Isis is as Muslim as the IRA was Catholic, says New York cardinal

ISIS is no more Muslim than the IRA were Catholic, the Archbishop of New York has said.

During an interview with CNN, Cardinal Timothy Dolan said: “The IRA claimed to be Catholic,” Dolan told CNN anchor Chris Cuomo. “They were baptised. They had a Catholic identity.” But, he continued, “what they were doing was a perversion of everything the Church stood for.”

Cardinal Dolan went on to tell presenter, Chris Cuomo, that Islamic State extremists “do not represent genuine Islamic thought,” but are “a particularly perverted form of Islam.”

“The analogy (to the IRA) is somewhat accurate,” said Dolan who is Irish-American. He said: “These are not pure, these are not real Muslims. Now what we need and what Pope Francis has led the world in saying, is we need the temperate, moderate, genuine forces of Islam to rise up and say this: they do not represent us. Now, that’s beginning to happen. God can bring good out of evil.”

Pope Francis has also consistently said that ISIS do not represent true Islam.