Don’t They Know in Indonesia That Francis is the Ideal Pope for the World’s Muslims?

Apparently unaware that Pope Francis is the ideal pope for the world’s Muslims — the Pope has declared that “there is no such thing as Islamic terrorism” — seven Muslims in Indonesia, where the Pope just completed a visit as part of his 12-day trip to Southeast Asia, plotted to murder him but were rounded up in time. Robert Spencer wrote about this briefly here, and more on their plot to kill the most pro-Muslim pope in history can be found here: “Indonesia arrests seven over failed plot to attack Pope Francis,” Indian Express, September 6, 2024:

Indonesian police detained seven persons in connection with a failed plot to attack Pope Francis, who completed the first leg of his 12-day Asia-Pacific tour on Friday, news agency Reuters stated….

The investigation is ongoing, and it remains unclear whether the detainees are connected or part of the same terror cell. Detachment-88 spokesperson Aswin Siregar mentioned that the arrests followed a public tip-off. The detainees, who were mostly apprehended on Monday and Tuesday, had their homes searched, revealing items such as bows and arrows, a drone, and ISIS leaflets.

Some of those arrested had pledged allegiance to ISIS. One detainee was reportedly a militant linked to the same group that attacked Indonesia’s former chief security minister Wiranto in 2019.

The militants were reportedly angered by the Pope’s visit to Jakarta’s Istiqlal mosque, and the government’s request for TV stations to avoid broadcasting the Islamic call to prayer during the Pope’s visit….

Those would-be assailants were upset about the Pope’s visit to the main mosque in Jakarta, but why? The terminally naïve Francis was going to the Istiqlal mosque to demonstrate his sympathetic interest in, and respect for, Islam, in a visit that many Muslims correctly understood would be a symbolic act of obeisance, not of triumphalism.

Pope Francis said in 2017 that “Christian terrorism does not exist, Jewish terrorism does not exist, and Muslim terrorism does not exist. They do not exist.” The antisemitic Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Cairo’s al-Azhar, sent a note to the Pope expressing gratitude for his “defense of Islam against the accusation of violence and terrorism.” Apparently those Indonesian plotters never got that message.

As Robert Spencer has noted, the Pope has even “obliquely defended” the Muslim murderers of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists by saying that “it is true that you must not react violently, but although we are good friends, if [an aide] says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch, it’s normal. You can’t make a toy out of the religions of others. These people provoke and then (something can happen). In freedom of expression there are limits.”

Spencer notes that “for the Pope, murdering people for violating Sharia blasphemy laws is “normal,” and it isn’t terrorism, for “Muslim terrorism does not exist.” He added: “There are fundamentalist and violent individuals in all peoples and religions—and with intolerant generalizations they become stronger because they feed on hate and xenophobia.”

The Pope is more worried about non-Muslims talking about jihad than he is about jihad itself — which he denies is part of Islam. If Muslims were not criticized by non-Muslims, the former would have no reason to react violently against the later. It’s up to non-Muslims to stop with their “intolerant generalizations.”

So there is no Islamic terrorism, but if you engage in “intolerant generalizations,” you can “expect a punch.” Do you think that the murder of twelve Charlie Hebdo cartoonists amounts to a “punch”? The pope, like the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, apparently thinks that the problem is not jihad terror, but non-Muslims talking about jihad terror; Muslims would be peaceful if non-Muslims would simply stop their unfair and bigoted criticism of Islam.

Spencer again: “Pope Francis has no patience with those who discuss such matters: ‘I don’t like to talk about Islamic violence, because every day, when I read the newspaper, I see violence.’ He said, according to Crux, that ‘when he reads the newspaper, he reads about an Italian who kills his fiancé or his mother in law.’ The pontiff added: ‘They are baptized Catholics. They are violent Catholics.’ He said that if he spoke about ‘Islamic violence,’ then he would have to speak about ‘Catholic violence’ as well.

That comparison made no sense, for Italian Catholics who killed their fiancés or mothers in law were not acting in accord with the teachings of their religion, while the Qur’an and Islamic teaching contain numerous exhortations to violence.

But Pope Francis, defender of Islam, cannot concern himself with such minutiae. Nor does he appear to be particularly concerned about the fact that all his false statements about the motivating ideology behind the massive Muslim persecution of Christians over the last few years only enables and abets that persecution, for if that ideology is not identified and confronted, it will continue to flourish.

Pope Francis is not only disastrously wrongheaded about an obvious fact that is reinforced by every day’s headlines; he is also deceiving and misleading his people about a matter of utmost importance, and keeping them ignorant and complacent about a growing and advancing threat.

Really, those Indonesian Muslims plotting to attack Pope Francis didn’t realize that he has been the best possible defender of Islam in the entire Christian world. Instead of trying to kill him, they should pray to Allah that Pope Francis remains the Bishop of Rome, and head of the Catholic Church, and the Defender of Their Faith, for many more years to come.