This is the continuation of the piece on Islam and ISIS by a Christian with knowledge of the region who needs to remain anonymous. The final part will be published tomorrow. C451.
Collect from the 2nd Sunday in Lent:
O God, who seest that we have no power whatever from ourselves; keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls; that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body and from all evil thoughts which may hurt the soul. Through our Lord.
So what are we going to do about the Muslims generally?
The first question I have to ask is what do we mean by “we”? Who are “we”? When we say “we” do we mean Catholics? Christians? English? The West? I would hope we mean Christendom…but does Christendom still exist in any real form?
Please take a look at the image above. It is a tongue in cheek find the odd one out game.
- is some Muslim girls. (by the way, those scarves are called mandeel in Arabic. Sounds familiar, no?). 2 shows some Iraqi Christians at prayer and outside. 3. is a Western girl wearing a traditional Mantilla. 4. is what we in the West regularly feed our teenage daughters as role-models.
And we say we want to evangelize the Muslims? I think we have a slight problem.
The biggest indictment of Western culture I think I have come across is knowing Palestinian Christians, already refugees from the State of Israel, living elsewhere in the Middle East, who had the opportunity to go to the West but preferred to take their chances living under Muslim rule because they were afraid of their children being corrupted by Western culture. That gives a painful shock, especially when you consider the way our films and media often portray young women.
So we have separation of Church and State?
Let’s take a look at our Western States. I will use UK as an example and although things may vary slightly from one country to another, the general picture is very similar.
Our Western countries are largely secular. Atheism, agnosticism, new age paganism, alternative religion and plain can’t be bothered/haven’t got a clue materialism are on the rise (actually have pretty much risen already). Church attendance is abysmally low. In the UK approximately 10% of the population are Catholic (according to baptismal registers; the numbers of practising Catholics are considerably lower).The picture in other denominations is even more dire. We have phenomenal numbers of abortion, “gay marriage” and adoption, genetically engineered babies (UK is the first country to legalise 3-parent babies), euthanasia is not yet legal in the UK but it is in some other European countries, aggressive feminism, the breakdown of traditional family life with easy divorce (and remarriage), co-habitation, a high level of drink/drugs abuse and promiscuity by the younger generations, ever more immodest fashions, TV, music; pornography has gone mainstream. We have a youth with an entitlement mentality and no respect. And in the middle of all this we have political correctness, equality and diversity, and the Trojan horse of massive Muslim immigration into our countries. It seems that Muslims are our enemies….except when they are our friends. What was the first Iraq war about? Defending Saudi Arabia? Oh? And what nationality was Osama bin Laden? And those Arab Christians? Did anyone stop to consider that such a military intervention would worsen their plight by association? I get the impression our governments don’t really care too much about Christians, neither at home nor abroad. We are the post-Christian West. Look at the unbridled support for Charlie Hebdo’s right to free speech….because Muslims attacked him…but we forgot that he was also in the habit of making disgusting blasphemies against Our Lord and Our Lady. This well illustrates where we are. As Catholics we are stuck between a rise in secular/atheistic, un-Christian – even anti-Christian views in our own culture and the rise of Islam on the other.
Why are Muslim immigrants to the west, now in their third and fourth generations, still not flocking to convert to Christianity and then, like the 3 wise men, telling their people back home? Maybe because they don’t like what they see because largely it isn’t Christianity? Maybe we are offering them stones, not bread? And what about that certain percentage of our own youth who convert to Islam? We stare in amazement, why would they do that? Maybe because people want/need something higher than themselves, something more meaningful than consumerism, something worth living for and dying for, a purpose, and maybe because our Catholic Faith is so diluted and barely visible that it is easy for the uncatechised to pass it by and find Islam instead.
We, the West, are right Charlies. We are Sodom. We are Babel.
We, Catholics/Christians, want a Crusade against ISIS? (Which I would support, by the way, a real crusade for the right reasons, done in love for Christ, to protect our Christian brethren and where possible to work for the conversion of the locals). Us and what army? In whose name? Strange bedfellows! We, the West, have gone so far down the slippery slope that we hardly even notice any more that it is not normal. We want to evangelize the Muslims? With the Spice Girls? I don’t really think that is going to work very well. Even Arab Christians don’t like it.
