Pope Francis called the terrorist attack in Paris “a piece” of a Third World War, broadening the scope of the world’s response to one between good and evil.
Speaking Saturday to an Italian TV network, the Pope said there is no “religious or human justification for these things,” adding that the murders perpetrated by adherents of the Islamic State, were “not human.”
Islamic State took responsibility for the attacks, and similarly placed them in a religious context, calling them “miracles.” The jihadist organization, which has already declared a new Caliphate — the traditional name for a pan-national Islamic empire — and warned that the Paris atrocities were merely the “first of the storm.”
The Pope’s comments come a day after 128 people were killed, 350 were wounded and 90 were seriously wounded in several attacks in Paris, according to the latest numbers from CNN. The French government has put the entire country under a state of emergency — the last time this happened was during the Algerian War, which ended in 1962 — closed its borders, and deployed its armed forces in and around the capital.
“This is a piece [of the Third World War being fought at piecemeal],” Francis said, adding that it is “hard to understand.”
The terror attacks targeted civilians at the Stade de France, where President Francois Hollande was watching the French national football team playing a match against Germany, a concert hall and in restaurants in surrounding areas.
Police have raided a building in Brussels, Belgium, in an operation related to the continent-wide investigation into Friday’s Paris attacks.
According to Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens, there have been “a number” of arrests in the European capital city related to the attacks. Further, it is being reported that a Nov. 5 arrest of a Montenegrin man in Germany may be related to the attacks that took place Friday.
The man was stopped by German authorities near the German-Austrian border and police found “automatic weapons, 200 grammes of dynamite, hand grenades and ammunition concealed in the car’s bodywork,” the Guardian reports.
Soon after the Paris attacks, Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi called what took place “an attack on peace for all of humanity,” and that the attack required a “decisive, supportive response.”
Pope Francis’s decision to set the attacks in the context of a global war between jihadists and civilization captures a growing sense internationally that this is an epochal clash with few, if any, boundaries.
“Here in the Vatican we are following the terrible news from Paris,” Lombardi said. “We are shocked by this new manifestation of maddening, terrorist violence and hatred which we condemn in the most radical way together with the Pope and all those who love peace. We pray for the victims and the wounded, and for all the French people. This is an attack on peace for all humanity, and it requires a decisive, supportive response on the part of all of us as we counter the spread of homicidal hatred in all of its forms.”
Curt Mills contributed to this report.
