Former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani: The Teachings of Jesus Do Not Exist in Today's Christianity. Popes Ignore America's Crimes

The following are excerpts from a Friday Sermon at Tehran University by former Iranian President and the head of the Iranian Expediency Council, Hashemi Rafsanjani. Channel 1 of the Iranian TV aired this sermon on April 8, 2005

Rafsanjani: The teachings of Jesus do not exist in the Christian world today. They cannot serve as popes and spread the teachings of Jesus, and at the same time disregard the crimes that America commits all over the world. It's true that they opposed the war in Iraq, but America's crimes aren't limited to that. What America does all over the world in the name of the war on terrorism, the way in which it plunders the resources of peoples in needy and backwards countries, its aggression in international organizations, which belong to all of the world's peoples, and the inflammatory propaganda it uses in order to undermine other countries – all of these certainly contradict the spirit of the teachings of Jesus. Jesus compared the money-grubbing oppressors of his time to man-eating vipers and confronted them, so how can the Pope's functionaries remain indifferent when they see the oppression committed by the international arrogance? Therefore, a heavy responsibility lies on their shoulders. They should raise a great outcry against America. They should say to the Americans: Through the crimes you commit you disgrace Jesus, because you use the names of Jesus and the church to win over many votes in the American public.

Crowd: Death to America

Death to America

Death to America

Death to America

Death to America