I have been spot reading in John Allen’s new book, The Global War on Christians: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Anti-Christian Persecution.
Along the same line, I saw this at CNS:
Sen. Paul: ‘Worldwide War on Christians is Being Waged by a Fanatical Element of Islam’
CNSNews.com) – Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said the mainstream media try to ignore it but there is a “worldwide war on Christianity” being waged by a “fanatical element of Islam,” and that U.S. policy towards Syria has resulted in America now sending weapons to “Islamic rebels who are allied with al-Qaida.” [What could possibly go wrong? Does the word “mujahideen” come to mind?]
“From Boston to Zanzibar, there’s a worldwide war on Christianity,” said Senator Paul at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 12. “Christians are being attacked around the world, but you won’t hear much about it on the evening news because the answer’s not convenient. It doesn’t fit the narrative we have been told about radical Islam.
“The president tries to gloss over who’s attacking and killing Christians,” said Paul. “The media describes the killings as ‘sectarian.’ But the truth is, a worldwide war on Christians is being waged by a fanatical element of Islam.”
Paul, a conservative Republican popular with the Tea Party, explained that while not all Muslims support violence against Christians, the minority of radical Muslims numbers in the tens of millions worldwide.
“[T]he whole truth is that there is a minority of Muslims who condone killing of Christians, but, unfortunately, that minority number is in the tens of millions,” said Paul. He added that a Pew Research poll showed that 21% of Egyptians, 15% of Jordanians, and 13% of Pakistani Muslims think terrorism against Christians is acceptable. [Only 21% 15… 13… not so many, right?]
Add up the numbers for just those three countries, and “it’s over 40 million Muslims sympathize with violence against Christians,” said Paul. Another poll, he said, showed that 100,000 Muslims living in Britain supported the London subway bombings. Another 400,000 said they had sympathy for the bombings.
Paul also talked about the murder of Sarkis el Zakhm, who was killed in the Christian city of Mallula in Syria by radical Muslims solely because he was a Christian. When Islamic rebels overran the town, said Paul, “Sarkis el Zakhm stood up and he answered them, and he said, ‘I’m a Christian, and if you want to kill me because I am, do so.’ These were Sarkis’s last words. Sister Carmel of Damascus said of Sarkis, ‘His death is true martyrdom, a death in odium fidei,’ or a death in the hatred of faith. Make no mistake. This is about your religion.”
“Elsewhere in Syria, Islamic rebels have filmed beheadings of their captives,” said Paul. “They’ve filmed themselves eating the heart of their enemy. Two Christian bishops have been kidnapped, and one priest was recently killed.”
Senator Paul also said, “These rebels are allies of the Islamic rebels that President Obama is now arming. We are now arming Islamic rebels who are allied with al-Qaida that attacked us on 9/11. Does that make any sense at all?”
It makes sense to me, but only when I consider the “why” from a certain angle.
May I recommend a book? The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America
by Andrew C. McCarthy.
Sts. Nunilo and Alodia, pray for us. Their feasts are on 22 October!
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Father, this is why Lampedusa worries me. I fear it is only a matter of time before Bologna Cathedral (which contains a medieval fresco showing Muhammad in hell) is blown up, and worse to come as the migrants continue to pour in over the years to come. Sure, most are going for economic reasons, but the radical minority is going to make things very ugly. And it’s breathtaking to see the secular a Left welcome this with open arms. Their sacred feminists and gays aren’t going to fare well in this new Europe.
The Church, at least here in the US, has been complicit. Earlier this year, author Robert Spencer was supposed to speak at the Diocese of Worcester Men’s conference. He is noted for telling the truth on Islam and pulling no punches. The local Muslim leaders protested and the invitation was immediately withdrawn by the Bishop. I wrote to the Bishop what I thought was a polite letter stating that Catholics needed to hear the truth on Islam. No response, other than a comment in the diocesan newspaper complaining about all of the bigoted people that had written him. How can we expect the MSM and the country to understand this issue when even our own Church has its head in the sand?
