As I stated to Church Militant, the Pope’s tardy statement manifests a studied ambiguity. What exactly is he saddened about? He doesn’t say. Is he saddened because what was the foremost church in the Christian world for nearly a millennium, and the center of Eastern Christianity, has been made a mosque? Or is he saddened because this act harms the dialogue that he has so ardently pursued with the Islamic world — even at the price of silence over the Muslim persecution of Christians — and demonstrates that his dialogue partners are not remotely as interested in tolerance, mutual respect, and peaceful coexistence as he likes to pretend that they are? Has he made this unclear statement because he doesn’t wish to say anything clearly in support of maintaining Hagia Sophia’s status as a museum, for fear of offending those Muslim dialogue partners? The conversion of Hagia Sophia to a mosque should be the occasion of some introspection on the Pope’s part, leading him to reconsider the value of a Muslim-Christian dialogue that has not prevented this expression of Islamic triumphalism and supremacism. But it almost certainly will not be.
“Pope Francis: ‘I think of Hagia Sophia, and I am very saddened,'” Vatican News, July 12, 2020:
On the second Sunday in July the International Day of the Sea is observed. Recalling the celebration at the Sunday Angelus, Pope Francis extended “an affectionate greeting to all those who work at sea, especially those who are far from their loved ones and their country.”…
Dwelling on the sea, the Pope said it made him think about what is happening in Istanbul.
This week President Tayyip Erdogan announced his decision to turn the Hagia Sophia museum back into a mosque.
“I think of Hagia Sophia”, said Pope Francis, “and I am very saddened.”…
F Middleton says
So how’s that dialogue going, eh?
JW_Reader says
Remember the movie “Dumb and Dumber”? Pope Francis is like Lloyd in that movie, who is head over heels, for Islam but Islam (or Mary) has other plans. Pope Francis’s love for Islam is mostly a one sided affair. Keep on dreaming Papa!
mortimer says
What’s it going to get the word ‘SUPREMACISM’ into the pope’s thoughts?
Westman says
Pope Francis had a mental resurrection over Hagia Sophia and is now, “Deeply Pained”. Maybe he can kiss Erdogan and all will be better. Which kissable part is likely to be determined by Erdogan. This could be an excercise in “plant the kiss on the donkey” if his eyes are still shut. What will it take for Francis to wake up – wudhu in the Vatican Holy Water?
mortimer says
You are asking the pope to swallow this spittle from Erdogan directed into the face of all Christians.
curious george says
I don’t understand what all the fuss is all about.
Christianity in the Western world is in severe decline, few people, maybe 10-15% who identify as Christian are authentic Bible-believing Christians.
The current trend is toward a “one world” religion and a “one world” government. The question isn’t “if” it’s going to happen, but “when.”
Don’t hold your breath!
gravenimage says
The threat of Hagia Sophia being converted into a Mosque again goes beyond the intent to humiliate and sadden Christians. Erdogan himself has said that this is his kicking off the reconquest of the world:
“Erdogan: “Resurrection of Hagia Sophia” heralds “return of freedom to al-Aqsa,” revival of Islam Uzbekistan to Spain”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/07/erdogan-resurrection-of-hagia-sophia-heralds-return-of-freedom-to-al-aqsa-revival-of-islam-uzbekistan-to-spain
Whatever one’s faith, or none, everyone so long as they believe in human freedom, is under threat from this.
Shalom Bertie100 says
Too true. I’m so sick of this Islamic tyranny. The goal of all this hatred that’s swirling around is the demise of Israel.
J Morgan says
The Poop is such a weak spirited man.
stressed eric says
Agree J Morgan fake Francis the man made anti Christ a disgrace to the Catholic faith a Muslim appeaser and now a Woke Poop
Jon Sobieski says
I’m giving him a new name Francis the Horrible. Fits perfectly.
mortimer says
Oh, he’s ‘thinking’. That will really frighten Erdogone … won’t it?
It’s the SUPREMACIST IDEOLOGY, Mr. Pope.
