The Pope has become embroiled in matters he knows nothing about. As I explained below to Church Militant: Whatever can be said about the pope’s naïveté (and worse), there is no doubt that he did not intend to strengthen any alliance between the Church and Shiites against Sunnis any more than he intended to strengthen an alliance of the Church and Sunnis against Shi’ites when he met with Sunni Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayyeb. But Francis has once again run into the law of unintended consequences: When one goes into a situation knowing little (at best) about those with whom one is dealing and about the history of the parties involved, one is inevitably going to fall into unforeseen trouble. The pope is committed to the false claim that Islam is a religion of peace. On that basis he has sought peace with Muslim leaders and assumed his efforts will help bring that peace. But because Islam isn’t a religion of peace, but teaches warfare against unbelievers and the death penalty for apostates, his Iraq trip is being used by one party of Muslims to justify ongoing hostility against another. If he had not committed himself to acting upon falsehoods to begin with, but had recognized the unpleasant truths he has tried to ignore and obscure, this wouldn’t have happened.
“Pope’s Iraq Trip Inflames Sunni-Shia Hatred,” by Jules Gomes, ChurchMilitant.com, March 19, 2021:
BAGHDAD, Iraq (ChurchMilitant.com) – Pope Francis’ Iraq trip is fanning ancient intra-Islamic hostilities with Sunni Muslim Salafi jihadists portraying the papal visit as the creation of a new Shiite-Catholic alliance directed against Sunnis.
Shia terrorist militias have exacerbated the myth of a “Shiite-Catholic alliance” by issuing a statement welcoming the pope and saying they will halt attacks on U.S. forces and their logistics convoys during Francis’ tour of Iraq.
In a series of posts on the instant messaging platform Telegram, top Salafi jihadists including supporters of Islamic State (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda are condemning Shiites as the new allies of Christians against Sunnis.
The messages, intercepted by the Middle East Media Research Institute’s Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM) division, use the pejorative terms “Rafidites” and “Safavids” to insult Shia Muslims for welcoming the pontiff to Iraq.
“Rafidites” — a term of abuse given by Sunnis to Shias — is used to describe the Shia rejection of the first four caliphs after Muhammad, holding that the fourth caliph, Ali, should have succeeded Muhammad as the religion’s head because he was the prophet of Islam’s son-in-law.
The “Safavids” are the Iranian dynasty (1501–1722) that established the territorial and Shiite theocratic principles of modern Iran — a Shia-majority nation. Salafi jihadists use the term pejoratively to refer to Iran for spreading Shiism by force and attempting to rule the Middle East.
Sunni Syrian cleric ‘Abd al-Razzaq al-Mahdi, currently involved in fighting the Syrian Civil War against the Syrian government, is warning that the pope’s visit to Iraq is meant to strengthen the “old alliance between the Church and Safavism.”
Francis is also seeking to bless “the mistreatment of Sunnis that Iran’s lackeys perpetrated under ISIS” and “to grant legitimacy to Iraq’s ‘Safavid Rafidite government,'” al-Mahdi claims.
Dr. Abu Abdallah al-Shami, head of the Syrian jihadi group the Ansar Al-Deen Front, which is aligned with Al-Qaeda, is accusing Shiites of working together with Islam’s enemies — the Christians — against Sunnis.
The Shiites “ally with the enemies of the religion of whom everyone is aware of their enmity — the Jews, Christians and polytheists — and are hostile to Allah’s saints,” al-Shami writes.
Al-Shami attempts to bolster his accusation by including a poster advertising Francis’ visit to Iraq with pictures of the pontiff and Shia Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
On the poster, the revered al-Sistani, who granted the pope a rare audience in the Shia holy city of Najaf, is telling Iraqi Christians: “You are part of us, and we are part of you.”
‘Law of Unintended Consequences’
In comments to Church Militant, distinguished historian and author of 21 books on Islam Robert Spencer observed that:
Whatever can be said about the pope’s naïveté (and worse), there is no doubt that he did not intend to strengthen any alliance between the Church and Shiites against Sunnis any more than he intended to strengthen an alliance of the Church and Sunnis against Shi’ites when he met with Sunni Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayyeb.
But Francis has once again run into the law of unintended consequences: When one goes into a situation knowing little (at best) about those with whom one is dealing and about the history of the parties involved, one is inevitably going to fall into unforeseen trouble. The pope is committed to the false claim that Islam is a religion of peace. On that basis he has sought peace with Muslim leaders and assumed his efforts will help bring that peace.
But, because Islam isn’t a religion of peace, but teaches warfare against unbelievers and the death penalty for apostates, his Iraq trip is being used by one party of Muslims to justify ongoing hostility against another. If he had not committed himself to acting upon falsehoods to begin with, but had recognized the unpleasant truths he has tried to ignore and obscure, this wouldn’t have happened.
serialthinker2003 says
I want to understand what these self-called Sunnis want in life, what are their stupid beliefs that distinguish themselves from people? Are they not ashamed of themselves?
I mean, they seem to suffer from atrophied mental capacity and suffer from mental retardation
James Lincoln says
serialthinker2003,
They are not ashamed of themselves – they are proud.
After all, they consider themselves “the best of people”…
Infidel says
Actually, I see this as a positive benefit of the papal visit. As a result of being seen as pro-shi’a, the sunnis are now enraged. What the pope could now do is visit bases of ISIS or al Qaeda, so that the shi’a get enraged as well and start attacking the sunnis
Side note: all those Christian groups in Iraq, like Assyrians, Chaldeans and so on – are any of them actually Catholic? I used to be under the impression that they were Nestorian or something else
gravenimage says
Infidel, most of the Christians in places like Iraq are Orthodox Christians, but some are indeed Catholic, like Melkite Catholics.
don vito says
pope francis, very wise move, while saying you are trying to establish peace, you further war. You Machiavellian strategist, you know who is very proud of his student. Bravo!
gravenimage says
Sunni cleric: Pope’s Iraq trip was meant to bless ‘mistreatment of Sunnis Iran’s lackeys perpetrated under ISIS’
……………..
More proof that no matter how much Infidels pander to Muslims it is never enough.
Then, just statistically most of the Pope’s pandering to Islam has been to Sunnis, not Shi’ites.
Finally, the claim that ISIS is Shia is absurd–in fact, these pious Sunnis often persecuted Shi’ites:
“Persecution of Shias by ISIL”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Shias_by_ISIL
This included genocide.
But pious Muslims always blame anything they dislike on others.
Andrew Blackadder says
Lets not bother to mention that it was muslim, from Turkey, that shot at the other Polish Pope in an attempt to kill him, all those years ago…… I said…lets not mention……
This silly wee Popey fella is a useful idiot to The Left and muslims the world over.
What happens once the jihadi gang bangers attack Rome/Vatican… I wonder what he will say about that…
“These men do not speak for the wonderful tolerant peaceful teachings in islam, perhaps, they are just naughty naughty boys”…or words to that effect…
VCRAGAIN says
Dear old popie thinks all he has to do is ‘bless’ something or somebody & the fear of God will make them more tolerant, more ‘Christian’, drop their fanaticism. It is a waste of his time…the world is falling apart from differences in belief systems, and nothing is provable about any of those concepts…’God’ appears to prefer humans to sort it out and will not be helping in any way, so assuming that YOUR particular flavor of belief is the ‘right’ one is sheer lunacy. Yet millions of humans are prepared to kill the rest for this stuff !