Jihadists To Conquer Rome?
The first Islamic decapitation on western European soil since the times of the Battle of Vienna (1683) took place on June 26,2015, while the “champion” of the West, Barack Obama, was triumphantly celebrating the legalization of homosexual “marriages” imposed on all the States of the Union by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Exactly twenty years before, on June 21, 1995, the Islamic Mosque in Rome was officially inaugurated – the biggest in Europe, presented as a centre for ecumenical dialogue and religious peace. The only voice of protest heard in Italy at that time was the one of the Lepanto Cultural Centre, which promoted a Rosary of reparation in the church of St. Luigi Gonzaga, right next to the mosque, defining the construction of the Islamic centre in the heart of Rome as “a symbolic act of unspeakable gravity. Rome is the centre of the Catholic Faith: Islam at its very roots, denies the fundamental truths of our faith and intends to implant its dominion on the ruins that was once western Christian Civilization.”
During that same period, between 1992 and 1995, the ethnic and religious war was going on in Bosnia, the first “mediatic-war” of modern times, but also the most distorted by the media. The politically correct version of the conflict, presented the image of a prevalently Muslim government, but in actual fact – multicultural, besieged by radical nationalists, the Croatians and Serbians, determined to annihilate the Muslims in Bosnia. The truth ignored was that Bosnia was al-Qa’ida’s first global Jihad front and the first international event from which Islam gained enormous benefits.
John R. Schindler, an American analyst who spent almost a decade in the Balcan area, did a penetrating analysis on that war (Unholy Terror: Bosnia, Al-Qa’ida, and the Rise of Global Jihad, Zenith Press, St Paul, Minnesota 2007), which on many points coincided with those of Alexandre Del Valle, the geopolitical scholar, (Guerres contre l’Europe, Edition des Syrtes, Paris 2000). It was in Bosnia during the 1990s, that al-Qaeda, became the multinational of the Jihad under the leadership of Osama Bin Laden and his mujaheddin. Saudi Arabia, which had given thirty-five million dollars for the construction of the Mosque in Rome, spent hundreds in financing the fighters of Islamic guerilla warfare, encouraging young Muslims from all over the world to engage in the holy war in Europe. The first act of independent Bosnia, which remained mainly a Christian country, was its adhesion to the Organization of The Islamic Conference, that had assembled 57 Islamic countries, united in their aim of propagating the sharī’a all over the world.
Since then, it has appeared clear that Islam has been moving along two strategic lines. The « sweet » line, aimed at the Islamisation of society through the network of mosques, which constitute centres of politcal and religious propaganda – but also military recruitment – like the one in Milan, in Viale Jenner, which served as the operative base for men, money and arms to arrive in Bosnia. The expression of this «Gramscian » expansion is the Muslim Brotherhood, founded by Hasan al-Banna in 1928, a movement, as Magdi Allam refers, that « promoted the Islamisation of society starting from the base, through the control of mosques, Islamic cultural centres, Koranic schools, charitable entities and financial institutes.» (Kamikaze made in Europe, Mondadori, Milano 2005, p. 22).
Alongside this “sweet” strategic line we find, not in opposition, the “Leninist” line of radical Islam which wants to achieve world supremacy through the instruments of war and terrorism. In recent years this hard line has seen the passage from al-Qa’ida to Isis, an Islamic State which extends from the Aleppo peripheries in Syria to those of Baghdad in Iraq, and has as its declared goal, the reconstruction of that universal Caliphate which as the foremost scholar of Islam, Bat Ye’Or, has made clear since the 1990s, is not the dream of the fundamentalists, but the objective of every true Muslim.
Islam’s diverse strategic lines are today converging into the very same global plan of conquest. During his act of establishing the Jihadist Caliphate, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi in a sermon from the Mosque in Mosul, July 4th 2014, called on all Muslims to join him: if they do so – he promised – Islam will arrive even in Rome and will dominate the world. In the video diffused by Isis the black flag of the Caliphate is seen waving on top of the Vatican, the Coliseum is in flames and a sea of blood is submerging it. Lastly, the statement from the Libyan caliphate: “we are south of Rome”, while Abu Muhammed al Adnani, spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic State and Greater Syria, states: “We will occupy your Rome, we will smash your crosses to pieces, we will reduce your women to slavery.”
The same objective has been proclaimed for more than ten years by the main exponent of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Imam, Yusuf al Qaradawi; in a fatwa promulgated on February 27th 2005, he declared that “in the end, Islam will rule and will be lord over the entire world. One of the signs of its victory is that Rome will be conquered, Europe will be occupied, Christians will be defeated and Muslims will increase and become a force that will control the entire European continent.”
Yusuf Qaradawi (who, after having led the Egyptian “Arab springtime” was condemned to death in absentia by the Supreme Court of Cairo, on June 16th of this year) is the President of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, their headquarters being in Dublin, and a point of theological reference to Islamic organizations with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. His ideas diffused through the satellite channel Al Jazeera, influence a large part of contemporary Islam. For the Muslim Brotherhood, as it is for ISIS, the final objective is not Paris or New York, but the city of Rome, center of the only religion, which Islam, since its very birth, has wanted to annihilate. The real enemy is not the United States or the State of Israel, which did not even exist when Islam arrived at the Gates of Vienna in 1683, but the Catholic Church and Christian civilization, to which Muhammad’s religion is a diabolical parody .
Yet, the words used by St. Pius V and Blessed Innocent XI to incite the Holy War that held back the conquering march of Islam at Lepanto and Vienna are not resounding in Rome today. Moreover, if Pope Francis shares the words of the English Prime Minister, David Cameron, according to whom the attacks of June 26th were not in the name of Islam – since Islam is a religion of peace – the battle, on a purely human level, we can say – is lost.
The West’s response to the actions and war proclamations of Islam would seem to be summed up in the hashtag LoveWins, with which the homosexualist lobby flooded Facebook and Twitter. The inversion of values that this message expresses is destined to turn what it asserts upside down: this is no victory, but slavery, the destiny of a world which repudiates its faith and turns the principles of the natural order upside down.
