ISIS Recruitment Posters Show Pope Francis Beheading, Threats Against Christmas

The pro-ISIS Wafa’ Media Foundation is distributing a propaganda poster showing a beheaded Pope Francis poster just days after releasing a video showing a masked man driving towards Vatican City’s St. Peter’s Basilica. (Graphic image at bottom of page).

The gruesome image shows an Islamic State member leaning over the decapitated body of the Catholic Church leader in front of a destroyed cityscape and armed ISIS fighters. “I swear to avenge every single drop of blood that you spilled and every house that you have destroyed,” reads the photo caption. “I swear that you will taste the bitterness of the cups of death and make your feasts massacres. You will not even enjoy living in your homes, Allah Willing.”

Last week, a dimly-lit image began circulating through pro-ISIS social media accounts of a masked man behind the wheel of a car approaching St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. The poster’s ominous caption read, “Christmas Blood. So wait…”

In October, Wafa Media Foundation released a propaganda poster showing Barcelona and Argentina soccer star Lionel Messi crying tears of blood in a prison cell. The SITE Intel Group that helped share the image on social media indicated that the group is threatening the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

Although interpreted as a wide threat on Catholics and Christianity as a whole, it’s not the first time the Pope has personally acknowledged the Islamic State terrorist group’s action.

In August 2014, Pope Francis condemned ISIS in a letter to U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki-moon. He called on the international humanitarian community to help the Middle East victims of the militant terrorist group.

“Thousands of people, including many Christians, driven from their homes in a brutal manner; children dying of thirst and hunger in their flight; women kidnapped; people massacred; violence of every kind,” wrote Francis.

“The violent attacks that are sweeping across Northern Iraq cannot but awaken the consciences of all men and women of goodwill to concrete acts of solidarity by protecting those affected or threatened by violence and assuring the necessary and urgent assistance for the many displaced people as well as their safe return to their cities and their homes.”