Pope Francis – “Fundamentalism is a Sickness”

LifeSiteNews ^ | 30 Nov 2015 | John-Henry Westen

[amorphous]

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE, November 30, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) -- On the plane returning from his journey to Africa today Pope Francis made his clearest remarks in condemnation of 'fundamentalist' Catholics.

"Fundamentalism is a sickness that is in all religions," Francis said, as reported by the National Catholic Reporter's Vatican correspondent, Joshua McElwee, and similarly by other journalists on the plane. "We Catholics have some -- and not some, many -- who believe in the absolute truth and go ahead dirtying the other with calumny, with disinformation, and doing evil."

"They do evil," said the pope. "I say this because it is my church."

"We have to combat it," he said. "Religious fundamentalism is not religious, because it lacks God. It is idolatry, like the idolatry of money."

Turning to Islam, the pope spoke of his friendship with a Muslim, adding, "You cannot cancel out a religion because there are some groups, or many groups in a certain point of history, of fundamentalists."

"Like everything, there are religious people with values and those without," he said. "But how many wars ... have Christians made? The sacking of Rome was not done by Muslims, eh?"

[Amendment10]

Noting that this news about the Pope is coming through the corrupt media, with all due respect to the papacy, the following Holy Bible verses come to mind concerning this worldly Pope.

Isaiah 5:20
Matthew 16:23
Ephesians 4:14

[freedomjusticeruleoflaw]

History is not disputable on this subject. The vast majority of wars on the European continent were started by Muslims. The Crusades were a response to centuries of this constant barrage. Islam is a religion of war, not peace. It always has been, and always will be.

[SaraJohnson]

The Pope is desperately making more stupid and insane remarks daily.

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He always makes insane comments when he’s in the spot light. Right now he’s riding his global warming high horse and ISIS terrorism in France, with the cameras rolling. Maybe he’s senile or suffers a brain tumor. Pray for him.

[Mrs. Don-o]

There's certainly a big problem here. The more Pope Francis talks, the more the whole conversation tends toward confusion rather than clarity.

All in all, when he ventures into non-Catechism positions, he should ponder well whether his remarks are an improvement upon silence.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I think his remarks, garbled though they may be, bear a different meaning: that it's bad when people who possess objective truths feel thereby justified in assaulting any who disagree.

I would say POpe Francis' objection is not to "Truth" but to the "assault" --- something which the religion of Islam is very prone to, since their so-called scriptures advocate propagating their religion by the sword.

[DungeonMaster]

"They do evil," said the pope. "I say this because it is my church."

Oh no he di-int!

[circlecity]

"I would say POpe Francis' objection is not to "Truth" but to the "assault" --- something which the religion of Islam is very prone to, since their so-called scriptures advocate propagating their religion by the sword."

The first sentence in the article specifically says Francis was referring to "fundamentalist Catholics". I've never heard of a "fundamentalist Catholic" assaulting anyone.

[Zionist Conspirator]

Believing in the absolute truth is the very essence of "fundamentalism" (a "fundament" being a "root" or "base"). To reject the term "fundamentalism" is to reject the concept of absolute truth itself.

Yet how many Catholics, Orthodox, etc., have and will continue to attack "fundamentalism?"

[DungeonMaster]

Turning to Islam, the pope spoke of his friendship with a Muslim, adding, "You cannot cancel out a religion because there are some groups, or many groups in a certain point of history, of fundamentalists."

Either Christianity is the only valid religion or there is no valid religion.

So the pope is a mason illuminati who sees no difference between "religions".

Sorry but us Christians have been warning Catholics for a long time.

[Zionist Conspirator]

This is nothing less than a direct assault on Bible believing Christians.

Yes. That's exactly what it is.

Even the most conservative Catholics and Orthodox have been waging war on "fundamentalists" for a hundred years and more. They should be ashamed of themselves, but won't be.

This antipathy is the main reason that the Catholic/Orthodox churches have declared war on Genesis 1-11 and even made the absurd claim that "we've never believed any of that stuff in our entire history."

[Mrs. Don-o]

"The sacking of Rome was not done by Muslims, eh?"

I guess you'd have to ask "Which sacking?"

• 387 BC - the Gauls

• 410 AD - the Visigoths

• 455- the Ostrogoths

• 474 - Ostrogoths again

• 1084 - the Normans

• 1527 - the Holy Roman Empire.