FYI says
Pontifex Horribilis
As my {..devoutly Catholic..}Classics Professor uncle used to say in cod Latin:Semper Bogus
This Pontifex Horribilis is semper bogus.
They understand Latin in Rome.Oh and Money..
mortimer says
Catholics should re-direct their offerings to bishops who are WARNING ABOUT ISLAM. That will send the message to the Vatican.
wpm says
He is sad ,because it clashes with his Polly Annie view point that Islam a tolerant religion that has a live and let live relationship with Christianity .As thousand of Christians face lost of most freedom,and or death for being Christian in Muslim majority countries.he has remain silent .Now he is sad, will he voice any objection to it or just put on a sad pout face and keep kissing Islamic leaders asses ,condemning western culture,history,appeasing radical fifth columnist who want to overthrow western civilization from within.
mortimer says
SAD? The pope has never said he is ‘sad’ about the thousands of Christians killed by Muslims every year.
mortimer says
How’s the pope’s kumbaya singing working so far?
Are Muslims singing along?
James Lincoln says
wpm says,
“He is sad ,because it clashes with his Polly Annie view point that Islam a tolerant religion that has a live and let live relationship with Christianity.”
I think that it is more sinister than that. The Pope has spent a lifetime studying Christianity and how it relates to the other religions in the world. Through that study, he *had* to have learned at least the basics about Islam – at least to the level of the average Jihad Watch reader.
This Pope is beyond ignorant, he is evil, complicit in the expansion of Islam, and should be forcefully removed to live in exile.
He is setting Christianity back decades…
Jaydam says
I guess the Pope will be equally sad, or even may join in,.. if and when the muzzies take over the Vatican and belch out the call to prayer 5 times a day.
Jaydam says
On a side note,
I recall speaking with a Muslim at work several months ago whilst they were in the middle of Ramadan. I informed him that I had had a message from God, who informed me that all Muslims will be required to pray 10 times per day after Ramadan. You could see the color drain from his face at the very thought of this revelation. He then went on to reveal that he only visited his local mosque on a Friday, and not 5 times a day ike a good Muslim would.
mortimer says
Ask you Muslim friend which of the 37 different Arabic Korans contains the correct text. Ask him if Erdogan is right about Hagia Sophia. How would he feel if Christians made the Kaaba a church?
wpm says
With all the “Muslim refugees” flooding western Europe and the Pope saying we should greet them with open arms and open pocket books(ours the taxpayers of Europe and North America) will he put a large group of them in his over size palace that was built on the blood,, sweat and tears of past Catholics?A man who professes about “income redistribution”the unfairness of capitalism ,living on good Catholic,s dime while not defending the Christian faith outside of his comfort zone.He is sad ?,not angry?,not outraged?,will not speak out in protest ? What good is a sad appeasing quiet sheep dog who does nothing when wolves carry away many of his flock?Will he at least bark out some protest ,or will he just look “sad” with his tale between his large mouthing Islam the religion of peace.
Wellington says
If Benedict XVI had said this, it would mean something, but coming from this Pope it means nothing. Francis squandered long ago any respect that should come his way.
mortimer says
Pope Francis missed an opportunity to say something significant. Hagia Sophia is the headquarters of millions of Orthodox Christians. This is a slap in their faces that is intended to humiliate.
The pope’s buddy the Grand Imam of Al Azhar is silent about this intentional provocation.
James Lincoln says
Yep.
Billy Chickens says
Yep. When one realizes – after having compromised our beliefs to others’ advantage – that the people we tried to befriend have betrayed us, it’s…well…. very sad. Instead of celebrating the joy of unity, Bergoglio is feeling that inner gnawing of his conscience that something is not quite right… but he can’t figure it out…so he’s SAD.
