.A.E. subjects constitute 20 percent of the population, while foreign workers and other expatriates account for the other 80 percent. At least one million of those foreign workers are Catholics. Fewer than two dozen churches have been allowed in the U.A.E., to serve between one and two million Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christians. There is one tiny temple for half-a-million Hindus. Is that “respect for diversity”? Non-Muslims are forbidden from trying to proselytize; Muslims, however, are free to try to convert non-Muslims. Non-Muslims must not pray, or make any other display of their faith, in public. Still, compared to Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. is an oasis of religious freedom. Non-Muslims have houses of worship, albeit very few, where they can conduct services undisturbed. In Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, a handful of Korean nurses softly singing Christmas carols in their shared living quarters, behind closed doors, led to their immediate expulsion from the Kingdom.
The U.A.E. is not, in Islamic terms, particularly unwelcoming to non-Muslims. It does not fully enforce the Sharia, as do Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Sudan. But neither is it, pace Pope Francis, a “model of coexistence” and “human brotherhood.” Millions of non-Muslims must make do with that at handful of churches, and one Hindu temple. Foreign workers, especially non-Muslims, are relentlessly exploited, though not quite as badly as in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Non-Muslims have to watch what they post, or say. A Christian singer made a video in which she innocently pointed toward a mosque with her left hand, having no idea of the significance of the left hand in Arab culture; she was charged with disrespect for Islam. Others have been similarly hauled into court for derogatory remarks they supposedly made about Islam and Muhammad on Facebook; even getting into an argument about foreign policy can lead to such charges, and when it’s a non-Muslim’s word, against that of a Muslim, in a Muslim country, we know who wins.
There is one place in the Middle East where there is full freedom for adherents of all religions, a model of coexistence.” That country is Israel. Pope Francis visited there in May 2014. He was greeted warmly by the Israelis at Ben Gurion Airport, just before going off to visit — even before Israel proper — the “Palestinian” Authority. In between scheduled engagements, the Pope ordered his motorcade to make an unexpected stop in Bethlehem. He got out of his popemobile and made his way to a particular section of Israel’s security wall. This is an often-photographed section of the wall covered with graffiti that compare Palestinian Bethlehem to the Jewish Warsaw ghetto. Near a spot where someone had very recently sprayed “Free Palestine,” the Pope touched the wall and began to pray. Of course, a dozen video and still cameras were capturing that moment. He must have known that the videos and still photographs taken of him there would go all over the world, helping to promote the Palestinian cause.
Just a few days before making his visit to the U.A.E., the Pope effusively described that country as “a model of coexistence, human brotherhood and encounter among different civilizations and cultures where many find a secure place to work and live freely in respect for diversity.” That’s a curious way to describe a country where fewer than 10% of the population, a pampered elite of Muslim Arabs, are waited on by the other 90%, made up of foreigners, whose working conditions are harrowing, whose job security is nonexistent, and whose religious observances are constrained by the paucity of churches and Hindu temples.
Next on the Pope’s travel plans is Morocco, another Muslim Arab despotism that he apparently finds appealing. Perhaps after that visit, the Pope will consider making a second visit to Israel, to see for himself, more informed this time, what the only real “model of coexistence” in the Middle East, where people live freely “in respect for diversity,” looks like. Let him see the Arabs in Israel who serve at every level, on the Supreme Court, in the Knesset, in the army (including at least one Druze general), in the civil service, in the diplomatic corps. Let him see the Arabs working side-by-side with Jews in Israel’s start-up and high-tech companies, where they receive training and job opportunities not available in any Arab country. And let the Pope not just see these things, but also mention what he has seen in remarks delivered urbi et orbi. The Pope owes at least that to the Israelis, after having his photograph deliberately taken at the “Warsaw Ghetto…Free Palestine” wall in Bethlehem in May 2014.