And yet nothing is irreversible in history. Another hashtag would be worth diffusion on the social network – a silent, but overpowering maxim: in hoc Signo vinces, the insignia impressed on Constantine’s banner at Saxa Rubra containing the history of future generations when men correspond to Divine Grace. Help from Heaven is never lacking when men of good will fight so that the Cross of Christ triumphs and reigns in souls and the whole of society. Are there still such men in the West? Source
Comments invited…
Comments (77)
One does not have to be a genius to realise that Rome is the ultimate ‘prize’ of the Muslims. The two most holy centres of Christianity have been conquered by the Muslims, Jerusalem in 637 and Constantinople in 1453. We all know how the Ottomans ruled its territories, and how the supposedly secular Republic of Turkey treats Christians today, with the threat to turn Hagia Sophia back into a Mosque after being a Museum since 1935, the refusal to reopen the Orthodox seminary at Halki, closed since 1971 and the refusal to recognise the title of Patriarch Bartholomew as the Ecumenical Patriarch. Also, the Patriarch must be a Turkish citizen. There are only around 5,000 Greek Orthodox in Turkey, so this is an attempt to drive the Church into extinction. There are 18,000 Antiochian Orthodox under John X’s authority, and he is based in Syria, but the Antiochians are under Bartholomew’s spiritual authority as head of the Orthodox Church. There is much more to say on this, but I feel it is largely irrelevant to this discussion.
That was interesting to read about the role Islamism played in Bosnia, with the Saudis financing the Bosnian guerrillas. Bartholomew declared that Karadzic had been ‘chosen by God to protect the western border of Orthodoxy’. I would say that he was ‘chosen’ to protect Christianity in general. I personally am glad the Orthodox Church is ‘booming’ in Russia and Eastern Europe with full monasteries, convents, seminaries and churches, as they have a certain degree of fanaticism, or at least that’s the impression I have, with them having a siege mentality after centuries of oppression.
I doubt that Muslims will conquer Rome militarily, as that would have be done after defeating Italy and NATO/ EU allies, but I fear a terrorist attack on the Vatican and an attempt on the Pope’s life.
Two interesting articles to send to your MPs to prove ISIS is Islamic:
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/03/robert-spencer-in-the-daily-caller-is-the-islamic-state-islamic-of-course-it-is
“I doubt that Muslims will conquer Rome militarily …”.
Fatima vision of the Pope being killed?
Gradually more people are seeing the problem, but the solution!? Now that is another issue. But does not Fatima suggest that Rome falls? Anyway I will provide a more considered reply when I get Noel Malcolm’s latest book Agents of Empire when I will quote from the Preface; on what he says about an issue the woman who drilled in it to me” Beware of any Traditional Catholic who wants a Vatican 3 it is not that what is wanted but a Trent 2 for our times”, for they do not understand the snares of Satan are in The Church or do and are hidden heretics.
Editor: I have removed your surname and email address from this post – let me know if you wish them to be restored. I’m guessing that you have not remembered my previous advice to go into the dashboard and put “Michael” into the space where it says “display name publicly as” and then save. If you are not bothered about having your surname publicly displayed, that’s fine by me. I can only remove it once your comment has been published.
In this sign will we conquer
I read before, I don’t know who it was who said it, that:
“A civilisation is not conquered from without until it is first conquered from within.”
Islam is only making inroads into Europe because she has already lost her religion. If it weren’t for that, there would be no fear of Islam taking over. When Muslims started immigrating to Europe, I don’t think they initially had the intention of taking over and becoming a threat to Western civilisation. I think the majority believed they were coming to Christian countries, but what they found here when they arrived was not what they were expecting. In terms of religion they did not find a Christian continent but an empty house swept clean. We will not see another Lepanto, because we don’t have a pope who would call a crusade. I shudder to think what would happen if Isis were to land in Scotland. The majority of people would convert on the spot.
Perhaps, as this article says, the militant Islamists want to take over Rome. But as Catholic Convert says above, they will first have to take it from, not the Catholics, but the Modernists. The Catholics were driven out at Vatican 2.
It has been said by many Western politicians and observers that the Islamists “hate our way of life.” I hate our way of life too. In terms of the natural law, I’m with the Muslims before I am with our decrepit Western standards. As the article states, on the very day when the murders in Tunisia and the murder in France took place, the world was celebrating the mockery of marriage that was taking place in the US. It is often pointed out that women are frequently mistreated in Muslim countries, and perhaps they are. But is it any worse than the West, where promiscuity is almost considered a virtue, and women are “free” to destroy their own fertility and go out on a bender that ends with vomiting up a skinful of alcohol and kebab before waking up next to a complete stranger? And if the contraception didn’t work, they can always butcher their child in the womb. Apparently, that makes women liberated.
One thing that this article does not bring up, but I will because I think it is related, is he issue of drug abuse. There is currently a drive in many Western countries to legalise marijuana. In the case of Lee Rigby’s murderers, as well as those in Paris, Ottawa and Tunisia, the assailants all had histories of drug abuse and mental health problems. In the Sydney attack, I’m not sure, but there was a mental health problem and it would not surprise me to discover that the murderer had a drug problem in the past. As our society is driven by libertarian values, and the prevailing wisdom is that marijuana should be legalised, generally these facts are downplayed. In the case of the Ottawa and Lee Rigby murderers especially, the murders had no connection to Islamic terrorist organisations, but were committed by loners who were slightly unhinged and latched onto a militant philosophy in response to our Western way of life bereft of any meaningful philosophy. But it suits the Western media to exaggerate the Islamic connection, when really, Isis wouldn’t have had them.
The only way for this to change is to return to what made Europe great in the first place. For Catholics it means staying close to the Sacraments, praying the rosary and trying to live a good life in conformity with the gospel. Russia does seem to be moving slowly in the right direction, but the Orthodox Church is in schism. But hopefully that will change, and if it does, I think we’ll be seeing a few more changes!
