THE ARCHBISHOP OF New York has stirred controversy after comparing ISIS to the IRA.
Speaking to CNN, Cardinal Timothy Dolan said he believes it’s “time to talk Turkey” about ISIS’s attempts to “eradicate the Christian population in the Middle-East”.
He wanted to point out though that ISIS does not represent true Muslims and compared their “perversion” of Islam to how the IRA used religion:
“You know the parallel I’ve drawn and people have been kind enough to tell me the analogy is accurate? You remember 35 years ago with the IRA in Ireland? The IRA claimed to be Catholic. They were baptised, they had a Catholic identity, what they were doing was a perversion of everything the church stood for.”
“To their immense credit, the bishops of Ireland, every time the IRA blew up a car or a house or a barracks of the British Army the bishops would say, they are not Catholic.”
Dolan went on to say that Muslim leaders must be vocal in pointing out the differences between Islam and the radicalised version used by ISIS. He pointed out, however, that it’s more difficult than in Catholicism because in Islam there is not one single leader.
Dolan’s comparison between the IRA and ISIS have led to some debate about their accuracy with some pointing out that the IRA’s aims were political and not religious.
DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson called his comments “courageous”.
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