Scottish Catholic Observer

Francis spoke to reporters on the papal plane en route from Rome to Poland, where he began a five-day visit for World Youth Day.

Asked about the slaying of an 85-year-old priest in a Normandy church on Tuesday, Francis replied: “the real word is war…yes, it’s war. This holy priest died at the very moment he was offering a prayer for all the church.”

He added: “I only want to clarify, when I speak of war, I am really speaking of war … a war of interests, for money, resources. … I am not speaking of a war of religions, religions don’t want war. The others want war.”

Meanwhile, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, sent a message of condolence to Archbishop Dominique Lebrun of Rouen, . The cardinal said Pope Francis was ‘particularly upset that this act of violence took place in a church during Mass, the liturgical act that implores God’s peace for the world’.

In the latest event of violence, the cardinal said, the Pope prayed God would ‘inspire in all thoughts of reconciliation and brotherhood’.

In response to the murder of Father Jacques Hamel by Islamic State sympathisers, the French bishops have designated Friday, July 29, as a day of fasting.

Mgr. Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, secretary general of the French Bishops Conference, discussed the decision yesterday

“What happened in France had happened in other countries before, and actually we see Christians laying down their lives in the interests of their faith,” he told journalists gathered in Krakow for World Youth Day. “They die because they are objects of hate and this for a fact gives us an additional motivation to live the life of fraternity we are called to.”