Ever since Pope Francis began speaking to the press over a year ago, he has left people with more questions than answers.  True to form, left-leaning media has been picking up the pontiff’s ambiguous statements and crafting the pope’s image as a progressive cult of personality.

Regardless of whether the pope is progressive, he is very much responsible for the lack of clarity of his words.  Even when his words are taken in context, they are suspect.

This past week, the press was reporting on Pope Francis’s remarks while on route from Sri Lanka to the Philippines.

As an example of confusing language, in the following excerpt, the pope compares punching a jerk who disses your mother to Muslims killing journalists who mocked Mohammed.  He reminds us how Christians killed Huguenots 500 years ago (so we are sinners just like Muslims, right?), and he implies that Islam is a religion that “respects human life and the human person.”

From Catholic News Agency:

Sebastien Maynard (La Croix): Holy Father, yesterday during Mass, you spoke about religious liberty as a fundamental human right. With respect to other religions, how far can the freedom of expression extend, since this latter is a fundamental human right, too?

Pope Francis: Thanks for the question, that is smart, it is good. I think that both are fundamental human rights, religious liberty and liberty of expression…Everyone has the right to practice their religion, their own religion without offending, freely. And that's what we do, what we all want to do.

Secondly, you cannot offend or make war, kill in the name of your religion, in the name of God. What has happened now astonishes us. But always, let's think to our history, how many religious wars we have had. Think of St Bartholomew's night (when Catholics massacred Huguenots during the French wars of religion in 1572, editor’s note). How can we understand this? Also we were sinners in this. But you cannot kill in the name of God, this is an aberration. Killing in the name of God is an aberration against God. I think this is the main thing with freedom of religion. You can practice with freedom without offending but without imposing or killing. [snip]

But, if Dr. Gasbarri, my great friend, says something against my mother, he can expect a punch. It's normal. It's normal. You cannot provoke, you cannot insult the faith of others, you cannot make fun of the faith…And this is a lecacy [sic] of the Enlightenment. So many people speak against others' religions. They make fun of them. Let's say they "giocatalizzano" (make a playng [sic]out of) the religion of others. But they are provoking, and what can happen is what I said about Dr. Gasbarri if he says something about my mother. There is a limit. Every religion has dignity; I cannot mock a religion that respects human life and the human person. [emphasis mine] And this is a limit. I've used this example of the limit to say that in the freedom of expression there are limits, like the example I gave of my mother. I don't know if I was able to respond to the question. Thanks.

In the entire transcript, the pope never says the word Islam and mentions Muslims only along with Buddhists and Hindus.  He sounds like the quintessential American politician avoiding any direct reference to the topic being discussed.

Is the pope calling the murders of journalists and Jews in Paris an “aberration against God”?  Does every religion have dignity, including Wicca and Satanism?  When he talks of “deviant religions," does he mean Islam?  So many questions.