Allahu Akbar

Allahu Akbar, meaning “God is great,” is the phrase reported from a suicide bomber at the Piazza del Risorgimento during coordinated attacks as the cardinals were electing a new Pope. The words serve first as evidence in an account of the violence, then as a flashpoint: Monsignor O’Malley condemns their use, while Jacopo Baldassare Lomeli warns against turning the attacks into a religious war and Goffredo Tedesco argues that the Church must understand them as one.

Meaning and First Report

The phrase is explicitly translated in the scene as “God is great.” After reports of a car bomb and a suicide bomber at the Piazza del Risorgimento, Lomeli asks whether the attackers were Islamists. O’Malley replies that several eyewitnesses say the bomber shouted “Allahu Akbar,” presenting the words as a reported detail that makes the attackers’ religious identification appear, to him, unmistakable.

O’Malley’s response makes the phrase more than a piece of evidence. Shaking his head in disgust, he says, “How these people slander the Almighty!” His remark treats the invocation as a desecration of the name of God. Lomeli immediately cautions him against emotion: an armed attack in Rome is appalling, he says, but interpreting attacks across three countries as the beginning of a religious war could shape how the world understands the crisis.

From Eyewitness Account to Official Record

The phrase recurs when Lomeli presents information to the assembled cardinals. His summary, prepared by the press office with the Holy See’s security service, places the car bomb at 11:20 that morning and says that an individual detonated explosives strapped to his body shortly afterward, as people fled. It characterizes the reports that the bomber cried “Allahu Akbar” as multiple and credible eyewitness accounts.

This repetition carries the phrase from an initial exchange into the formal record of the emergency. The account also describes two gunmen opening fire during Mass at San Marco Evangelista, where prayers had been offered for the conclave; both attackers were reportedly shot dead. In that setting, the Arabic words are one specific element in a larger account of simultaneous violence, not an explanation by themselves of the attackers’ full motives or of the wider conflict.

Disputed Significance

The cardinals do not agree on what the attacks mean for their deliberations. Lomeli urges restraint, distinguishing the fact of an armed attack from the consequences of framing it as a religious war. Tedesco, by contrast, condemns the Church’s response as weakness and invokes the killings at the Piazza del Risorgimento and San Marco Evangelista to argue that Christians are under attack. He connects that claim to a broader denunciation of Islam in Europe and to his criticism of Lomeli’s doctrinal outlook.

The phrase therefore acquires political force through the interpretations attached to it. Its reported use helps authenticate the immediate account for the cardinals, while O’Malley’s condemnation and Tedesco’s rhetoric turn it into part of an argument about religion, violence, and the Church’s response. Lomeli’s warning marks the distinction the scene keeps under pressure: identifying what witnesses say they heard is not the same as deciding that the violence inaugurates a religious war.