If you were hiding Jews and the Nazis came do your door looking for them, would you say, "You apostate Nazis, of course I have Jews upstairs, and you will never get them, because God protects them!" Or would you exercise prudence and wisdom, and attempt to convince the Nazis that you were harmless and knew nothing of any Jews being hidden by anyone?
You and smvoice are effectively castigating the Pope for behaving with prudence and caution where other people's lives are at stake. I submit that if you had any loved ones in the Middle East, most especially if they were priests or nuns with targets on their backs if the Pope spoke incautiously, you would be most pleased by his prudence.
The Pope invited the Muslims to a discussion of their tendencies toward violence. They responded by murdering nuns, burning churches, etc. I would say the discussion is finished, and the Pope needs to say nothing more. The discussion is one for soldiers to conduct, not churchmen.
My son in law is right now in Afghanistan and will be for the next year. Does that count? And I can assure you that he’s not hiding what he believes.
>> most especially if they were priests or nuns with targets on their backs<<
Do you somehow suppose there are not targets on the backs of our boys over there?
The fear of repercussions for proclaiming the gospel does not bode well for those who do not want to hear the words “I never knew you”.
In the first place, I’m not so sure that is an analogy you really should be using. Didn’t the Vatican have some sort of concord or compact with Nazi Germany? And didn’t they hide fleeing Nazis after the war? Or is just baseless gossip? Because if the Vatican did, and fleeing Jews were hiding in my home, it would seem the Roman Catholics would be as much to be feared as the Nazis when it came to Jews. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong, and I will apologize for my misunderstanding of any role the Vatican may have had in Hitler’s reign of terror.