Francis, sweeheart, little tiny boy that you are, listen! You can’t make a pact with the devil and expect a fair deal. In addition, Christ said for us NOT to deal with the devil. We are to cast him out of our lives, not be friends with him.
mgoldberg says
It is indeed sad to see the Pope of Rome unable to defend his Church and unable to understand that the appeasement and universalism of his belief system is the direct cause for the surrender of a most important
site. The death Christians, currently the most oppressed, betrayed, threatened by and murdered by Islamic populations, clerics and homicidists across the globe. He is saddened…. but he is the accomplice who will never see his role in this perfidy.
infidel says
He has singlehandedly compromised the very faithful who almost think of him as next to God. He has betrayed then thru his foolishness time and time and time and time again.. Where he should have been condemning Jehaad in an iron voice, he has just shown foolishness and abject cowardice… What a shame!
Quazgaa says
So speaketh Pope Francis the Dense.
Quazgaa says
..And I am saddened too..
stressed eric says
well said that man
Tony Naim says
I have not heard any meaningful statement from President Trump either or from the Israeli prime minister, even though Er dog vowed also to liberate Jerusalem!
Are they supportive of Er dog ?
Silence is complacency
Terry Gain says
President Trump’s job now is saving America from Covid-19 and the Marxist/BLM/Media/NeverTrump alliance. Nothing else matters and he is already stretched too thin. He will deal with the Islamist Erdogan in his second term. If he gets one.
The Pope is another matter. He says he is sad. This is how I feel when I think of this pope. Sad or outraged. What the heck did he expect? Erdogan has been an open Islamist for years. The Pope’s apparent understanding of Islam is abysmal. He’s so dumb that he doesn’t know if it’s a conquest ideology with an unbroken history of conquering whenever it can. Catholics should stop funding the church until Catholic hierarchy understands the truth about Islam: it has a doctrine and history of conquest, stupid!
James Lincoln says
Terry Gain says,
“Catholics should stop funding the church until Catholic hierarchy understands the truth about Islam: it has a doctrine and history of conquest, stupid!”
I think you’re onto something. Completely boycott the Catholic Church until Pope Francis is removed and is replaced by a Pope who understands islam.
No money, not one red cent until that happens…
mortimer says
How would Muslims ‘feel’ if we seized the Kaaba and turned it into a cathedral?
Hagia Sophia is not an ordinary church, but one of the THREE MOST IMPORTANT CHURCHES in the world, the other two being St Peter’s in Rome and Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
What would Muslim do if we seized the KAABA and turned it into a church?
Terry Gain says
Muslims will never have to answer that question. But I’m curious as to how you would turn a rock onto a cathedral.
We can easily prevent further conquests by halting further Muslim immigration. Invading Muslim countries is a fool’s errand.
John says
Let’s send Pope Francis a bucket of oats and a message to spread it over the church alter at the Vatican.
Numerous Moslem leaders(warriors) have said they will Conquer Rome in the name of Islam. They said they will have their horses eat from the alter in the Vatican. Pope Francis is adding in such a conquest and is in affect encouraging and enabling Jihad against Catholicism and all Christians by his untrue and mindless statements saying Islam and Christianity are essentially the same. Anybody will any knowledge about Islam and Mohamed know this is total Lunacy! This man is profoundly ignorant and obviously dangerously insane. Let us send this lover of Jihad a bucket of oats. In his ignorance he will not know what this means.
John says
“Peace in our time”. now who said that and in what context was it said? Yes Francis would eagerly give in to Hitler, after all Hitler only murdered 6 million people. Islam has murder 270 million non-believers(and counting). The Pope has surrendered to the religion of” Peace,” Genocide and war and hate. Something that will be condemned at the last judgement. But Francis believes the murder of millions will be loved by God(Allah). Sickness. A special place in hell awaits those who murder innocents in the name of God, especially those who applaud it, like Iman Francis. Francis of Assisi is doing summer saults in his grave. Francis knows better. No excuse is acceptable.
Ever.
CogitoErgoSum says
Have you heard of this story? If this had been done to a mosque it would been headline news everywhere:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxE7On2aWwk
Churches are being burned and statues of saints are being torn down in the USA and nobody cares. Why would anyone care about the Hagia Sofia in Turkey? Well, maybe they would be just a little sad … maybe. A new phase of Christian persecution is about to begin. Be prepared.