Inter-communal violence is not exclusive to Islam but no other religion encourages inter-communal violence in its fundamental texts and the history that it celebrates. All Christians are dismayed by the recent history of violence between Catholics and Protestants in Ulster. The contradiction between the Gospel and the behavior of people claiming to be Christians is obvious. Many Muslims reject violence as a tactic, perhaps because they find it counterproductive or due to a kind of spiritual sloth – it is convenient to be friendly to people of other religions who are friendly to you. But they have little ground to stand on if they reject violence against non-Muslims in principle.
Christians talk about spiritual combat but this combat is always understood as a metaphor – as the struggle against evil in oneself. The primary sense of jihad is literal warfare to impose God’s law on non-believers (and believers as well). Jihad as spiritual combat is a secondary meaning.
The dilemma is what to do about this reality.
Here is our true enemy, Islam. It has always been that way, and will always be that way, until Jesus returns. And those are disturbing numbers, but, we need to face those disturbing numbers.
Unfortunately, facing them is not our strong suit.
This is one large reason why Americans who are cognizant of this reality do NOT support throwing open our gates (do we even have any gates??) and welcoming the entire world. Imagine that among those flooding in, if 25% were muslim extremists, as the Pew poll describes them.
This may be one reason the Bishops don’t see the support they once enjoyed. This is completely out of step with the way many Americans likely feel about immigration. There are millions of us who want our current laws enforced. If we were determined to do something about protecting our country (we aren’t yet) we would change the list of countries of origin accepted as immigrants, student visas, work visas, and enforce our borders vigorously. We would profile. We would not arm muslim killers in other nations. America has changed, and has fallen out of our hands. The muslims have said they will take over Europe by having large families, and in that way overcome “without firing a shot”. Looks like they are, and without the will to defend ourselves, which America does not have, it may happen here as well. We just have too many people who either want it to happen, or are hiding their heads in the sand to appease their PC belief system, exactly as JonPatrick has described it happening. Too many people have checked their spines at the door. It just is not possible to stave off the overthrow of people who are too weak to articulate their right to exist! Of course the stronger is going to win! Of course the victor will be the one who wants his outcome more than you want your outcome! Can anyone point out a single time in history when this was not so? Pound for pound, muslims get that, and are unabashedly unafraid to state their cause, and kill you over it. Your rights mean nothing, not human, not civil. And you standing there, too afraid to seem impolite, you cannot even use words to defend yourself. So they will cut off your head because you are weak and unwilling or unable to defend yourself or your beliefs.
Have the words of our Savior left us unable to defend ourselves when we are clearly under attack? The interpretation of “turn the other cheek” and “pray for those who persecute you” and “love your enemies” determines everything. If it means we are to face an enemy who states they will destroy us and actually takes action to do that, and we are to remain like doves and put our own heads on the chopping block while the enemy sharpens the blade then we are already defeated. This is what I fear our Bishops and too many Americans and people in the world already believe, that this is what God expects from us. In our area the Boston bombings should have changed things. I don’t wish to sound hopeless, but if seeing muslims bomb innocent people, kill them, maim them terribly, did not change the way things were done in Boston, change something, then, I can’t imagine what would. But as far as I can tell, nothing changed. Dialogue on the cause has all but ended. Our media and government are only increasing their attacks on christians. It is a Bizarro World.
This cannot be right. This has to be error. If this were right, the Lepanto victory and other christian victories over muslims would be wrong and should never have happened. The problem is muslims remember history, and we were never taught it.
Please excuse this personal recollection that just came to me.
My mother and father had me late in life. My oldest sister was married and had four children in Alabama when I was born. Her husband was a southern man from Mississippi, the deep south. As children, we visited, and my sister and I, born in New England, were mystified by our own nephews and nieces, and their cousins, who, when they got mad at us, called us “Yankees” and told us to “go home”. I remember hearing them say, little children mind you, “roll tide!” (a southern expression) and “the south will RISE again!”. Eventually we caught on and did what we could, calling them “Rebels”. We couldn’t tell them to go home, they were. We had no earthly idea what these comments meant. In the north, the Civil War was not even yet discussed in school, but when it was, it was OVER. Not so for these southern children. They had been informed by their families and schools over and over about what had happened, and there was resentment festering over it. So while it was no big deal to us, it was a very big deal to them.
