Pope Leo told Reuters on Monday that he plans \u200bto continue speaking out against war after United States (US) President Donald Trump\u2019s direct \u200cattack on the leader of the 1.4 billion-member Catholic Church.<\/p>\n
In comments aboard the papal flight to Algiers, where the first US Pope is starting a 10-day tour to \u200bfour African countries, the pontiff also said the Christian message \u200bwas being \u201cabused\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to get into a debate with \u2060him,\u201d Leo use Pope told Reuters as he greeted journalists on the plane.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t \u200bthink that the message of the Gospel is meant to be abused \u200bin the way that some people are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI will continue to speak out loudly against war, looking to promote peace, promoting dialogue and multilateral relationships among the \u200bstates to look for just solutions to problems,\u201d he said, speaking \u200bin English.<\/p>\n
\u201cToo many people are suffering in the world today,\u201d said Leo. \u201cToo many innocent \u200cpeople \u2060are being killed. And I think someone has to stand up and say there\u2019s a better way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe message of the church, my message, the message of the Gospel: Blessed are the Peacemakers. I do \u200bnot look at \u200bmy role as \u2060being political, a politician,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Leo, originally from Chicago, has emerged as an outspoken critic of the \u200bUS-Israeli war on Iran in recent weeks and decried \u200bthe \u201cmadness of \u2060war\u201d in a peace appeal on Saturday.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Trump, in an apparent response to the pope\u2019s criticisms of both the conflict and the White House\u2019s \u2060hard-line \u200bimmigration policies, said late on Sunday that \u200bLeo was \u201cterrible\u201d.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u2014Reuters-\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[],"class_list":["post-31698","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31704,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31698\/revisions\/31704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=31698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}