Pope Francis: Egyptian Christians “were killed after having refused to renounce their Christian faith”
This is odd. Pope Francis has said that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.” He has also said that “Muslim terrorism does not exist.”
So if he really believes those statements, and others he has made about the peaceful nature of Islam, then he must believe that the Muslims who killed these Christians after first demanding that they convert to Islam were misunderstanding their own religion. As one of the world’s foremost imams, Francis should correct this: he should either go personally to Egypt in order to instruct these Muslims in the proper reading of the Qur’an, or send teams of Catholics who understand Islam correctly to Minya and other jihad hotspots in order to conduct outreach with the local jihad-inclined Muslims and correct their misunderstandings of authentic Islam.
In fact, not to do this is only to open the door to more jihad violence against Christians. Imam Francis owes it to the world to help these misunderstanders of Islam back to the Straight Path.
In reality, the Muslims who first asked these Christians to convert and then killed those who refused were following Muhammad’s instructions as recorded in a canonical hadith. Muhammad said: “Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war…When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them…. If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them. (Sahih Muslim 4294.)
“Leave them; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:14)
“Pope Says Copts Were Killed After Refusing to Renounce Their Christian Faith,” by Patrick Goodenough, CNS News, May 30, 2017:
(CNSNews.com) – The death toll in the latest terrorist atrocity targeting Egyptian Christians rose to 30 on Monday, after a victim succumbed to his wounds three days after Islamist gunmen opened fire on a group of travelers whom they had identified as Christians.The number of dead, who included children, makes it one of the deadliest single attacks against members of Egypt’s beleaguered Coptic minority in decades. More than 20 people were injured in the eve-of-Ramadan attack, according to the Interior Ministry.Gunmen in three pick-up trucks opened fire at a bus and other vehicles carrying Christians heading for a monastery in Minya province south of Cairo. Unconfirmed reports said the gunmen were dressed in military-type uniforms and that male victims were asked their religion before being gunned down.“The victims, amongst which were also children, were killed after having refused to renounce their Christian faith,” Pope Francis told pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square in Rome on Sunday, describing the attack as “another act of ferocious violence” against Egyptian Christians.He prayed that God would “welcome these courageous witnesses, these martyrs, in his peace and convert the hearts of the terrorists.”Just last month, suicide bombers killed 29 people in a church in Tanta in northern Egypt on Palm Sunday and, hours later, another 18 people in a cathedral in Alexandria, about 50 miles away. A bombing in a Cairo church last December cost 30 lives.Through its propaganda mouthpiece Amaq, ISIS claimed responsibility for the latest attack, as it has done for previous ones….