Wonder how long the Orangemen would be allowed to walk if they were singing “we’re up to the knees in Muslim Blood ” they would have to sell all of those Shawadaywady Suits you see them marching up and down with . Also very interesting today as bodies being brought back from Tunisia Massacre by brave Muslims ,shooting unarmed holidaymakers there were S N P politicians arguing that they should be allowed to bring their Manbags into the House of Commons. It’s really good to see our Homo -Politicians getting their priorities right . Talk about Nero fiddling while Rome burned you couldn’t make it up . As for our peaceful Islamic brothers the best way to hit them is in their pockets,they love their money more than they hate us . Stop going into their shops and buying their overpriced goods . Every scheme in Scotland has now a corner Moslem shop selling our youngsters cheap booze and that’s because Councillors took the Brown Envelopes to allow them an Alcohol License . To Finnish off ,the way all of those young Muslim girls are going over to I S S is for men pure and simple . Daddy is showing them some ugly cousin over in Pakistan about 35 years older than them whom they have arranged to marry and there off to Syria to find a head chopper. Not once has this scenario been mentioned in our Media and it’s as plain as the nose on their faces ,when you get a chance to see them . Also why are these Hideous Mosques given money from the E U to help make them more ugly . As for quotes from Moslems up here wanting their own schools . If they took the time to look and see why Catholic Schools were built they would see that the Protestants didn’t want us in their schools and our Granparents Greatgranparents etc had to build parish schools for their children’s education . I know our faith teaches love and tolerance ,but in my instance it’s definitely worn out .
FOOF
I always wondered why Muslims were allowed to take control of so many of our Post Offices.
It’s a bit like allowing Germans to run them during the war.
These places, especially in this day and age, should be nationalised rather than allowing anyone to run them.
The Catholic schools in the cities have a full complement of muslims. In Glasgow you will see girls in the uniform of Notre Dame high School and hijabs.
Our bishops have given up. They seen ignorant of the struggle that Scottish Catholics engaged in to ensure that their children could go to Catholic schools.
Scottish Catholics, often not very well off, paid taxes to the state to include the cost of education and also paid for private schools so that their children could receive a Catholic education. They paid twice. All betrayed by our mealie-mouthed, cowardly hierarchy.
I find it very hard to believe that the Jihadists will conquer Rome or even get close.
However, I don’t agree with Alex F that “Islam is only making inroads into Europe because she has already lost her religion.”
Islam is a religion of the sword, not of peace as we keep hearing in the media. It originally spread by conquering Christian places and it does aim for conversion to Islam of everyone.
That would make for a really interesting conversation in the public square if Catholics and Muslims were allowed to debate without fear of being branded bigots, but I don’t think it is helpful to pretend the Islam is not a missionary religion when it definitely is.
Islam is most certainly a missionary religion, unlike Catholicism which effectively banned proselytism in the wake of V2. European Muslims, when they came to this continent at first, genuinely believed it was going to be a Christian civilisation, and were happy to live within that framework. The overwhelming majority have slotted into modern Europe and have been successful. It’s not their fault that Christians stopped being Christian. They have larger families than their neighbours, but they are not to blame for Europeans using contraception. They are more visible in the practice of their religion but it’s not their fault that Christians are not living like Christians.
Alex,
You’re right – it’s not their fault that Christians are not living like Christians but that is no reason to force conversions to Islam. And I’ve known people who lived for a time in predominantly Muslim countries and were unimpressed by the double-living there. Christians do not have a monopoly on sin and hypocrisy!
I didn’t say that Christians have a monopoly on sin and hypocrisy. I remember when we first invaded Afghanistan after 9/11. I was speaking to a very traditionally-minded priest who said that the New World order cannot work unless Islam is broken as Christianity was. Now we have the Masonic West and the Islamic East squaring up to each other. For Catholicism it means that our enemies are fighting among themselves but we are in the cross fire. George W Bush called military deployment in Afghanistan a “Crusade,” a detail that did not go unnoticed among Jihadists. They were all wrong. Only a pope has the authority to call a Holy Crusade- not the President of the USA.
Islam is the enemy of Christendom- there is no doubt about that. But in the past, God has used Islam as a chastisement when there has been apostasy in the Church. I believe that is what we are seeing today. I fear we are getting distracted by Islam when the real enemy of Christendom today is Modernism.
There have been Christian communities throughout the Middle East for longer than there have been Muslims. For the most part they have thrived and lived at peace with their Muslim neighbours. However, in the past ten years or so, we have seen a mass exodus of a people who have lived there for centuries, and I can’t blame them for wanting to leave- if I lived in the Middle East right now, I would be doing anything I could to get out. By getting rid of all the dictatorships in the Middle East we have left a Christian population without any protection as most their Muslim neighbours saw them as being associated with the West.
While Islam may be the enemy of Christendom, individual Muslims, just as anyone who follows a false religion, are not. Isis have murdered more Muslims than any of their other victims since they started their barbaric campaign. Most Muslims are rightly horrified by the scenes from Tunisia, including the hotel staff and medical personnel, themselves Muslim, who put themselves in mortal danger to protect vulnerable tourists- just as most Irish Catholics were appalled by Irish terrorist murders in Enniskillen, Warrington and Omagh.I think we do have to bear that in mind. We want Muslims to convert to Catholicism, but they won’t do that if we gratuitously insult them.
“Most Muslims are rightly horrified by the scenes from Tunisia…”
Not sure you’re right about that, Alex F:-
Shocking New Study Reveals Just How Many Muslims Support ISIS (And It’s Frightening)
Tell me about it. You only have to read the many reports about killed or arrested Islamic terrorists to see their attachment to pornography, drugs etc. Osama Bin Laden was found to have a large stash of pornography in his hideout. The beach killer at Sousse had cocaine (or some equivalent) in his system . . . the list goes on. The killing of ‘infidels’ aside – if they truly believed they were doing God’s work and trying to be holy, they wouldn’t be ogling at porn and doing drugs.
Islam as a missionary religion. “Accept Islam or we will behead you and/or and burn your children in front of you.”
Therese,
Exactly.
I’m not so sure that Alex is correct to say the Muslims coming to a Christian country would have been happy to live within that framework but we’ll never know, given that, as Alex correctly points out, they found themselves in an anything but Christian Europe.
Quite so. Full control and sharia law is the aim, regardless of how devout we are as Christians, or not. As it was before so it is now. The battle of Tours will need to be fought once more, not outside Vienna, but inside Birmingham.
Come on Ed Muslims never ever want to be on the same plain as other religions,or belief systems. Just resurrect Ghandi and he,l tell you how they wanted to be masters first and only first.You only need to visit or look at any Muslim Country to see what an abomination Islam is .
