Pope Francis has remained silent about the destruction of Christian communities in the Muslim world and the persecution of those who remain there, Il Foglio cultural editor Giulio Meotti wrote in an article published by The Gatestone Institute.
The pope, who is in the United Arab Emirates and plans to visit Morocco in March, has a stance on Islam that is based on fantasy, Meotti insisted, emphasizing that this policy of appeasement must be abandoned.
He cites Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal, who wrote recently that “It is as if all of the pope's efforts have been directed to exonerating Islam from any of its responsibilities. He seems to have been doing this even more than observant Muslims."
Francis faces a situation in which Christian communities that were the foundation of the universal Church now face the threat of imminent extinction. The Christian population of Iraq is less than half of what it was in 2003 and the Syrian Christian community has been halved since 2010.
There were also 4,305 Christians killed in 2018 because of their religion, Meotti writes, citing a report from the Open Doors NGO, which added that the number was 1,000 more than the previous year.
There are also some 245 million Christians who are being persecuted simply for their faith.
Meotti refers to what Renaud Girard wrote in Le Figaro that, considering these facts, "The stubborn silence of European leaders on the question of religions, Islam in particular, astonishes and disappoints," adding that by “refraining from defending Christians in the East, the West... gave a signal of weakness by abandoning its ideological friends [and] it has renounced its creed."
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