Last week, Pope Francis made some startling remarks about the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo. Speaking to journalists, he not only said that freedom of speech shouldn’t include the right to ridicule religion, but that if anyone does ridicule religion, violence is an appropriate response!

Asked about the attack that killed 12 people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo – targeted because it had printed depictions of the prophet Muhammad – he said: “One cannot provoke, one cannot insult other people’s faith, one cannot make fun of faith. “There is a limit. Every religion has its dignity… in freedom of expression there are limits.” He gestured to Alberto Gasparri, who organises papal trips and was standing by his side, and added: “If my good friend Dr Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch. 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.”

I admit, when I saw this story, I couldn’t believe that the pope was saying what it looks like he’s saying. I read it and reread it several times looking for the qualifier. But there isn’t one. There’s no reasonable way to interpret this statement other than as an endorsement of violence against those who offend or mock religion. Pope Francis says that this reaction is “normal”. (The Vatican later issued a legalistic disclaimer asserting that the pope didn’t really mean what he said.)

This goes to reinforce Sam Harris’ point – which I still agree with, though I may differ with him on other things – that moderate religion protects and enables fundamentalism. There’s a symbiotic relationship between the two: moderate believers spread the message that faith is beneficial and benign, creating an atmosphere in which fundamentalism is normalized; in return, the fundamentalists agitate for total theocracy, which allows the moderates to stake out ground to say that while they may not want their religion to control everything, can’t we at least compromise and make it illegal to criticize or ridicule people’s beliefs?

This pope is renowned for liberalism. Since his selection, he’s won plaudits from liberal commentators for his rhetoric – even The Advocate named him its person of the year. But this goes to show that where it really counts, he hasn’t brought change and isn’t likely to.

It was obvious to everyone that his predecessor’s caustic obey-or-else rhetoric was driving people away from the church. It’s no surprise, then, that Pope Francis wants to reverse this decline by putting a more welcoming face on Catholicism. And I’m certainly not opposed to him speaking more often about poverty and climate change. Even so, he represents a shift in emphasis more than in policy.

He hasn’t altered the church’s opposition to birth control and abortion. He hasn’t budged on the equal rights of women. He hasn’t done much of anything to punish the bishops who covered up for predator priests. He’s softpedaled the Vatican’s views on gay rights, but the church continues to be a major force lobbying against marriage equality, continues to excommunicate progressive priests, and continues to fire employees of its schools and other institutions simply for being gay. In fact, Francis may be more troubling than his predecessor, because he puts a friendly face on this regressive theology and surrounds it with appealing sentiments of concern for the poor.

All these issues are woven tightly together. If you care about poverty and the environment, you should champion women’s right to use contraception and control the size of their families. If you seek justice, you should stop trying to deprive people of love or livelihood because of their sexual orientation. And if you want peace on earth, you have to accept a true right of tolerance for differing opinions – rather than arguing that every religion should be able to put limits on freedom of expression and lash out violently against people who step on whatever rhetorical turf it’s claimed for itself.