This is Islam. They remember. We forgot, or more accurately, never knew.
So what does a Catholic in the Church Militant do? Turn the other cheek. Be slaughtered? Take up arms and wage a Crusade? What exactly is the Catholic teaching on this?
For years there has been reports of Islamic ethnic cleansing of Christians from towns of Iraq and various other countries. (Hindu extremists have been doing the same in India.) There is increasing evidence of this occurring in Syria, which will become more complicated for the United States as Saudi Arabia is increasingly sponsoring Islamic radical groups (not that the U.S. will ever do anything against Saudi Arabia). A recent report that whole families from Kazakhstan are travelling to Syria for jihad.
While this has been going on for years, it doesn’t get much play in the press – however if the religions were reversed…
Hilaire Belloc’s “The Great Heresies”, 1936:
Millions of modern people of the white civilization that is, the civilization of Europe and America have forgotten all about Islam. They have never come in contact with it. They take for granted that it is decaying, and that, anyway, it is just a foreign religion which will not concern them. It is, as a fact, the most formidable and persistent enemy which our civilization has had, and may at any moment become as large a menace in the future as it has been in the past.
http://www.ewtn.com/library/homelibr/heresy4.txt
Father James Schall on Belloc, Zenit, 2003:
The accepted doctrine today is that Islam itself is not a problem. As such, Islam is said to have no relation to world events that result in the need for defense in the West.
Belloc understood that Islam has a defined theological outlook and goal: Everyone should be Muslim. Force was useful in this goal. Belloc expected, if it ever acquired power again, that Islam would take up right where it left off after its last great territorial conquests. He would not have been in the least surprised at Sept. 11. Nor would he be astonished to find out that the Christians in the West are quite unprepared to understand the zeal for religion and conquest that Islam had and has in its faith.
Can anyone explain why the neo-con hawks like Senators McCain and Graham keep saying that Obama is being weak by not providing MORE support to the Syrian rebels? The only thing I can come up with is that they view the Assad regime as being an ally of Iran so therefore the “enemy of my enemy is my friend”. All the same, I just don’t get why most of the so-called hawks are so insistent in overthrowing Assad and handing the country to what is likely to be a Jihadist regime.
“Elsewhere in Syria, Islamic rebels have filmed beheadings of their captives,” said Paul. “They’ve filmed themselves eating the heart of their enemy.”
Senator Paul also said, “These rebels are allies of the Islamic rebels that President Obama is now arming. We are now arming Islamic rebels who are allied with al-Qaida that attacked us on 9/11. Does that make any sense at all?”
Fr. Z then says: “It makes sense to me, but only when I consider the “why” from a certain angle.”
Well then Fr. Z., for someone who seems to have trouble in making sense of what Pope Francis says, perhaps you’d care to explain why it makes sense to you, from any angle whatsoever, to arm and support murderous rebel thugs.
Far be it from me to attempt to answer for Fr. Z, but it makes sense to me from the angle of America hating leftists who think America needs to be put in her place. As Ganganelli suggested, The enemy of my enemy is my friend…these leftists hate the United States of America as she was founded, upon Christian morals and values, as do radical Muslims. The only thing they hate more than the USofA is the Holy Catholic Church and her teachings which stress the dignity of human life, and clearly, neither the American leftist, nor the radical Muslim agree. For the American leftist, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and so they arm him. And yes, I include McCain and Graham with the leftists.
That’s what I took from Fr. Z’s rather cryptic remark, anyway.
