Pope Francis says the Catholic church 'must not surrender' to terrorism, will keep churches unlocked

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 18 November 2015

Alluding Wednesday to last week's terrorist attacks in Paris, Pope Francis announced the Catholic church will not change its open door policy: "Please, no armored doors in the church, everything open."

"There are places in the world where doors should not be locked with a key," the pope said. "There are still some but there are also many where armored doors have become the norm. We must not surrender to the idea that we must apply this way of thinking to every aspect of our lives. To do so to the Church would be terrible."

While many Catholic churches, particularly in more rural areas, do lock up at night, it is traditional for Catholic churches (unlike many Protestant denominations) to keep their doors unlocked during weekdays to allow worshippers to come and go as they please. Francis has previously voiced his enthusiasm for this practice, arguing that church doors "must always be open" because "Churches, parishes, institutions with closed doors must not be called Churches; they must be called museums!"

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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