Pope Francis on Sunday urged Muslim leaders worldwide to “clearly” condemn terrorism carried out in the name of Islam, and called for an end to the persecution of Christians in the Middle East.
Pope Francis said he had told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that “it would be wonderful if all the Muslim leaders of the world – political, religious and academic, spoke up clearly and condemned” violence which damages Islam.
“That would help the majority of Muslims if that came from the mouths of these political, religious and academic leaders. We all have need of a global condemnation,” Francis told reporters aboard the plane taking him back to Rome after a three-day visit to Turkey.
The pope acknowledged that current global crises had generated a danger of all Muslims being tarred with the same brush.
Francis attacked those who say “all Muslims are terrorists,” adding: “As we cannot say that all Christians are fundamentalists.”
In a rare joint plea, the pope and Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I spoke out against anti-Christian violence, saying the world could not stand by and allow “a Middle East without Christians.”
They said the “terrible situation” of Christians calls “for an appropriate response on the part of the international community.”
The Argentine leader of the world’s Catholics denounced what he termed the current wave of “Christianophobia” in the Middle East, accusing Islamist radicals of “hunting” Christians while certain officials acted as if “they did not want any left in these countries.”
The pontiff did not specify which countries he was referring to.
On the final day of his first visit to Turkey, Francis urged an end to the millennium-old schism between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches and said this was all the more urgent due to the violence against Christians by Islamic State (IS) extremists.
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