Set in French Algiers, the novel L’Étranger (The Outsider) by Albert Camus starts with the central character learning of his mother’s death and ends with him accepting the “gentle indifference of the world”.
There was more indifference than warfare behind the recent violent slaughter of Fr Jacques Hamel in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray. Yet Pope Francis chose to say, in response to the murder, that “the world is at war”. He also said it was wrong and untrue to identify Islam with terrorism, and Islam should not be singled out, since the problem is common to religious fundamentalism. He suggested that the violence is the outcome of social injustice and money idolatry. The problem is not saying all this; the problem is, it is wrong.
