Pope Francis Laments 'Continuing Martyrdom Cruelly Inflicted on Christians' Across the Globe

Pope Francis condemned the killing of innocent Christians by Islamic State militants on Monday after 30 Ethiopians were shown being shot and beheaded in Libya on a purported ISIS video.

In a message to Patriarch Abuna Matthias of the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church, Pope Francis expressed his solidarity, citing the "continuing martyrdom" being meted to Christians in different parts of the world.

"With great distress and sadness I learn of the further shocking violence perpetrated against innocent Christians in Libya," said the highest leader of the Catholic Church.

"I reach out to you in heartfelt spiritual solidarity to assure you of my closeness in prayer at the continuing martyrdom being so cruelly inflicted on Christians in Africa, the Middle East and some parts of Asia," the Pontiff said.

The video showed ISIS militants calling Christians "crusaders" who are out to kill Muslims.

About 15 men were beheaded on a beach while 15 other men were shot in the head in a shrubland.

Pope Francis maintained that the "blood" of Christians, whether Catholic, Copt, Orthodox, or Protestant, is the "one and the same in their confession of Christ."

"The blood of our Christian brothers and sisters is a testimony which cries out to be heard by everyone who can still distinguish between good and evil," he said.

Almost 150 people at a university in Kenya, singled out as Christians, were massacred by al-Shabaab gunmen earlier this month.

Twenty-one Egyptian Coptic Christians were beheaded by ISIS militants in Libya last February.

Meanwhile, the Vatican defended Pope Francis's decision to canonize Junipero Serra, the 18th-century Spanish Franciscan priest who founded missions in California, amid allegations that the priest brutalized Native Americans.

Francis is set to declare Serra a saint when he visits the National Shrine in Washington on Sept. 23 as part of his trip to the United States. The Pope will also visit New York and Philadelphia.

Critics accused Serra of beating and imprisoning Native Americans following his arrival in what is now California in the 1760s. Serra was said to have suppressed the native Indian cultures. The priest was also rumored to have facilitated the spread of diseases that killed countless Native Americans.

Despite this, Father Criscuolo, a Franciscan from the Vatican department for the causes of saints, defended Serra, saying "he was a man of his times."

Criscuolo acknowledged that the Spanish priest might have been involved in corporal punishment. He said this was understandable since corporal punishment was commonly used by Spanish an educational tool during the time, particularly by Spaniards, but rejected accusations from some Native Americans that in Serra's case it amounted to genocide.

"It (corporal punishment) can't be excluded but it certainly was not genocide," Criscuolo said at a press briefing in the Vatican.

Serra was beatified – the final step before sainthood – by the late Pope John Paul in 1988 after a miracle was attributed to him. Pope Francis then fast-tracked sainthood procedures when he discarded Catholic Church rules that required another miracle before sainthood could be bestowed.