Pope Francis Makes Prayer Request After ISIS Threats-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
A forwarded email claims Pope Francis made a prayer request after reports surfaced that ISIS plans to kill him and attack the Vatican.
The Truth:
Reports surfaced in August 2014 that the terrorist group ISIS was targeting Pope Francis and planning an attack on the Vatican, but Vatican officials dismissed the so-called threats.
II Tempo, an Italian newspaper, cited Israeli sources that said the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was targeting Pope Francis in an August 2014 report. The report said the number of jihadists in Italy was on the rise because of an increase in unidentified immigrants throughout the country.
A Vatican official quickly dispelled reports that Pope Francis and the Vatican were targeted by ISIS. The Catholic News Agency reported that a Vatican official said, “There is nothing serious to this. There is no particular concern in the Vatican. This news has no foundation.”
Italian government officials, however, took the treat more seriously. The country issued a terrorism alert and warned that ISIS could launch attacks on “sensitive targets” in Rome and elsewhere, including the Holy See and Catholic churches, the Daily Beast reports.
For his part, Pope Francis has spoken against ISIS violence toward Christians and other people in the Middle East. But he stopped short of supporting U.S.-led airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, the Christian Post reports.
“War is never a satisfactory way to right injustices,” Pope Francis said. “War leads people into a spiral of violence which becomes difficult to control. It destroys what it has taken generations to establish and leads the way to even worse conflicts and injustices.”
Posted 10/06/14