FOOF,
Yes, the Islamic countries are very strict, no question about it. They are not at all tolerant of Christians practising their religion, certainly not in public while we permit mosques and make provision for the Friday prayers (at one time, not sure if it still happens, schoolchildren in Strathclyde were allowed out of school early to attend prayers in the mosques on Fridays.)
I think Alex is making the point that perhaps if they had encountered a thriving Christian life in these parts, things may have been different. They sure would, because – as happened prior to Vatican II, when converts were lining up to become Catholics – the Church would surely have attracted converts from Islam had we presented the Church with it’s four recognisable marks: one, holy, catholic and apostolic, not just one, catholic and apostolic. Get it? 😀
PS – to avoid confusion; the Church IS (always) “holy” because Christ is holy and Christ and His Church are one. Also, the holiness of the Church comprises the Church Triumphant in Heaven, Suffering in Purgatory and Militant on earth, not just at this (or any other) moment in time, but from the beginning. Still, just as his inability to see “holy” as a mark of the Church (on earth, before he understood the teaching fully) kept Cardinal John Henry Newman from converting, until he met (Blessed) Dominic Barberi, so the apparent lack of holiness in the Church today is undoubtedly preventing many who would otherwise convert, from seeing the truth of the unique claim of Catholicism, to be the sole means of salvation, given to us by God.
The affirmation that what took place in France on June is the first Islamic beheading to take place on Western European soil since the Battle of Vienna forgets the brutal murder of drummer Lee Rigby in London in 2013.
When I was at university in the early to mid 1980s, I was priviliged to know a rather distinguished old chap, a devout Catholic, who lectured in medieval history. I remember his saying in a talk to Catholic students that the West was standing on the edge of a cultural and political abyss. He was talking precisely about the decline of Christianity and the rise of Islam. I remember too another lecturer, again a historian, came to address a small group of Catholic students on the same subject. She would only do so on the condition that her talk was behind closed doors for fear of a possible reaction, for even at that time there were numerous Islamic students and the authorities at this ancient Scottish university had even provided them with a prayer-room on its premises.
Of course, when one is young one tends to minimize grave pronouncements by older people. And the prevailing cultural wind at the time was one of cultural and moral relativism. But as the years have passed and I have grown into middle-age, my mind often goes back to both these lecturers and to their very clear thinking. Of course, it wasn’t rocket science. The demographics were there for all to see. But these academics warned of what would happen if uncontrolled islamic immigration were allowed to continue in parallel with the failure of racial and cultural integration.
If the West seems strong, it is only because its past glories prevent us from looking down at its feet of clay. From a cultural point of view, it has never been weaker. Its culture, once Christian, is now one of religious and moral relativism which places the individual at the centre of everything at the expense of the state and the common good, and this against a background of PC terror which prevents honest, open debate about practically any issue that conflicts with PC dogma. Thus all cultures must be held to be of equal value even if they manifestly are not. The same with religions, but in this case their equality stems from the fact that they are all untrue and therefore to be treated as deceptive lies, except in the case of Islam which must be pandered too because its votaries are black and therefore victims of racism.
Where does the Church stand in all of this? I remember reading years ago a piece on the life of the great English Jesuit, Martin D’Arcy. It was said that about 1974 he had labelled a newspaper photograph of a circus elephant standing on its head with the caption ‘The New Look and Stance of the Society of Jesus.’ What applied to the Jesuits in 1974 today applies to the Catholic Church in its entirety. And it will not be Holy Father Francis to change things for the better.
I remember saying to someone in the late 80s that islam was an arrow aimed at the heart of the West. Oh, how he scoffed. Now, he wakes in the morning to the cry of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. In the North of England.
Editor, I need a little help from your pen to correct ‘votaies’ to ‘votaries’ in my penultimate paragraph.
Oops … I now see that my comment of 4.33 am has gone into moderation.
Prognosticum,
It probably went into moderation because the name Martin is in there and we have a troll of that name in moderation. Hence any posts with that name included, will go to moderation – sorry about that.
I’ve now made the correction you requested plus amended “newslaper” to “newspaper” in your final paragraph. All’s well that ends well! Will delete the posts relating to moderation and correction later, when you’ve read them.
About 15 years ago I was on a bus in Dublin when an elderly lady asked a young Muslim for a seat. The latter replied: “You are finished, old lady. We will outbreed you”. And they will, God help us!
A reader has just emailed me the following Times article, which I thought might be of interest on this thread:
Subject: It’s pure myth that Islam is ‘a religion of peace’ Melanie Phillips
Eliminating terrorists is only half the task; we must encourage reform of the Muslim faith
Behind the horror and revulsion at the slaughter in Tunisia there is also deep concern that the world is apparently being overwhelmed by acts of unimaginable barbarity. Three Islamist attacks — the beheading of a transport manager in France, plus the Sousse massacre and the human bomb attack in Kuwait by Isis — took place in different continents on the same day. Dozens of Islamist attacks have taken place this year alone — in France, Nigeria, Egypt, Pakistan, Copenhagen, Texas, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and elsewhere.
Like other countries, Britain serves as both production line and target for this terrorism. Two weeks ago, we learnt that three Bradford sisters had fled with their children to join Isis. The head of counter-terrorism police, Mark Rowley, has said the rate of terrorist arrests is now nudging one per day.
The purpose of terrorism, let us not forget, is to terrorise: to make us think this movement is now so strong it cannot be overcome. Isis calibrates its barbarities to be ever more shocking in order to have precisely that effect. To give in to such defeatism is therefore to give these terrorists their victory.
In his recent Bratislava speech, David Cameron sounded as if he was finally getting this right. He spoke about the “Islamist extremist ideology” which held that “religious doctrine trumps the rule of law and caliphate trumps nation state”. Crucially, he said this view was being fuelled by those Muslims who, although not endorsing violence, nevertheless bought into some of these prejudices and so gave weight to the extremist narrative.
This is all too correct. Opinion polls suggest that no fewer than one third of British Muslim students support the notion of a caliphate — a global empire based on sharia, in which all Muslims owe total allegiance to the caliph; a similar shocking number support killing to defend, promote or preserve religion.
After the Tunisia atrocity, however, Mr Cameron regrettably regressed to claiming once again that this was “not in the name of Islam” which was “a religion of peace”. This is utterly ludicrous. Islam has a history of violent conquest.
