On Jan.7, 2015, exactly one year ago, armed Muslim extremists stormed the Paris headquarters of French newspaper Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people. They claimed the attacks avenged the cartoons printed in the publication that depicted offensive images of the Prophet Mohammed.
Hebdo's cover for the one-year-anniversary of the tragedy uses Christian iconography to depict God as a terrorist covered in blood, who is running away with a Kalashnikov slung on his back. The title of the cover reads "L'assasin court toujours," translating roughly as "the assassin is still at large."
In the L'Osservatore Romano article, the Vatican said the decision to use this specific image begs the question: "is the kind of controversy France needs right now?"
France has been site of numerous terrorist attacks over the past year, the most recent of which was a series of coordinated attacks by Islamic terrorists in Paris Nov. 13 that left 129 people dead.
However, the Vatican said the cover choice is "nothing new," and that behind their flag of "uncompromising secularism," Hebdo has forgotten that religious leaders have for some time insisted that "using God to justify hatred constitutes true blasphemy," as Pope Francis has often repeated.
Charlie Hebdo's decision, they said, "illustrates the sad paradox of a world that is becoming so sensitive to political correctness it is verging on the ridiculous, but which doesn't want to recognize or respect the faith in God of every believer, whatever creed they profess."