Violence Hit Too Close To Home For The Pope And For Catholics

For the first time, the Catholic church is no longer a place that is sacrosanct in the eyes of the Islamic State.  On July 26, 2016, "attackers entered the church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray during Mass, taking the priest, Fr Jacques Hamel, 84, and four other people hostage. ... The Amaq news agency, linked to so-called Islamic State, said 'two IS soldiers' had carried out the attack. ... Police sources said it appeared the attackers had slit the priest's throat with a knife." [1]

"Pope Francis is horrified and shocked by an attack in a church in Rouen, in northern France, where a priest was slain and another hostage was seriously wounded.

"A statement released by Fr Federico Lombardi, Director of the Holy See Press Office said: 'we are particularly shocked because this horrible violence took place in a Church, in which God’s love is announced, with the barbarous killing of a priest and the involvement of the faithful'.

"Fr Lombardi also said the Pope shares the pain and the horror caused by this absurd violence and expresses firm condemnation of every form of hatred and prays for the victims." [2]

So the pope was horrified and shocked, the same pope who criticized Poland for its lack of "diversity of religion, race and culture." [3]  France has diversity.  In Rouen, there was definitely diversity of religion (the IS killers in Rouen were presumably not Catholic) and diversity of culture (the IS culture of hate and violence versus the Catholic culture of peace), as demonstrated by the heinous killing [4].  Why should this pope be horrified and shocked? Is that not what he wanted: diversity of religion and of culture?

Is God encouraging diversity of religion and culture in Heaven?  This blogger thinks not.  There is only one faith in Heaven and that is faith in God, and there is only one culture in Heaven and that is the culture of unconditional love.  This pope, apparently, does not seem to want God's will to be done on earth and it is in Heaven.

The creature in the Vatican may be the pope, but he speaks more like a secular politician than a Holy Father.  If this pope practices what he preaches and does not mind smelling like the sheep he is shepherding [5], then he ought to be saying Mass in a Catholic church without  any security.  This blogger is almost certain that he does not care to smell like sheep because he, like any ordinary man, fears being killed.  Yet, he will almost certainly not be asking the faithful to stay home and pray instead of attending Mass, even though they, unlike him, do not have free lifetime security protection.


[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36892785
[2] http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2016/07/26/pope_horrified_by_%E2%80%98barbarous%E2%80%99_killing_priest_french_church/1246770
[3] http://www.lastampa.it/2016/07/23/vaticaninsider/eng/the-vatican/vatican-statement-accuses-polish-politicians-of-whipping-up-fear-against-muslims-FMMU1aMVGYwYhVe1IQAHWL/pagina.html
[4] http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2016/07/26/pope_horrified_by_%E2%80%98barbarous%E2%80%99_killing_priest_french_church/1246770
[5] http://www.thecatholictelegraph.com/pope-francis-priests-should-be-shepherds-living-with-the-smell-of-the-sheep/13439