So I suppose his point was, "Muslims aren't the only ones."

The more important point is, the Muslims ARE the only ones NOW who are the Enemies At the Gates. And increasingly, by the thousands, they're the Enemies Within the Gates. And as Mark Steyn remarked, "Only, now there aren't any Gates."

That's the hideous present peril we all wish he'd address.

[amorphous]

To reject the term "fundamentalism" is to reject the concept of absolute truth itself.

And to reject "truth" is to reject God himself.

[amorphous]

Holy Bible verses come to mind concerning this worldly Pope.

Isaiah 5:20
Matthew 16:23
Ephesians 4:14

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And the Ninth Commandment as found in Exodus 20:16: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”

This principle includes all forms of lying.

[Zionist Conspirator]

So, there's a definition problem here. POpe Francis isn't using (whatever-word-in-Italian) "fundamentalist" to mean, in the American Protestant sense, somebody to believes in the doctrinal positions explained and defended in "The Fundamentals."

But one of principals defended in The Fundamentals is that the events recorded in Genesis 1-11 transpired just as written, and all Catholics--even the most conservative--have been attacking that doctrine and insulting its adherents for a hundred years. Even here on Free Republic Catholics continue to deny the historical accuracy of Genesis 1-11 while hypocritically accepting every "miracle" of the "new testament," none of which are any less "scientifically impossible" than the creation of the world in six days.

The word in that sense is applied not just to Protestants, but to Catholics and Orthodox (who might have different, contrasting doctrinal points) and also Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Marxists, Vegetarians, -- it means a person who has a kind of monomaniaal attachment to some ideology.

It was liberals who made this the definition of "fundamentalist," not the people who coined it. And conservative Catholics/Orthodox have been all too happy to play along. This treating of the term as poisonous is how it came to mean "monomania." (By the way, all monotheistic religions could also be libeled "monomaniacal").

So although Pope Francis certainly does say very dubious things from time to time, IN THIS CASE he is not insulting Protestantism or Evangelicalism per se.

In this particular case he seems to be criticizing Catholics who actually have the temerity to believe in Catholicism. But he (and almost 100% of Catholics/Orthodox throughout the world) still treat the traditional Protestant belief of absolute inerrancy in all subjects as an inherent heresy against the chrstian religion and in need of suppression.

[Mrs. Don-o]

That’s right -— you’ve made one of my points. Catholics are not, by definition, Fundamentalists in the American Protestant sense of the word.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Reading further in that same paragraph, you can see that Pope Francis specifies this sort of assault as "calumny, disinformation, and doing evil."

It was I who introduced that specific word, "assault," so if that's causing confusion I would withdraw it. Francis just referred to calumny etc.

One thing I can say about Pope Francis: he talks too much. And the more talks, the more confused the whole conversation gets.

[Zionist Conspirator]

That's right--you've made one of my points. Catholics are not, by definition, Fundamentalists in the American Protestant sense of the word.

Yes. And you've made my point. They're not because they believe that everything in Genesis before chapter 12 is mythology. This is not a compliment, though you seem to want to take it as one.

No miracle in history, whether Biblical, "new testament," chrstian, or that of any other religion, is one bit less "scientifically impossible" than anything in Genesis 1-11.

It's equally true that the contemporary Catholic claim that Catholics in the eighth century rejected the literal truth of Genesis 1-11 just as Catholics do today is absurd on its face.

[Lazamataz]

"Turning to Islam, the pope spoke of his friendship with a Muslim, adding, "You cannot cancel out a religion because there are some groups, or many groups in a certain point of history, of fundamentalists. Like everything, there are religious people with values and those without," he said. "But how many wars ... have Christians made? The sacking of Rome was not done by Muslims, eh?"

This right here. This informs me that the Pope is a mole. A subversive globalist plant meant to destroy Christianity. This Pope is a plain old Humanist, anti-Christ globalist.

The Pope is to Catholicism as Obama is to America.

[KittenClaws]

. . .”So I suppose his point was, “Muslims aren't the only ones.”. . .
____________________________

That was his point exactly, Mrs. Don-o. Words meant to equate Christianity with islam are misleading to the uninformed and should not be uttered by the Pope.

May God bless you.

[avenir]

We stand or fall on our definitions, which is why the evil one labors to corrupt and confuse them.

What is “fundamentalism”? Francis has his definition. Is it remotely the same as mine? Yours?