And before he next decides to praise to the skies such people as Egyptian Sheik Ahmad el-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, whom he has met on several occasions, the last time during this February 3-5 visit to the U.A.E., let the Pope find out more about him. Calling El-Tayeb a “friend and dear brother,” Francis thanked the sheik for having “the courage and desire to affirm that faith in God unites and does not divide, draws together even in differences (and) moves away from hostility and aversion.” Francis needs to know how many terrorists have studied at Al-Azhar and were deeply affected by the Islamic education they received there. He also needs to know El-Tayeb’s own history of hair-raising antisemitic remarks, which hardly “moves away from hostility and evasion.” That should curb his enthusiasm for the Grand Imam. One wonders, for example, if the Pope knows of this brief exchange, on the subject of Jews, in an interview with El-Tayeb on Egyptian television in 2013:
Interviewer: They [the Jews] consider everybody else to be inferior to them…
Ahmad Al-Tayeb: Extremely inferior. They even have very peculiar laws. For instance, they are allowed to practice usury with non-Jews. Some things are not allowed among Jews, but are allowed between Jews and non-Jews. They practice a terrible hierarchy, and they are not ashamed to admit it, because it is written in the Torah – with regard to killing, enslavement, and so on [of non-Jews].
Therefore, they have generated a problem not only in their relations with the Muslims, but in their relations with all other people as well, and history has been clear on this.
Interviewer: There is even great enmity between them and the Christians.
Ahmad Al-Tayeb: Of course. These practices and beliefs have made people, even non-Muslims, hate them.
And he can find much more in that vein, simply by googling “Ahmed el-Tayeb” and “Jews.” What he discovers should make him reconsider his fulsome endorsements of El-Tayeb.
As for the U.A.E., if the Pope had kept his eyes wide open on his “historic” trip, he would have discovered that that country is not quite the “model of co-existence” and “diversity” that he has allowed himself to believe. Granted, it is better than Saudi Arabia. Faint praise, alas. The “model of coexistence” he should be praising to the skies lies to the northwest of the U.A.E., as the nuclear-headed missile flies, and extends from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. It’s a very tiny state, scarcely visible on a world map, but with a very big civilizational footprint, in science, medicine, technology, literature, art, music, economic and political thought. It’s an important part of the advanced world, the world of mental freedom and human rights, the very world that Pope Francis ought always to be defending, instead of defending that world’s most implacable enemies..
The Pope’s heedlessness has done a lot of damage, but he still has time to recognize, and to express, what should be obvious truths about the menace of Islam for the West. We’ll see in his coming statements how much unpleasant reality this Pope will allow himself to bear.
dan christensen says
The pope considers the world a bazaar, where you peddle religions – haggling about the price for acquiring rights to promote “love and peace”.
The pope is really not trying to sell the virgin Mary – rather he is assisting the competing peddlers of “Moe & co.” in their efforts to make an unsaleable turd look like a pearl.
The pope could be fired for incompetency as marketing manager of the “Vatican Soul Investments inc.”
Terry Gain says
He has even obliquely justified the murders of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists who had drawn Muhammad, saying that “it is true that you must not react violently, but although we are good friends if [an aide] says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch, it’s normal. You can’t make a toy out of the religions of others. These people provoke and then (something can happen).” So the murder of a dozen helpless cartoonists is compared to a punch. There is something out of whack in the Pope’s moral calculus.
…………….
Would someone please inform this Pope that Islam made a toy out of his religion when it claimed that Christ is a prophet of Islam who faked his death on the cross. In other words a fraud. Like Bergoglio.
gravenimage says
Yes–disgusting apologia for savagery and crushing of freedom, Terry.
Westman says
Ahmad Al-Tayeb: “…Some things are not allowed among Jews, but are allowed between Jews and non-Jews. They practice a terrible hierarchy, and they are not ashamed to admit it, because it is written in the Torah – with regard to killing, enslavement, and so on [of non-Jews].” Where is the enslavement and killing?