CogitoErgoSum says
Sorry if I am going a bit off topic with this but then again maybe I’m not. Here’s another story you have probably not heard about and probably can’t find anywhere in the main stream media. I warn you that if salty language bothers you, you should skip it but the story itself is cause for outrage.
Vladimir says
Francis isn’t ”saddened”, everything is going smoothly according to his longer range plans. The West will turn back to the Vatican after everyone sees Islam has gone too far, and Rome will then rally them together against it…
Terry Gain says
Why would anyone turn to a Vatican run by a man who has embraced an evil, supremacist, conquest ideology?
Mike says
soon the pope will be a Muslim
this pope is so stupid
tim gallagher says
The Pope should have woken up to Islam’s evil and violent nature years ago. His job is to call out evil and Islam is obviously evil. His clownish sucking up to Islam and telling us that islam really is peaceful, at the same time as Muslims are killing Christians, especially in Africa, is pathetic. I suppose he has no effect one way or another on what supremacist, violent Islam will continue to do ( what has happened to Hagia Sophia being an example), but he should at least wake up and tell the truth about Islam. When it comes to Islam’s nature, he is beyond pathetic and is like a propagandist, a Goebbels, for Islam. He might be less saddened if he woke up and , at least , told the truth about evil Islam’s true nature. He would then be doing his job as a Christian leader.
James Lincoln says
tim gallagher says,
“He might be less saddened if he woke up and , at least , told the truth about evil Islam’s true nature. He would then be doing his job as a Christian leader.”
Spot on.
I am a “Catholic in remission” but remain a devout Christian in spite of Pope Francis.
tim gallagher says
James, the Pope should be denouncing evil and barbaric Islam is sheer evil in so many ways. I was brought up as a Catholic and, I suppose, I still am, so I know that the Catholic terminology would be to say it is his vocation, rather than job, to denounce evil. Like you, James, I am a Christian believer, but, probably more through social phobia or some such thing, I don’t enjoy attending church services. I watch the Mass on TV at 6am on Sundays because I am up then anyway and I enjoy it more than actually attending a church with lots of people. Also, of course, lately the coronavirus has meant an end to people crowded into churches. I certainly talk to God or pray quite a lot and, most of the time, am a firm believer. I disagree with obligatory celibacy in the Catholic Church and wrote to the head clergyman in Sydney a couple of years back to say so. I got a very pleasant reply from one of the clergy there, however, he disagreed. On some issues, I am probably more in line with the Anglican Church these days. This Pope may well be OK on some issues (I get that many people, probably correctly, see him as a Marxist, Latin American type of liberation theology follower), but, on Islam, he is totally wrongheaded. As I’ve said before, if I want to listen to a Christian who knows about Islam’s nature, Robert Spencer will do me.
Terry Gain says
Me too James. I will not support the Catholic church so long as this evil man is Pope.
tim gallagher says
Terry, I am with you and James, in the sense that I ignore the opinions on any subject of people who I believe are completely ignorant about the subject they are talking about. On Islam, and probably most other subjects, this Pope seems to me to be an ignoramus. Although we are both Christians, I certainly view the world very differently to the way this Pope looks at things. I just ignore him. He means nothing to me.
FYI says
And many faithful Catholics are very saddened too.. by all the HERESIES he has introduced into Catholicism and his promotion of Apostasy{for which he has been repeatedly condemned by faithful catholics,Theologians etc},his SILENCE on the plight of murdered and persecuted Christians,his pandering to islam and his disgraceful support of Globalist policies especially now the Vatican is a POLITICAL center.
Notice how he shows more concern for the Hagia Sophia than he ever does for the plight of massacred christians: but that is to be expected from the showman and politician{certainly NOT a shepherd to his scattered flock},the marxist jesuit that is pope francis.
francis deserves an Oscar for impersonating a pope in… ‘SILENCE of the pope towards the murdered Christian Lambs’.
