In October ISIS threatened to invade Rome and fly its flag over the Vatican.
Pope Francis lectured the Islamic State on the proper practice of Islam this week in his State of the World speech. The pope said Islam was being perverted by extremists. The pope made these remarks after the deadly Islamic terrorist attacks last week in Paris, France.
The National Post reported:
Pope Francis condemned “fundamentalist terrorism” and “deviant forms of religion” for last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris, amid fresh claims that he himself may be at risk of attack from the Islamic State in Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS).
The Pope said religion was being perverted by extremists and used to justify evil, including “the tragic slayings” of 17 people that took place in Paris last week after Islamist extremists attacked the office of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and took people hostage in a kosher supermarket.
“Religious fundamentalism, even before it eliminates human beings by perpetrating horrendous killings, eliminates God himself, turning him into a mere ideological pretext,” the 78-year-old pontiff said in an annual address to Vatican-accredited foreign diplomats.
“Losing their freedom, people become enslaved, whether to the latest fads, or to power, money, or even deviant forms of religion,” he said in his State of the World speech.
He spoke out against the menace posed by Islamic fundamentalism after an Israeli television channel reported that the Vatican could be ISIS’s next target.
The Vatican downplayed reports this week that that it was a likely Islamist target.