Fundamentalists Considered Violent

Vatican City, Jun 13, 2014 / 07:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In an interview granted with Spanish-language magazine "La Vanguardia" on Monday, Pope Francis lauded Pius XII for his efforts in saving Jews, discussed Orthodox-Catholic relations, as well as the motivations behind his prayer meeting at the Vatican last Sunday.

Interview with Pope Francis: “One has to take the secession of a nation with grain of salt.”

“Our world economic system can’t take it anymore,” says the Bishop of Rome in an interview with La Vanguardia. “I’m no illumined one. I didn’t bring any personal projects under my arm.” “We are throwing away an entire generation to maintain a system that isn’t good,” he opines with respect to unemployed youth.

“The persecuted Christians are a concern that touches me very deeply as a pastor. I know a lot about persecutions but it doesn’t seem prudent to talk about them here so I don’t offend anyone. But in some places it is prohibited to have a Bible or teach the catechism or wear a cross… What I would like to be clear on is one thing, I am convinced that the persecution against Christians today is stronger than in the first centuries of the Church. Today there are more Christian martyrs than in that period. And, it's not because of fantasy, it’s because of the numbers."

Pope Francis received us last Monday in the Vatican - a day after the prayer for peace with the presidents of Israel and Palestine - for this exclusive interview with “La Vanguardia.” The Pope was happy to have done everything possible for understanding between Israelis and Palestinians.

Violence in the name of God dominates the Middle East.

It's a contradiction. Violence in the name of God does not correspond with our time. It's something ancient. With historical perspective, one has to say that Christians, at times, have practiced it. When I think of the Thirty Years War, there was violence in the name of God. Today it is unimaginable, right? We arrive, sometimes, by way of religion to very serious, very grave contradictions. Fundamentalism, for example. The three religions, we have our fundamentalist groups, small in relation to all the rest.

And, what do you think about fundamentalism?

A fundamentalist group, although it may not kill anyone, although it may not strike anyone, is violent. The mental structure of fundamentalists is violence in the name of God.

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