Kathleen10, as a southerner, I have witnessed some of what you speak of as far as the ‘South’s gonna rise again!’ and I think I understand what you are saying about linking that to Islam, so I won’t take offense with the comparison. ;) However, as a Bama girl, I must take issue with including the ‘Roll Tide!” comment. Umm…it is not a ‘southern expression’. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the Civil War or Yankees or anything more than Alabama Crimson Tide Football. ROOOLLLL TIDE, ROLL!!! :)
We need to pray daily for courage and strength for these martyrs and confessors. No doubt we benefit from their sacrifices, and we should be praying and sacrificing for them, we who are so comfortable here and have daily access to the sacraments.
In a slick move, 50k Christian Syrians have asked for Dual Russian citizenship. If granted, this would allow the Russian government to sent troops to protect their citizens. Russia to the rescue and the USA arming those who would kill them. Something is wrong here.
Those in the US government who believe that those we arm will not use the arms to kill Christians are ignorant.
I saw Rand Paul’s speech on CSPAN. CSPAN broadcast the Values Voters Summit. So it got a much wider audience than if it had only been seen on religious stations. It also has a good chance of being rerun on CSPAN in the future.
I just finished watching ‘Of Gods and Men’, about the 7 Cisternian monks taken hostage by terrorists in Algiers in 1996. Very reverent. Beautiful chant, as well.
To understand why Obama is arming them is to understand things from the conspiritorial view. Men like Osama Bin Laden and the Mujahadeen were supported by America to fight against Russia. Many of these groups were CIA funded and backed. Al Qeda was one of them. In fact, Al Q may in fact still be a CIA front organization made up of inside men who recruit Islamic extremists and also victims of war who grow to harbor hatred for America who they deem responsible for killing their family members and destroying their homes etc. We know the current rebel fighters are also prisoners and inmates released from Saudi prisons to back the rebels.
Syria is part of a multi stage war effort pointed out by General Wesley Clark around 9/11, much like it was against Iraq and Libya to institute regime change and protect the petrodollar hegemony and prevent them from switching oil trading currency to anything other than the U.S. Dollar. The Saudis and the U.S. reached this agreement way back: All oil trade would be conducted in US Dollars, this ensures the US dollar is in demand, and in return America provides the Saudis with military support. The Saudis have a vested interest in Syria’s oil and their pipeline deals. They did not like what Assad was doing, so they sold gas to the rebels who set it off, and then passed on false intelligence to the U.S. that it was Assad who did it. Obama is simply following through on America’s promises, and likely is fully aware that the evidence doesn’t hold up, but their interests in Syria are also ties in with protecting the value of the US dollar as the rest of the world starts to decentralize itself from dependence on the US economy and its phony fiat currency being created out of thin air by its banks and the Federal Reserve.
Also going further the idea is to have Syria escalate into something that demands more American troops be sent abroad under the UN banner, where they will hopefully remain for as long as possible. Having the troops out of the country leaves Obama and the homeland defense to do as they will in the event of a collapse. The troops stationed abroad will be abandoned and unable to return home to fight against the domestic threath of their own government. Also it helps the NWo establishment who will effectively intend to make them part of the One World Government’s own Private Military force. Thus the UN receives free soldiers and free arms. Where do you think those chemical weapons Assad has are going? The UN. What is the UN going to do with these terrible weapons? Destroy them? LOL! It’s theirs to keep and use now! But of course when they decide to use it, it won’t be ‘illegal’…
Christians and Muslims are caught in the crossfire of scheming elite Communist overlords who are planning to reshape the globe. But creation also involves destruction. The fall of America followed by a devastating war that shall annihiliate nations will be useful in convincing the remaining world that the solution to world peace is a global government and the end of sovereignity and the establishment of a productive labor force for the sake of the world state.
I don’t agree with everything Sen. Paul says, but God bless him for speaking frankly about the Mohammedan persecution of Christians.
Kathleen10-
I read your post with interest and agree with many of your observations. Also –as a southern girl I must agree with pannw — “roll tide” is definitely an Alabama thing. Trust me–you won’t hear that from an LSU fan(Geaux Tigers) -or for that matter any other member in the SEC unless their team will benefit in some way with that particular win.