We, the West, want to do it our way, without reference to God. It seems to have become about us versus them. I am reminded of the Pocahontas song: ‘Savages, savages, barely even human’. Look on Twitter for example. Hatred spews everywhere. It is tribalism. I don’t remember Jesus saying “hate your enemy”. And I don’t think it was Jesus who said “the best thing about principles is that they can be sacrificed to expediency”. And while we are pointing the finger at the “evil” Muslims, shouting “savages, savages” they are pointing one back and shouting the same thing. Average Joe Muslim isn’t evil. He’s just a human being who has been fed the lie of a false religion. What are we doing to convince him that Christianity is better, that Christianity is the True Faith? Not much! Just as we don’t understand the Middle East well, they don’t understand us well either. They see our Western Culture and link it with Christianity. Christian, for the most part, it isn’t!
If you have a cat and keep smacking it down, eventually it will turn and scratch your eyes. It is a law of nature. If we, the West, keep smacking down the Arabs, they will unite against us. Average Joe Muslim probably doesn’t like ISIS much, but he likes being smacked down by the West even less. We have a very delicate balance here as to whose side average Joe Muslim could be on. Did Jesus take a big stick and smack Zaccheus out of his tree?
Servus Fidelis said:
I don’t expect much from this new emasculated society and its politicians and pundits. We have long, lost our voice of moral authority by being largely nonresistant to the new ideals of ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’: which today might be described as freedom to do whatever we want and the liberty to practice any form of perversion that we might desire. Largely our response to these changes have been a shrug of the shoulders and inaction and we are paying the price by not guarding our inheritance and protecting an alternative to the ideals of this world.
One would hope, from a Catholic perspective, that there would have been more urgency and more effort put forth to combat these evils and to preserve our faith in the midst of a crumbling world and loss of moral principle. Every parish should have been and should be saying rosaries for God’s help and for the fortitude that we need to combat this evil in society. But alas, even the Church has largely gone silent but for a few men who courageously speak out from time to time. 57 million babies dead in abortion mills here in the US because we don’t want to inconvenience a young pregnant mom and come between her and a free will choice to kill her baby. This, by far, was the pinnacle of Satan’s triumph against the world and the Church. We are now only harvesting the fruit from his victory.
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chalcedon451 said:
I am afraid so my friend. We long ago mistook license for liberty. As the author says, why would good Christians, or good Muslims, think our society one to aspire to?
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NEO said:
Right as rain, our correspondent is. We (at least outwardly) stand for nothing except self-indulgence. That may or may not be true for even a majority of our people, but that is the face we show the world, and while that is true, we will not solve this problem, in fact we will lose. The answer? We need to fix our own house, although we should fight off the vandals, first. Then, perhaps, we will have something to offer others. other than license.
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Servus Fidelis said:
They obviously won’t, C. I guess that am in favor or rousing up some real men from amongst these ruins to start lifting the stones back in place from the fortress where they belong. We have let or maybe even helped in the dismantling of the house built upon rock to this pre-fab house of todays society built upon the shifting sands. It would be nice if the Church and Her leadership would take the leading role in this though. I don’t now what it would look like but something needs doing: like St. Francis rebuilding his little church. Maybe that is what Pope Francis is meant to do?
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chalcedon451 said:
It surely is difficult to see when and how the tide can be turned.
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Servus Fidelis said:
I don’t know what to do either but I do know that it is up to good Christian men and women to do something.
And it might be best not simply to wait for supernatural Grace but to do something to merit God’s Grace. It is how all good outcomes begin; with positive and right actions from well meaning people.
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njb4725 said:
The problem (among many) of the Crusade is where you draw the line. To me it would be unthinkable to attack ISIS and ignore Turkey. The new Middle East will be carved up between Turkey and Iran, with Saudi Arabia and Egypt on the losing side of the North-South conflict.
