(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Pope Benedict XVI and Muslim leaders condemned the Christmas Day bombing in a chapel in the southern Philippine province of Sulu where 12 people were injured, including two priests and a nine-year-old girl.
The Pope mentioned the bombing in Sunday’s Angelus where he also criticized attacks in Nigeria and Pakistan.
“(Our) world continues to be marked by violence, especially against the disciples of Christ. I learned with great sadness of the attack in a Catholic church in the Philippines, while the Christmas Day rites were being celebrated, as well as the attack on Christian churches in Nigeria,” the Pope was quoted as saying.
Local Muslim leaders also criticized the attack on Sacred Heart parish inside a police compound, saying it went against Islam’s teachings against violence.
“Islam condemns these kinds of activities as it does not tolerate any acts that are injurious to others,” Ustadz Javier Mohammad, director of Sulu Islamic Library, said in a television interview.
Sheikh Muhammad Muntasir of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s committee on Da’wah called the act “barbaric and satanic and devoid of any religious ethics.”
“Father Ricky Baculcol, the main celebrant in the Mass, was one of those injured in the blast,” said Jolo Bishop Angelito Lampon of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.
“The Mass had to stop and was never resumed. The investigators told me the bombers entered through the roof and put the bomb near the altar. The front of the altar was destroyed; thank God, nobody was killed and the wounded didn’t have to spend a long time in the hospital,” Lampon said.
The military attributed the attacks to the Abu Sayyaf group and its international affiliate Jemaah Islamiya, although the bishop said “we don’t have a suspect.” He added that attacks on Christians in Sulu “is normal.”
“Such is life for missionaries here. Ninety-seven percent of the population here is Muslim. Many of them are kind and friendly but it’s the fundamentalists who don’t understand our work here,” the bishop said.
He said they have constructed more than 3,000 houses and some schools for the Muslim communities. Some people, however, consider them as threats want them to leave, he said.
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