ROME — The bishop of Porto in Portugal, Manuel Linda, said Friday that Thursday’s lethal Islamist terror attack in Nice, France, was not due to Islamic animosity toward Christians but to European prejudice.
“Yesterday’s attack on the cathedral in Nice is not Islam’s fight against Christianity,” Bishop Linda wrote on Twitter. “It is the result of the prejudices of those Europeans who not only do not foster intercultural and interreligious dialogue but are always at the ready to accuse religions.”
On Thursday morning, a 21-year-old Tunisian immigrant named named Brahim Issaoui entered the basilica of Notre Dame in Nice, France, brandishing a knife with a six-inch blade along with a copy of the Quran. He proceeded to stab three people to death, one of whom he attempted to decapitate with the blade.
According to eyewitnesses, Issaoui repeated “Allahu akbar” (Allah is greater) over and over during the attack.
The reaction of the Portuguese bishop was diametrically opposed to that of Vatican Cardinal Robert Sarah, who denounced Islamism Thursday following the Nice terror attack, calling it a “monstrous fanaticism.”
“Islamism is a monstrous fanaticism which must be battled with force and determination,” tweeted Cardinal Sarah, who heads up the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship.
“It will not stop its war. Unfortunately, we Africans know this only too well,” wrote the cardinal, who hails from Guinea, an African nation where 85 percent of the population is Muslim. “The barbarians are always the enemies of peace.”
“The West, today France, must understand this. Let us pray,” he said.
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