What the Pope said when he was asked what causes terrorism

Pope Francis has criticised the global economy for sowing the seeds of terrorism.

He said that love of money has demolished religious and familial values supplanting them with a greed that has abetted terrorism.

He addressed the recent string of terrorist attacks this year, including the killing of a Catholic priest in Normandy by saying that "the world is at war", but not a war of religion.

CNN reports that the pontiff told reporters on a flight back to Rome from Poland:

Terrorism grows when there is no alternative, when at the centre of the society is the God of Money, not the person, the man and woman, the family.

When the glory of creation and a man and woman has been thrown away and money has been replaced as its center, this is a terrorism against all of humanity.

He's criticised capitalism before, remarking before Lent that it helps "reduce man to raw material to be exploited":

This illusion can also be seen in the sinful structures linked to a model of false development based on the idolatry of money, which leads to lack of concern for the fate of the poor on the part of wealthier individuals and societies; they close their doors, refusing even too see the poor.

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