Pope Francis Quotes
American Catholics are committed to building a society which is truly tolerant and inclusive, to safeguarding the rights of individuals and communities, and to rejecting every form of unjust discrimination. With countless other people of good will, they are likewise concerned that efforts to build a just and wisely ordered society respect their deepest concerns and their right to religious liberty.
Pope Francis. "Address at the Welcoming Ceremony, White House, Washington D.C." Vatican.va, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 23 Sept. 2015.
This would normally not be a very noteworthy quotation as it is typical of political party declarations in democracies throughout the world. What makes this, the exception is that this credo was for a Pakistani political party, where no other political party and very few individuals would dare make such a statement. Altaf Hussain was not only attacked and luckily survived an assassination attempt, but the Pakistani Government called this statement and many others treason against the state where equal rights for non Muslims is prohibited by their interpretation of the Koran. The government policy has even been to support terrorist organizations as a potential force against India and parts of India which Pakistan covets and justifies because the area as a majority of Muslims. But India has about the same number of Muslims as does Pakistan so there are hundreds of such areas. Hussain has been indicted over 100 times and runs the party from exile in London where he has been granted political asylum. What he and his party supports has been completely contrary to the policies of the government of Pakistan and its leaders of all the other political persuasions. Pakistan has been since its inception a perpetrator of religious intolerance, fanaticism, violence and one of the worst violators of human rights in the word.
This was a very courageous speech for the President to give. Senator Hubert Humphrey had proposed civil rights legislation. At the time most of the racial conservative members of Congress were Democrats and not Republicans as they would become after Civil Rights legislation actually passed in 1964. There was little possibility that the civil rights law would pass as the Southern Democrats could filibuster it in the Senate. None the less Truman supported the legislation and the principle of equal rights despite the fact that he was a Southerner and he knew he would lose the support of the conservative wing of his party.
Pope Francis is the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State. Francis is the first pope to be a member of the Society of Jesus, the first from the Americas, the first from the Southern Hemisphere, and the first pope from outside Europe since Gregory III, a Syrian who reigned in the 8th century.
