Vatican denies Pope is target of jihadists

Friday, August 29th, 2014

The Vatican has said there is no reason for concern following speculation in Italian media that Islamic State jihadists are targeting Pope Francis.

Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi told the Catholic News Agency on August 26 that “this news has no foundation”.

The rumours spread following an August 25 article in Italian newspaper “Il Tempo”, which said the number of jihadists in Italy is on the rise due to the influx of unidentified immigrants in the country.

According to the article, Islamic fundamentalists led by former ISIS head Al-Baghdadi plan to “raise the level of confrontation” in Europe.

The story alluded to Israeli sources who said that Pope Francis is “also in the crosshairs of ISIS” as “the greatest exponent of the Christian religions” and the “bearer of false truth”.

Italy has tightened its security, although the stories appear unfounded.

Al-Baghdadi has been named as Caliph – the head of state and absolute monarch – of the self-proclaimed Islamic State in western Iraq and north-eastern Syria.

Meanwhile, the president of the German bishops’ conference, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, has appealed to Muslim leaders publicly to condemn Islamic terror in Iraq and to declare that violence in the name of God is never justified.

“I know the Islamic State (IS) is not Islam, but I hear too little about Shia and Sunni leaders getting together and publicly, but also forcefully, stating that there must never be violence in the name of God, never be murder in the name of God and never be suppression in the name of God,” Cardinal Marx said in a statement published on the German bishops’ conference’s homepage.

He appealed to Muslim leaders to “set a sign of peace”.

The Media Matters website set out several instances where Islamic leaders and groups have denounced ISIS violence in the past two months.

These figures and groups include the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Turkey’s highest ranking Islamic cleric, the Muslim Council of Great Britain, the Islamic Society of North America.

Last week, Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti, Abdulaziz al-Sheikh, said that terrorism is anti-Islamic and said that groups like the Islamic State which practice violence are the “number one enemy of Islam”.

Sources