True, millions of Muslims do not support extremist Islam, which aims to turn everywhere into an Islamic theocracy. Nevertheless, this interpretation has dominated the Muslim world (and oppressed Muslims) for decades. Now it is increasingly taking over territory, as the Arab nation state progressively disintegrates into sectarian tribalism.
Isis, which subscribes to the fanatical Salafi school of Islam dating from the 13th century, is motivated by the desire to return to core Islamic doctrine and example. Its belief in the caliphate and the imminent global apocalypse, as well as its ghastly beheadings and crucifixions, are all drawn from Islamic religious texts.
It is not for us non-Muslims to say which interpretation is the true Islam. Our task is instead not just to destroy those carrying out these terrible deeds but also to defeat the beliefs that motivate them. We need to see this rather like the struggle against Soviet communism: a battle of ideas within the Islamic world.
For that battle is now under way. There are brave and isolated Muslims who understand they need to reform their religion. We should be giving them every encouragement and holding our breath that they succeed. For this menace can only be defeated if the Muslim world reforms itself.
Instead, every time someone says that Islam is a religion of peace, the reformers’ legs are kicked from underneath them. For if there is nothing wrong with Islam, it follows there is no need to reform it.
The West’s problem is that it just doesn’t get religious fanaticism. It doesn’t recognise its appeal to young Muslims stranded between cultures, and whose idealism is channelled into hatred and violence by a cocktail of religious myth and political paranoia (fed, incidentally, by a western intelligentsia that tells them at every turn the West is an evil oppressor). It also doesn’t understand that, in Arab and Muslim eyes, western weakness is an incentive to further violence. In Syria, the West has stumbled from vacillation to paralysis.
Meanwhile Iran, which backs President Assad of Syria, and which the US State Department says is increasing its sponsorship of terror around the world, is being treated as a credible negotiating partner over its nuclear programme. Scarcely less lethal is the West using Iran to fight Isis, whose destabilising potential Tehran has every interest in perpetuating.
The weakness of the West is not so much military as civilizational. Both Sunni and Shia Islamists understand this very well. Who can be surprised, therefore, that they exult with every atrocity as they watch liberalism consume itself from within. END.
It’s pure myth that Islam is ‘a religion of peace’ – Melanie Phillips
Ms Phillips is delusional as is anyone who believes that there are moderate muslims or that islam can be reformed. There is only islam and there are only muslims. No compromise is possible. The q’ran sets out their implacable emnity. Her response is to say “please change”.
I absolutely agree with Melanie Phillips. When I heard David Cameron spouting about “Islam being a religion of peace” I just about shouted at the television set! Peace my foot!
I have a desire to shout at the television every time I see David Cameron appear on it too! Not least at this time because he is capitalising on the Tunisia massacre to create a pretext for military action in Syria.
Helen, I’ve become so sick of the ‘religion of peace’ line that I decided to have a look at this oh so holy Quran for myself. While I couldn’t stomach more than an hour or two, it was enough to make me understand that it IS a religion of peace, but it is a peace that is to be shared only between the ‘believers’. ‘Unbelievers are to be ‘slain where they are found’! As far as I got, I read it not as a book concerned primarily with teaching a way of life to the ‘believers’, but as one constantly contrasting ‘believers’ and ‘unbelievers’, which latter include Christians and Jews explicitly named. ‘Unbelievers’, certain to be consigned to hell, and in the power of Satan, are to be avoided and hated – and ‘slain where they are found’. Muslims, learning all this by rote from childhood must be caught between fear and hate. There is no room here for ‘integration’ with ‘unbelievers’, and there is much to explain the ‘radicalisation’ of ISIS and other terrorist groups without the media breast-beating about them. The observant Muslim must be by definition an enemy of all non-Muslims, especially, their holy book tells them, Christians and Jews. The Quran is surely a book which incites religious hatred of non-Muslims and for that reason alone should be reviled.
This talk about a New World Order has maybe prompted the Muslims to decide that if there is to be only one religion that it is going to be theirs.
David Cameron and his kind can hardly complain about beheadings while the same things are happening in hospitals near all of us during the slaughter of unwanted babies.
Instead of wasting time and money on their Armed Forces Days they should send their troops to face up to these “militants” (it was only the Irish who were terrorists) and let us see what they are made of.
Or could it be that they are just totally terrified of them?
Those who talk about shouting at their televisions: why do you have one in the house? Throw it out. I wouldn’t put a bucket of poison near my children. Why then a television?
About the West now:
Collapse of faith first
Collapse of morals second
Collapse of economy and finance last
Islam / Anti-Christ steps in.
Ben,
You have touched on something that is of the first importance: the need for Christians to subtract themselves from the smoke and mirrors of the mainstream mass media. Not only is television problematic, but so are facebook, twitter and the internet in general.
The trouble is that if you subtract yourself you become ignorant of, and ill-equipped to fight against, the evils that are consuming society.
Christina,
I agree. This let’s withdraw from the mass media mentality drives me nuts, with all due respect gentlemen.
I can appreciate (and agree) that where children are concerned parents need to protect them and monitor their entertainment, but any adult who cannot filter out the undesirable stuff and take a disciplined and intelligently sceptical (when it comes to news and documentaries) approach to the media, does not, I have to say, enjoy my sympathy. Quite the reverse.
Best practice, to use the jargon of the professional world, is for Catholics to be in but not of the world – and that means being able to use the things of this world to best effect, and ultimately for the glory of God. It’s not so long since one “traditional” priest exhorted his flock to stay away from blogs, notably this one, so, go figure, as the saying goes. Extremism is unattractive in its every aspect. It is not the Catholic way to be extreme. If you recall, Archbishop Lefebvre made the distinction between modernism in the Faith and “modernity” – giving the example of long-distance travel. He said he would no longer travel by steam ship on a long journey but by airplane (see his Open Letter to Concerned Catholics).
Do not looking for porn on the internet, of course. Goes without saying, although I’ve just said it! We filter out and avoid the evil, again goes without saying… But the internet per se, like television and radio, is not evil – these things are not evil in and of themselves, and, on the contrary, can be used to do a lot of good, and to give glory to God. That’s how Catholics should use them, and to take a cult-like attitude to the modern means of communication where they can be used to do good (although not to become an obsession) is, to say the least, wrong-headed and even foolish. Leaves us open to being called… well… cult-like!
