David Cameron Disagrees With Pope Francis On Free Speech Limits

British Prime Minister David Cameron has expressed disagreement with Pope Francis over the latter's comment that free speech has limits and his warning against provocation of religions.

The Pope told reporters in a news conference aboard a plane bound for Manila from Colombo last week that freedom of expression comes with the duty to speak for "the common good."

"If my good friend Dr. (Alberto) Gasparri (an organizer of his trips) says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch," said the Pope when asked his views on the attack launched by Islamist militants at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris which killed 12 people.

"It's normal, it's normal. You cannot provoke, you cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others," Pope Francis said.

"There are so many people who speak badly about religions, who make fun of them... they are provocateurs. And what happens to them is what would happen to (my dear friend) if he says a word against my mother," the Pope added.

The Pope, however, clarified that nothing can justify the attack.

Cameron said he disagrees with the Pope's views, saying: "I think in a free society, there is a right to cause offense about someone's religion."

"I'm a Christian," Cameron said on Sunday, as reported by CBS News. "If someone says something offensive about Jesus, I might find that offensive, but in a free society I don't have a right to wreak my vengeance upon them. We have to accept that newspapers, magazines can publish things that are offensive to some as long as it's within the law."

Cameron said as a politician, "my job is not to tell a newspaper what to publish or what not to publish. My job is to uphold the law that they can publish things within the law."

In fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Cameron said Western countries cannot do it alone.

"If we take the issue of Islamist extremist terrorism coming out of Iraq and Syria, it is going to take a very long time to deal with this...where we'll have to show real perseverance," he said. "We cannot do this on our own as Western countries. We need functioning government in Iraq, functioning government in Syria, to be the legitimate authorities that, with us, help to stand back this perversion of the Islamic religion."

Cameron also emphasized that the fight against Islamic extremism should not be called a "war."

"It has many...similar aspects, but my way of expressing this is that this is just a huge challenge our society faces," he said. "What I don't want to do is try to posit that there's some clash of civilizations going on, because that is what the terrorists want. They want this to be seen as a war between what they see as the true Islam, and the rest, and that's not the case."