Lets try it again with truth:
“..Some things are not allowed among Muslims, but are allowed between Muslims and unbelivers. They practice a terrible hierarchy, and they are not ashamed to admit it, because it is written in the Quran – with regard to killing, enslavement, and required hatred of [of unbelievers].” Where is the enslavement? Start with Saudi Arabia. Where is the killing of unbelievers? Anywhere there is Islam.
This current Pope seems to be religion’s version of AOC. He must be surrounded by a Cadre of think-alikes, creating an echo chamber, or a maverick who ignores advice – to be so unrealistic.
CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood should be delighted; Pope Francis has spread more false propaganda about “peaceful” Islam than all his predecessors and CAIR’s existence, combined.
Will the killing of unbelievers now stop? Will Saudi Arabia build Christian Churches? Will Islam stop calling for the destruction of Israel? Will Muslims stop killing each other over membership in competing sects of Islam? Will Islam abolish the death penalty for apostasy?
The truthful answers confidently reveal if Islam is a religion of peace.
Bill says
Jorge Mario Bergoglio is an evil man. His pandering to Islam has only encouraged the murder and marginalization of Christians across the planet, all on his watch, and all met by his mendacious and dissembling verbal wrist slaps. I predicted here not long after he rose to his current position that he would be responsible for the death of millions, that he was actually that dangerous, and was far from the well-meaning but naive man many thought him to be. These deaths will not be by his own hand but the hands of the people and governments that he supported and enabled.
FYI says
Jorge and Ahmed.
Surely it is the love affair of the century.
Jorge and “my muslim brother” Ahmed:
..his brotha from a different motha…you might say.
Of course they both have the SAME father:”the father of lies”.
And who is defined as being the “father of lies”?Why,that would be the “best of deceivers” then.
Ahmed’s is allah ” the best of deceivers” and Jorge’s is lucifer “the best of deceivers”
A marriage made in hell:watch their offspring Chrislam,the One World Religion..
Rarely says
Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons were very, very offensive and in terrible taste. No imagination was required to find them offensive. They did not, however, single out islam or mohammed but were just as abusive to Judaism and Christianity, if not more so.
I thought there was something about “turning the other cheek” in Christianity and, if so, I would expect the Pope would support that concept (at least in words, if not in deeds). Giving the Charlie Hebdo massacre a “natural response” tag is acknowledging that “righteous indignation” satisfactorily explains acts of wanton violence. It is rationalization at its worst — giving a socially acceptable explanation to something that has no socially acceptable explanation. Furthermore, “righteous indignation” seems to be a staple of the muslim diet and the slightest offence, actual or imagined, intentional or accidental, causes a mob of rabid animals to congregate and go out for blood.
The Pope knows all this, of course, so one must wonder what he is hoping to achieve by selling out one of Christianity’s major tenets. I can’t imagine.
I used to think that he was simply trying to open some meaningful dialogue that could potentially defuse some of the violence and I was all for that. But I did not expect a surrender.
Lydia Church says
Oh and how these antichrist followers will hate division! It doesn’t mesh well with their ‘oneness’ campaign!
But guess what? God came to DIVIDE and not to unite after all! He divides the sheep from the goats but unites the true sheep. And peace makers of God never compromise God’s truth for any goals, however noble they may appear. In other words, they will never call a false religion good. God only has one religion; Christianity, and the Biblical variety. God is against all other ‘religions.’
BIBLE VERSES SHOWING THAT GOD DIVIDES:
“And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.” Matthew 25; 32-33
“Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Matthew 3; 12
“Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.”
Matthew 10; 34-39
“Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.”
2 John 1; 9-11
“And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.
But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.”
Matthew 25; 10-12
“Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by its gates. But outside are the dogs, the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.”
Revelation 22; 14-15
Lydia Church says
“He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters. ”
Luke 11; 23
UNCLE VLADDI says
“Made many false statements” = LIAR. Francis The Deceiver, aka the last Pope.