So, I’m with you on this one, Christina. Say, “thank you, Editor… 😀
I am not talking here about aeroplanes over steamships. I am talking about the mainstream mass media which is by any standard pagan in the extreme. Of course television, radio, the internet, etc., are, as technologies, morally neutral. A rifle too is morally neutral, and a useful too in the hands of a soldier, a farmer or a hunter, but in the hands of a bank-robber or a terrorist …
We underestimate screen-based technologies at our peril. The shift from a text-based culture to a screen-based one holds numerous untold dangers which few are yet alive to. This will certainly facilitate the technocratic vision of humanity which wishes to deprive us of our spatio-temporal coordinates.
There is very little to be gained today by frequenting the likes of the Daily Record, the BBC or Sky, to name but a few. They are all of them based on a vision of the world which is consciously antithetical to Christ. Unless one has a developed critical sense, frequenting such media can only cause harm, even if only because one is continually up against an anti-Christian view of the world. Sooner or later, such frequentation will eat away at hope before undermining faith and charity. As the saying goes, one needs a long spoon to sup with the devil.
We must not be complacent. To take one example: homosexual marriage. Where did it come from? Who wanted it? If it hadn’t been for its supporters in the mass media, it would never have grown legs.
We are in an age of dictatorship as the prevailing liberal-fascism uses the mass media to impose its PC dogma. Thus public opinion is increasingly meaningless.
Again, this is no time for complacency or for appeasing evil.
Who, precisely, is being “complacent”?
You write:“There is very little to be gained today by frequenting the likes of the Daily Record, the BBC or Sky, to name but a few. They are all of them based on a vision of the world which is consciously antithetical to Christ…” but how do you know that if you haven’t “frequented” them?
You then, rightly, go on to acknowledge the need for a critical faculty and of course that is implicit in what I wrote.
But don’t blame the media for homosexual “marriage” and every other immoral law in the land. The blame for that lies squarely, and without any excuse, at the feet of the Pope and the Bishops. Don’t let them off the hook by blaming the media – that is one of the major errors in the Catholic world today – blame secularism. To this day Pope Francis has remained silent about the “marriage” referendum in Ireland and the Supreme Court ruling in the USA.
Educators, both parents and teachers, should be enabling the young to develop their critical faculty. Not much point, though, if there’s no way to exercise it.
With the best will in the world, I fail to see how the Pope and the Bishops can be blamed for gay marriage or the secularism of which it is an expression. You fail to see that the powerhouse for this question, as for much else, is the United States of America which has never been a Catholic country. There are far greater forces at work here than the insufficiencies of the Irish Bishops or the (hitherto) very short Pontificate of Francis.
To blame the rise and advance of secularism on the deficiencies of the Church is simplistic in the extreme and will simply not wash. It denotes a dualistic world vision which is not Catholic, as if the only actors on the stage were the Church and the world. God and his Providence and the devil and his maleficence must also be factored in as first principles. The Church, which will be a mixture of saints and sinners until Chist separates them at the end of time, can of course, make a difference, but the world is by itself capable of great summersaults of evil as it struggles to remain in the power of its prince. One can no more blame gay marriage on the Church than one can the First or the Second World Wars. Or is the Church too to blame for phenomena like divorce and abortion (again practices of which the United States was the poerhouse) which were enshrined in legislation when the Church was apparently in a healthier state than it is today?
We must never lose sight of the fact that ideas often have a very long pedigree. Gay marriage, for example, sinks its roots into the ideas of liberty and equality which preceded and accompanied the French Revolution. Thus it is very much a fruit of the Enlightenment.
The “Enlightenment” and the concepts of liberty and equality (and fraternity) were embraced at Vatican II. And yes, if the bishops had taken a strong stand against divorce and abortion in the UK, I doubt very much if those evils would have found their way into law. Catholics, like everyone else, are following the crowd, their critical faculty (and faith) weakened by what we now term the crisis in the Church – the loss of divine and Catholic faith right at the top of the house. Remember, Cardinal Ciappi, personal chaplain to five popes up to John Paul II, said: “In the Third Secret, it is revealed that the crisis in the Church begins at the top.”
“Simplistic”? You say. Sure thing. Who was it said (St Ireneus I think) “Truth is always simple, it is error which is immense.”
The Church’s mandate is to spread the Faith so that secularism is no more, or certainly not in any position of dominant influence. The ideas of liberty, equality, fraternity, embraced by the Popes and Bishops of the Vatican II era, have killed off the Church’s missionary spirit – to the point where Scotland is now officially a mission land, seen as a good thing by the bishops; an “opportunity”. So, yes, I remain firmly of the opinion that since the hierarchy, right up to and including the recent popes (not just Pope Francis, although he’s by far the worst to date), have broken with Catholic Tradition and decided to go it alone, replacing supernatural faith and endeavour (notably the imperative to convert the world) with human respect and diplomacy, God has – as Scripture warns – left us to it.
I’m going to be away from my computer for most of today so I won’t be able to respond to any responses to this post for some time. I will finish, therefore, with this observation: you say “ideas have a very long pedigree. Gay marriage, for example….”
Sin has a “very long pedigree” – dates right back to the Garden of Eden – and when we had holy pontiffs and diligent bishops, the faithful were able to recognise sin when they fell into it or witnessed it in the world. This is the first time in history that we’ve had Catholics, in droves, voting to legalise sin.
Please do not imagine for one second that this would have happened with Catholics who were properly educated in the Faith and living under the example and active leadership of sound bishops.
Our Lord warned us that the world would always be “the world” so to speak – the world, He said, hated Him, and so it would hate his true followers. Well, the world sure doesn’t hate Papa Francis, the Archbishop of Dublin and generally applauds Catholicism for “moving on” from it’s old fashioned fuddy duddy ways. Vatican II set out to change our thinking about the world – we were now to embrace it, not fight it. Can’t blame secularism for Vatican II which set the scene for what Pope John Paul II described as the “silent apostasy” (in the Church) but which is not quite so “silent” now.
This is all written at top speed so will correct any whoppers on my return… Off now, away from cyber-space. Be good, because, remember… I will be back (God willing!)