I hope your cousins have grown up a little since all of that happened. There is a lot of history behind what happened to the south after the Civil War–but that is another discussion. From what I have learned about Islam since 9/11–their memories (what they are taught from the Koran about Jews and infidels) are centuries old–and not necessarily the truth. They have a political and religious ideology that is very different from how this country was founded and very different from Christianity.
People who live near our southern border have reported seeing many people who look middle eastern being brought into this country illegally along with others. That–along with many being allowed to come into this country legally by this administration should give us all pause. They will be given amnesty in this bill Obama wants passed by Congress also. The MSM and the left turn a blind eye for their own political reasons. I am very concerned that we will see some of the same things happen here that we are seeing overseas at some point when the numbers are sufficient enough and they have enough people representing their ideology placed within our own government. I read a speech several years ago by a Palestinian mullah that was translated into English. Among other things he said that when they had destroyed the little Satan(Israel) and the big Satan(USA) then they would head to Rome. I was truly shocked at the time when I read it but it stays in the back of mind as things unfold.
Here’s another great book along the same lines. This one by Dinesh D’Souza-The enemy at home: The cultural left and its responsibility for 9-11
Maybe this is simplistic, but I’d really like to know if this idea is correct or not.
We know what a devout Catholic is, and what his practices are, but what is a devout Muslim? A devout Catholic gets to daily Mass, if possible, to Confession at least once a month, says the Rosary, goes to Eucharistic adoration, etc.
My idea is that a devout Muslim is a jihadist. He believes in, wages or supports holy war against the infidel. Like the devout Catholic who is the creme de la creme of Catholicism ( below the hierarchy, priests, and contemplative religious, of course) the jihadist is the creme de la creme of Islam, and considered as such by the rest of Islam. Those who would disagree with this in the world of Islam are somewhat comparable to our Catholic leftists, doctrinally soft and weak in the disciplines of the faith.
So when we hear some Muslims saying that jihad or particular jihadist attacks of Christians are not the way of Islam, they are not speaking from within the world of fervent Islam, but have been “corrupted” by the world, are soft in the faith of Islam. They are the Nancy Pelosis and Frances Kisslings of Islam.
Have I got this right?
My intention was a comment on memory in a population, but not a comparison between Islam and my American brothers and sisters (literally as well) in the south. This red dot would likely feel right at home in the south, whereas in New England I am in a sea of navy blue, and don’t often fit. I recall that shrill “roll tide” like it was yesterday, but I was not clear. I did not think it an expression having anything to do with the civil war and so on. Football is simply huge in Alabama, and the roll tide always seemed ambiguous. We didn’t know what any of it meant. But they yelled it with the same fervor as “the south will rise again!”. :) we were all little then, all of us about 8 years old or so. They all turned out to be lovely grownups. they were excellent kids. but we were on their turf and they knew and cared about history we did not know or care about. that was my point. Muslims know history, don’t forget it, and relentlessly pursue their goal. Their goal is to take over. As far as I know, it’s absolutely part of their religious faith, and they are not shy about their religious faith. They have alot of zeal. Do most christians have that kind of zeal? I don’t think so. On the zeal scale of 1-10 I’d put Muslims at 11, christians at 4. maybe some evangelicals at 5. At the exact moment in time when we are in a squeeze play in our culture to minimize our faith and suppress it, Muslims are coming on like gangbusters, even massacring innocent people all over the globe and look, no one even apologizes for it. Here we are lately on Fr. Z’s blog discussing the real need to be “pleasant” and “polite” (true) while this reality is dangling above us. That’s for real too! We are busy being polite while the mujahideen (sp) are out there, plotting to be here. It’s like knowing a football game is going to be played between little girls in skirts and the Patriots. You know it’s not going to turn out well for the little girls in skirts. The little girls better have Jesus on their team.
Here’s some detail to one of SKAY’s points:
http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/hezbollah-tattoos-increasing-found-us-prison-inmates