Pope Francis Reveals Why He Doesn’t Discuss ‘Islamic Violence’

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE — Pope Francis said he doesn’t like singling out violence carried out by Muslims because people of all religions are guilty of deadly crimes.

 

He told reporters the situation was like “a mixed fruit salad” and that there were “violent people in all religions.”

 

“I do not like to talk about Islamic violence because every day when I skim the papers … I read about violence in Italy: this one who killed the girlfriend, another killed the mother-in-law … and they are all baptized Catholics,” he said aboard a Rome-bound flight from Poland on Sunday.

 

“If I talk about Islamic violence, then I also have to talk of Catholic violence. Not all Muslims are violent, just like not all Catholics are violent,” the pontiff added. “It’s like a mixed fruit salad. There is a bit of everything. There are violent people in all religions.”

 

Pope Francis was responding to a question about an ISIS-linked attack on a church last week in which knife-wielding attackers slit the throat of a priest.

 

The pontiff had been asked why he never would “talk about Islam, about how you would counter the Islamic violence.”

 

He responded that it was “not fair to identify Islam with violence and terrorism. It’s not fair, and it’s not true.”

 

The pope went on to suggest that capitalism is another form of terrorism: “When you place at the center of the world economy the ‘God of Money,’ that’s terrorism against all humanity.”

 

Read More: Pope Francis Reveals Why He Doesn’t Discuss ‘Islamic Violence’ – NBC News