But never mind that:just watch francis give his famous Panglossian Thumbs-up and a big cheery grin to the cameras so the sheeple won’t notice what is going on at the top of the RCC.
Those scandalous pachamamma statues,publicly kissing his best islamic buddy Ahmed{*ugh* ..get a room},promoting his YES men to senior offices,insisting allah{who CURSES christians for believing in Jesus Christ koran 9:30}is the same as the Christian God,covering up and caught out lying{see the mc carrick case]..where oh where does francis get all the time?.. to undermine christianity and demolish catholicism{as a minority of Catholics know well he is doing}as he strives to build a church in his own image.
The bad news is that francis is ‘pope’:the good news is that what is going on in Rome is explained in Catholic and Christian Prophecy which means the Truth will come out and the falsehood will be dealt with in the Parousia.The senior hierarchy of the RCC{not the few faithful ones} are an endangered species especially if they are going along with the ERRORS of francis.
Terry Gain says
Good summary. And this cretin and also took the side of The Communist Chinese government against Catholics in China.
ntesdorf says
Pope Francis should well be worried as the Muslims have their sights set on Saint Peters in Rome and want to add it to their collection of places of former Christian worship like Hagia Sophia.
Islamaphone says
Cheer up Frankie; we’re all Allah’s chillun in Chrislam!
mortimer says
😉 Kumbaya!
mortimer says
My response to Pope Francis: “I think of Hagia Sophia and the tens of thousands of Muslim attacks on Christians every year and I am very saddened that the pope is not speaking out in prophetic manner against the INJUSTICE.”
John says
This is a problem that only Russians can solve, the sooner the better as Turkey is attempting to restore the Caliphate after being dismantled by Europe 96 years ago… It’s an Orthodox Christian Church captured by the bike satanic cult of Islam.
gravenimage says
Pope Francis: “I think of Hagia Sophia and I am very saddened”
……………
Good questions–why exactly is he sad? And why isn’t he *angry*?
Giacomo Latta says
He has been wondering to himself: just how many Goddamn muslim feet do I have to wash and kiss before I start to leave some kind of effect on these crazies.
Beneath the Veil of Consciousness says
Pope Benedict spoke openly against Tudkey entering the EU. His main argument was that Turkey is an Islamic nation and therefore had no place among Europe. He knew nothing good could come from inviting a nation into Europe whose spiritual leader was a vile psychopath.
James Lincoln says
Beneath the Veil of Consciousness,
Thank you for pointing out Pope Benedict’s position regarding Turkey entering the EU.
Below is a link from the Guardian corroborating this.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/10/wikileaks-pope-turkey-eu-muslim
OREN says
No statements by the pope that the old church, conquered by muslims who denied christians and Jews equality before the law for four hundred years, should be A place for all religions? Is the pope incapable of admitting that islam is not tolerant, and therefore the Jews of Israel might be justified in defending themselves from muslims who scream chants about genocide, that all muslims on the street participate in? Being A leftist means you can maintain an entirely fake real world, with no care for the millions of persecuted, abused and killed you ignore. In G-d I trust.
David Stephen says
As a catholic, I abhor or detest the actions of this pope. The pope thought he can appease muslims, criticising western values and civilisation. He fails to realise that the politics of appeasement does not work with islam. Islam can only understand strength. This pope supposed to stand for religious freedom fought by Donald Trump instead of requesting the influx of muslims into western civilisation.
OLD GUY says
When you give in to islam they will always want and take more, it’s in their creed.
John says
For all of you who are traditional Christians and are Catholic and read Jihad watch. Pope Francis, and all popes, are yours and you owe your fealty to them. This holds true regardless of you are Roman or Byzantine Catholic. If you wish to remain a traditional Christian then return to the Orthodox Church where no pope holds sway over you
Holger Kruger says
The pope is sad, yes number 3 for sure.
The pope is a traitor to christian people very simple….