VATICAN CITY, Sept. 21 Pope Benedict XVI said in Italy Friday terrorists use God to justify their attacks on secular Western cultures.
"Terrorism often uses God ... as a pretext, founded on the charge that people have forgotten God, to justify assaults on the security of Western societies," the pontiff told an international gathering of Catholic politicians at his summer residence south of Rome.
The pope called international terrorism an "extremely grave phenomenon," ANSA reported.
Benedict also reiterated his view that unfettered capitalism is bad for society in general. He called on politicians in his audience to fight "ideologies that can obscure or confuse consciences and convey an illusory vision of truth and good," the Italian news agency said.
He said the absence of an ethical dimension in business could "threaten profit itself."
Copyright 2007 by UPI
