Pope Francis on WWIII: ‘First it was your turn and now it is our turn’

According to Pope Francis, we are not on the cusp of World War III—we’re already in the middle of it.

Earlier this month the Pope and a group of Jewish leaders met in the Vatican, where Pope Francis compared the current persecution of Christians in the Middle East to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust.

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“Pope Francis told us privately that he believes we are in World War Three,” said the head of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald S. Lauder, according to The Telegraph.

Lauder claimed that the Pope told the World Jewish Congregation, “First it was your turn and now it is our turn.”

“In other words, first Jews suffered savage attacks that were met with the world’s silence,” Lauder explained, “And now it is Christians who are being annihilated and the world is silent.”

This isn’t the first time Pope Francis has warned of a Third World War.

During a centenary celebration on Sept. 13 at Italy’s largest military cemetery, the Pope claimed that World War III may have already started, yet said the signs are slightly more subtle than they were during the first two World Wars.

While World War I and World War II had definite beginnings, Pope Francis believes that World War III has begun as a “piecemeal” war, meaning that it is marked by smaller atrocities against mankind instead of by gunfire on a battlefield.

“Even today, after the second failure of another world war, perhaps once can speak of a third war, one fought piecemeal, with crimes, massacres, and destruction,” Pope Francis said in his homily.

According to BBC News, the massacres and destruction that the Pope spoke of referred to the Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an extremist organization that has killed and displaced thousands of people, many of them Christians, in these Middle Eastern countries.