{"id":10177,"date":"2016-08-01T04:15:13","date_gmt":"2016-08-01T04:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=10177"},"modified":"2016-08-01T04:15:13","modified_gmt":"2016-08-01T04:15:13","slug":"the-avoidance-of-uncomfortable-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/the-avoidance-of-uncomfortable-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"The Avoidance of Uncomfortable Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ISISCross-posted on the Corner.<\/a><\/p>\n

Crux:<\/a><\/p>\n

Pope Francis on Sunday defended his avoidance of the term \u201cIslamic violence\u201d by suggesting the potential for violence lies in every religion, including Catholicism.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like to talk about Islamic violence, because every day, when I read the newspaper, I see violence,\u201d Francis said, when asked about why he never speaks of Islamic terrorism or fundamentalism when condemning attacks such as the murder of a French priest last week, who had his throat slit by an Islamic terrorist as he was celebrating Mass.<\/p>\n

The pope said that when he reads the newspaper, he reads about an Italian who kills his fianc\u00e9 or his mother in law.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are baptized Catholics. They are violent Catholics,\u201d Francis said, adding that if he speaks of \u201cIslamic violence,\u201d then he has to speak of \u201cCatholic violence\u201d too.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, no, there\u2019s a difference between a murder committed by people who happen to be of a certain religion, and murder committed in the name of a religion.<\/p>\n

Francis is no fool.<\/p>\n

He must<\/em> know this, but still he says what he says.<\/p>\n

And then:<\/p>\n

\u00a0Although clarifying that he didn\u2019t know if he should say it because \u201cit\u2019s dangerous,\u201d the pope then admitted that terrorism grows when \u201cthere\u2019s no other option.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as the god of money is at the center of the global economy and not the human person, man and woman, this is the first terrorism,\u201d he said, defining it as a \u201cterrorism at the bases,\u201d against the whole of humanity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No, money is not the \u201cfirst terrorism\u201d. Perhaps it\u2019s worth mentioning that a good number of the more notorious Islamic terrorists have come from relatively comfortable backgrounds. They had alternatives\u2014many alternatives\u2014but they were drawn to violence by their understanding of God, as many have been before them, and many will be in the future.<\/p>\n

Again, the Pope must know this, but he prefers, once again, to change the subject, talking, once again, about the wickedness of \u201cmoney\u201d, cheap, stale demagoguery with the stench of conspiracism about it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not really\u00a0for me to say so, but I would think that Francis\u2019\u00a0church has the right to expect rather more from him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted on the Corner. Crux: Pope Francis on Sunday defended his avoidance of the term \u201cIslamic violence\u201d by suggesting the potential for violence lies in every religion, including Catholicism. \u201cI don\u2019t like to talk about Islamic violence, because every day, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[804,998,403,684],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10177"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10179,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10177\/revisions\/10179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}