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njb4725 said:
We should also bear in mind Timothy Furnish’s analysis. ISIS wants us to land troops near Dabiq in Syria so that the “prophecy” can be fulfilled. Our best hope is to fortify our assets in the Med.
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Servus Fidelis said:
Today’s history seems to rhyme with that of the days of the Battle of Lepanto. Is the answer, another Pope St. Pius V, the Rosary and the Knights of Malta?
It would be nice to think that what that Pope did then could be done again by another Pope as the divisive Western Culture then and now are not totally dissimilar.
A good article: http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=7391
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chalcedon451 said:
I think that after the lraq, it will be a long while before the public is prepared to go down the ‘boots on the ground’ route – must check and see what happened to that Iraqi assault which was launched on Monday.
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Servus Fidelis said:
Yes. The new Pius V, Don Juan, and Knights of Malta may need fight this battle in a more spiritual way. As I say, I do not know how we must fight but we need a leader with a clear vision and a will to do God’s Holy Will. Not sure how that should happen but something must happen rather than not happen.
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NEO said:
From here what I think I’m hearing from our people is this. We’ll again do boots on the ground (or as some of our people say, go out and battle evil in the world) but and I think we mean it. We are not going to do any nation building, we might go break it but, somebody else (like the locals) are going to have to fix it.
Comes down to that every battle we’ve been in, since at least Vietnam, has been victorious, and the Washington threw it away. Time to break that model. And from what I think, and much of what I hear, Fight, fight to win, win and go home, if we have to do it again in ten years, well OK, but that’s cheaper than standing around waiting for guerrillas.
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ginnyfree said:
Hello Chalcedon. I wanted to respond to your thread Among the Catholics, but it disappeared. Where did it go? This one is nice, but it raises the blood pressure too much. And I have the unpopular opinion that the way to beat the Muslims is to simply be better Christians and pray, pray, pray, and bear witness to the Truth wherever you are. I don’t think we need to bear arms again and to do so in one place will only cost our brothers and sisters in Christ dearly in another place. Open your homes to the refugees and send money and alms in anyway you can. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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chalcedon451 said:
It will be up on Saturday. As this one came in, and its follow up, I thought it best to pull it for now.
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ginnyfree said:
Thanks Chalcedon. I’ll look forward to it on Saturday. Hope I have time to check in. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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chalcedon451 said:
Hope you do too – it is good having you here 🙂
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Bosco the Great said:
IS “assaulted the historic city of Nimrud and bulldozed it with heavy vehicles,” the tourism and antiquities ministry said on an official Facebook page
http://news.yahoo.com/bulldozed-ancient-assyrian-city-nimrud-iraq-govt-203312292.html
As I mentioned in my last hard hitting post, that god has called these muslim and Kurd descendants. Isaiah 12. they regard neither gold or jewels or the life of infants. They are upset about the use of idols. That’s fine and good. Some religions just love idols. God wouldn’t have mentioned idolatry if no one were idolaters. But don’t tear up thousand yr old antiquities. they aren’t hurting anybody.
Its no small wonder why they have set their site on Rome. They will have to call a temp agency for more part time help when they roll into the Vatican.
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chalcedon451 said:
Yep, like you, their image of God is a narrow-minded nut case who shares their obsessions. You, like them, have created a god in your own image and in worshipping him really worship yourself.
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Bosco the Great said:
maybe. Maybe my god is me. People cant usually see their own faults. But others can.
Things are coming to a head. The young people in Israel are becoming warlike. The Muslims want Israel gone. ISIS wants everyone gone. Russia is tired of the US.Disneyland is threatening to nuke Knots Berry Farm. This is it. Its not going to go much further befor the Man of Sin takes over. Then the religious can have what they want. A great big Image of the Beast to worship.
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chalcedon451 said:
Yes, I can see given your suggestible nature, all of this is going to set off your triggers. Problem is, in 10 years time, when we’re still all here, you’re going to have to find other excuses.
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Bosco the Great said:
yeah baby yeah, you finally got a pic for a post I can get into. Who are the hunny bunnies? yeah baby yeah
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chalcedon451 said:
Picture 4 is the Spice Girls.
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Bosco the Great said:
Yeah baby yeah!
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