Thank you Editor😁😁😁😁!
Both my Russian wife and I agree on this. I’m not against having a flat screen TV in the house which can be connected to an external hard drive so films can be watched. But I would never leave my children alone with one on in the house – you have no idea Editor of what even one sentence said by some “celeb” can suddenly intrude on a child’s consciousness and cause havoc years later.
I use the internet for news, pirate internet streams for rugby and cricket matches.
Apart from that, my dream is to have a library of several thousands books built around the Catholic aith and Looeb’s library of the ancient classics. Who the hell needs anything else? 😀
On Ben, you’re never going to change your mind – that is clear. Someone has already made the excellent point here that watching a soap opera episode with a teenager gave an opportunity to discuss how the media promote evil. This teenager is forewarned and forearmed. A child may be shielded in the home from what ‘celebs’ say and do, but some day, somewhere outside the home, unforewarned and unforearmed he WILL be exposed to it.
Need to be careful with the LOEBs, especially the Green ones!
(Sorry, that didn’t insert).
Prognosticum, with respect, having made your original simple comment about Christians subtracting themselves from the mainstream media, which I took to mean getting rid of the TV etc., which is a head-in–sand attitude that would leave unopposed the evils under discussion, you have, it seems to me, gone on to over-intellectualise and stray away considerably from that one simple point.
Catholics, and especially Catholic bishops and the Catholic Pope should lead their flocks in unmasking and opposing the evils spread by the media. Not only do they not do so, but they are largely complicit by their silence, or worse, and it is increasingly up to the lay arm of the Church militant to inform itself and to oppose those evils. The Irish bishops were certainly to blame for the same-sex ‘marriage’ debacle in Ireland. By their craven surrender to the zeitgeist they encouraged a nominally Catholic population to accept all the filth spewed by the media, in moral ignorance and in complete blindness to sin.
The trouble is Christina that filth sticks to even the holiest soul. Better by far to remove the possible occasion of sin and temptation.
But be honest, Ben, do you really fear that you (or a female after your own heart) may be corrupted or tempted to adopt the world’s (and the BBC’s) view of sodomy, sapphism, abortion, euthanasia, immodesty of all kinds, narcissism, sexualisation of young children, etc., etc., by watching it on TV? It goes without saying that your watching would be not to enjoy as entertainment, but to inform yourself about the nature and extent of evil influences on your neighbour in order to both arm yourself, and be able to counter those influences wherever possible in daily life. As traditional and, I think, informed Catholics, surely we have a duty to do this? As has been said many times, so many of our bishops and priests have become wedded to the world and will doubtless carry many of the lambs to hell in a handcart unless we remember that we are called to be ‘soldiers of Jesus Christ’.
Well, it’s a fair question. My answer has to be yes because many people are actually not very bright or are even stupid. And even intelligent people can be taken in by clever propaganda. If propaganda doesn’t work, why then was Goebbels so important to the Nazis, or RT to the Russians today?
Sorry – that was ‘yes’ to your first question!
I know how weak I am. One appoints oneself some kind of moral arbiter, watches TV and then finds that one’s soul has been lost. I think it best to keep the poison well away. You’re only giving the devil a chance to get you. Why give him that chance?
Benedict Carter,
Do you take the same view about books and theatres? Where do you draw the line – will you become a hermit?
We are meant to be laity working in the world, we have to know what is going on and it isn’t possible to rebut something in the media if you have to admit to not reading or viewing it.
You write “watches TV” as if there is no judgment involved. We all have to be careful and be aware to guard our souls, but that’s different and more courageous that putting our heads in the sand and pretending all is well, IMHO.
Yes, all fair questions. I’ve effectively been a hermit (no! I am not nor ever have been, in prison!) for a long time so for me it’s easy. I know the ladies like to watch TV, perhaps it’s partly a gender thing. But to answer you, both Archbishop Lefebvre and JP II were vehement in their advice to chuck out the TV.
Anyway, we can all agree that the Islamists have to be finished off like mad dogs.
We chucked out the TV 8 years ago. Never looked back.
Benedict,
I’ve never read anything from either Archbishop Lefebvre or Pope John Paul II which urged “chucking out TV”. Given the number of times both of them have been filmed, I’d be very surprised indeed.
In any case, that’s a personal opinion and if they did think we should “chuck out our TV” then, that’s interesting. It is not within either of their authority, however, to command it.
I’m keeping mine. Indeed, I’ve recorded A Man For All Seasons, and will be bringing some of my home-schooled pupils to my humble abode to watch it fairly soon, suitably broken up for teaching purposes. That will be followed by a “fun” film (I’ve taped a couple and will watch them first for censorship purposes – U category is normally OK). That will make a rainy day a little more pleasant and, hopefully, do some “Catholic” good. One of my little pupils is in the middle of reading a book about St Thomas More, so he’s looking forward to our “film day” a great deal. I’ve printed off a photo of Chancellor George Osborne and will have to pull all my professionalism to bear in order to conceal my utter contempt for the man, in order to explain a little of the office of Chancellor, which, they will be interested to learn, exists to the present day. So, TV can be a very VERY good thing.
Frankly, I cannot understand Catholics who take a Presbyterian (Wee Free, to be more precise) attitude to modern technology. Used appropriately, it can be a means of great good. One of our priests told me a few weeks ago, that in conversations with the various newcomers to our SSPX chapel, he’s discovered that the majority (if not all) have come via our website and blog. We frequently post video clips from various sources including TV on both our website and blog to educate readers about various aspects of the crisis in the Church.
Anyway, it’s a free (ish) country – those who don’t want TV, needn’t have TV. Having a TV or not having a TV has no bearing on anyone’s Catholicity. And I would add that it is, indeed, a virtue to do away with the TV or internet, if, in a particular case, an individual believes that his/her character is too weak to withstand any temptations which may result from the use of these modern means of communication.
Having said all that, please note that I’ve not even seen a complete news bulletin today! Life in the fast lane… Hectic! 😀
John Paul II : http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/messages/communications/documents/hf_jp-ii_mes_24011994_world-communications-day.html
Archbishop Lefebvre: Last few pages of Open letter to Confused Catholics.
