President Barack Obama's comments at the National Prayer Breakfast are merely a diversion from the fact that he doesn't have a plan to confront the Islamic State (ISIS), former Boston Mayor Ray Flynn tells
Newsmax TV.
Obama has been facing harsh criticism for
comparing the atrocities committed by ISIS to those committed by Christians "in the name of Christ" during the Crusades, the Inquisition and slavery in the United States, which he said following the brutal killing of the Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kaseasbeh, who he was burned alive by the terror group.
"They're completely inaccurate from a historical perspective," Flynn, the former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, told hosts J.D. Hayworth and Miranda Khan on "America's Forum" Monday.
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"He's way off the mark and in terms of solving some of the problems that we're dealing with worldwide — religious intolerance, beheading of Christians across the world — it's a diversion to start talking about a 2,000-year history of civilization," he said.
"We ought to address the issue at hand, and the president was using this as a diversion to move away from ISIS, to move away from radical Muslim fundamentalism, extremism, and to shift focus onto another issue," he said.
According to Flynn, this is what politicians do when they "don't have a good game plan dealing with a particular issue — create a diversion to shift focus away from [their] inability to deal with the current problem, and that's what the president has done."
Flynn contends that the United States and the world is "starting to fall into this trap of religious instability and moral instability not only in America but across the world," which he says makes "it an incredible period of time for [Pope Francis] coming to the United States, not only addressing the United States and the Congress but also addressing domestic issues within the Catholic Church."
Pope Francis is scheduled to
come to the United States in late September, and to address Congress on Sept. 24.
"I hope the Pope says clearly and unequivocally that Catholics and Christians have to get more involved in the political climate in our country, because they've taken a back seat for too long," he said.
"The Pope has also a glorious opportunity to talk about religious intolerance, not only in the United States, and religious freedom in the United States, but address that very issue in the United Nations and the Congress" he said.
"The world needs that kind of moral voice."
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