The Pope is obviously a person of deep humanity. We can admire his reaching out to others. He is, like many of us, concerned about the mockery and satirising of religious belief. He compared defending religion to punching someone who might have insulted his mother. There is such a thing as righteous anger. In the New Testament it says Jesus ‘found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers at their business. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all, with the sheep and oxen, out of the temple’. We don’t know what injuries Jesus inflicted with his whip of cords or how large this improvised whip was, but he did use force and used it effectively.
Jesus also said ‘Temptations to sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung round his neck and he were cast into the sea.’ A punch on the nose seems a very moderate statement compared to being drowned in the sea. What would any of us do if our mother, or our cherished beliefs were attacked? Pope Francis would certainly not condone killing anyone, but some influential people would like to imply that he would. There is a climate of belittling religions in the name of press freedom, but editorial selection of news is biased in many ways. Let us have the freedom to proclaim our religious beliefs without caricature.
John Cairns.
King’s Lynn Catholic Church