Ben,
Haven’t time to read but I believe you – presumably warning against the dangers of television. I just don’t agree with them that because of possible dangers, we should avoid it. In that case, we have to avoid crossing the road and just about every other potential danger to our souls, such as reading. Does watching TV (when I get the chance! And judiciously) make me any less of a Catholic? ‘Cos, that’s the key thing. That’s all that matters. The rest is merely opinion.
BenCJCarter,
Pope John Paul II did warn of the dangers of television in that letter for Communications Day but he also said this:
“Television can enrich family life. It can draw family members closer together and foster their solidarity with other families and with the community at large. It can increase not only their general knowledge but also their religious knowledge, making it possible for them to hear God’s word, to strengthen their religious identity, and to nurture their moral and spiritual life.”
I don’t think anybody denies that there are dangers in having TV so we need to be vigilant but I don’t like the prohibition argument, which suggests we are unable to control ourselves. I can’t see any virtue in that. I do agree that parents may do away with TV for the sake of their children, while they are being taught the Faith. Even then, though, I prefer the educational approach, teaching them to refuse what is dangerous, as they will have to learn if they are choosing books in their local library, which I hope isn’t banned as well!
I cannot see anything about TV in Archbishop Lefebvre’s Open Letter, and I re-read the last two chapters, one being on family life after reading your post. There is no mention of TV there.
There you are, Ben, John Paul II told you as a parent to be ‘a discriminating television viewer’, and to help form your children’s TV habits. He didn’t tell you to throw it out😀😀😀😀😀.
Christina,
I’m tempted to say “Game, set and match” but terrified I get told off for watching Wimbledon on TV!
For the record, I haven’t watched it, but only because I can never work out who’s winning and who’s losing 😀 Well, be fair – I’m still learning how to play SNAP 😯
This may be of interest to some of you.
http://www.sspx.com.au/organisations/thirdordersspx/letters/2014/SSPX%20Third%20Order%20-%20December%202014.pdf
Summa,
Thanks for that. Interesting, as you say.
I’m still keeping my “spiritual roadblock” – I find it very helpful for lots of reasons 😀
We are not obliged to take the personal opinions of popes and prelates as infallible dogma. I’m sure you are aware of that. Only cult members must slavishly accept every utterance of their leader.
“Only cult members must slavishly accept every utterance of their leader”. LOL. Like the S.N.P
Summa, the bit about single women being able to dress up to ‘ trap potential husbands’ really says a lot about about certain ‘iffy’ attitudes sometimes found in the SSPX. TRAP indeed! Poor things. Gimme a rolling pin.
Summa,
Your link is to the SSPX guidelines for members of the Third Order which is like a lay religious order, they are close to following the evangelical counsels of perfection, so that is for them, not a general rule for everybody.
Even so, the letter recognises that TV is not bad in itself and can be a force for good. It’s just not allowed to Third Order members and nobody forces anybody to join the Third Order. I, personally, have never felt drawn to being a member of any of the Third Orders. If I wanted to live that kind of strict religious life, I would join a convent. Living in the world, I want to be as normal as possible, striving to live according to God’s will in the world.
Editor, Christina, Helen, Margaret Mary
Please note, I only passed on that link to you for information purposes.
Keep the heid!
(saying that, when I’m next in Glasgow, I’m going to have to have a serious word with all of you about the benefits of NOT having TV) 🙂
God bless
PS (It will cost you a coffee though, advice like this isn’t cheap you know)
Summa,
Deal ! I’ll even bring along one of my family members who “chucked” her TV !
Living in the world, I want to be as normal as possible, striving to live according to God’s will in the world.
Margaret Mary, without trying to cause a rumpus, I sense real danger in your post if I read it correctly.
There is almost a distinct contradiction in saying on the one hand you want to be as normal as possible living in the world, whilst on the other striving to live God’s will.
Impossible.
If you live the Faith, and I do so badly, you will be identified as a zealous extremist freak.
But that is the price we must pay.
God bless
Or the BBC to the British state.
Propaganda doesn’t work if you are aware of what propaganda is and how it operates. An aunt once told me how she watched an episode of a soap with her teenage niece and when the two gay characters came on she pointed out to the girl that the programme makers were using them to change people’s minds about homosexuals. The teenager nodded and said she knew that, could see it… That was a good teaching moment, one that the teenager won’t forget. So not everyone falls for propaganda. The best parents use it to teach morals.
MM,
I understand what you are saying and yes, we ought to know what’s going on in the world. I think the aunt who used the soap opera to teach her niece was fortunate she was there with her niece at the time. Countless number of children watch TV without parental supervision and there is a very real risk of young minds being desensitized to immorality and violence. If children watched TV only under parental supervision, it may used to teach morals, but otherwise I have to respectfully disagree with you.
Christina,
I agree – we can’t put our heads in the sand and ignore the media. It’s a bit odd to see people blogging who claim not to engage with the media!
Blogging on a catholic site and watching East Enders is somewhat different in category terms …. .
Who says you have to watch Eastenders? I’ve never seen even one episode of it in my life.
Neither have I. Nor Coronation Street or River City or any of them for that matter.
Catholics are coming late to the party. The more perspicacious recognised the danger of islam some time ago. That view was lost. In the crumbling morality of the West the Catholic hierarchy took certain views of islam (anti abortion etc…) as being a common standpoint that they could share. They saw muslims as fellow travellers. Which is why the church seems to be as slow to condemn islam and its outrages as the muslims themselves.
Yes Andrew. Many years ago, in innocence and ignorance, I walked in a Catholic/Muslim demonstration against abortion from Oldham to Manchester. Had I known then what I know now!
Islam will have to be defeated eventually. It’s really just a matter of time before the world catches up with us on this.
When men were men…
Summa, indeed. When men were men and a pansy was but a flower!
All the rot in the Church and in society large seems to be traceable to Paul VI. He abolished the social Kingship of Christ, prevailed on Catholic states to secularise themselves, poisoned the Church with false ecumenism, failed abysmally to ensure that V2 was unambiguously, tolerated false catechesis, and in short did everything that could help Catholics cease to be Catholic. By hamstringing the Church he let Islam take the place the Church had occupied – which could not have happened, if he had stabbed the Church in the back. I hope Islam is suitably grateful to him for his magnificent work of weakening and demoralising Christians. But for his work, would there have been the scandals committed by JP2, B16, and Francis ?
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