LifeSite News: Massive turnout for rosary crusade in Poland. Liberals furious

WARSAW, Poland, October 9, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — Hundreds of thousands of Polish Catholics encircled their country with prayer Saturday, imploring Our Lady’s intervention to save Poland and the world.

As Catholics lined the country’s 2,000-mile border for the “Rosary at the Borders,” progressives and compatible media deemed the national prayer gathering “controversial,” xenophobic, Islamophobic, or “not” representative of the Catholic Church.

“Poland Catholics hold controversial prayer day on borders,” the BBC’s headline said of the event.

CATHOLIC MYTH #4: THE CRUSADES WERE UNPROVOKED ATTACKS AGAINST PEACEFUL MUSLIMS

Posted on March 9, 2015 by Bryan Mercier

Just because something is repeated over and over again does not make it true. The same is true here with the Crusades. In reality, the Crusades were wars of self-defense against the Muslims. Here are the real facts:

Every historian knows that Muhammad was kicked out of Mecca for preaching his new religion. After raising an army in Medina, he returned and sacked Mecca razing it to the ground. Thereafter, his new army garnered much military strength and went on to conquer the entire surrounding area. By the time Muhammad died, his armies had conquered the whole area of land we know today as the “Fertile Crescent.”

After Muhammad’s death, Islam spread even more rapidly. In just 100 years (657 A.D. – 757 A.D.), the conquering armies of Islam decimated everything in their path from Afghanistan to North Africa. They then invaded Europe and seized many islands. They were going for full world conquest. In a short span of time, Islam conquered the Persian Empire, the Roman Empire, and two-thirds of the Byzantine Empire, the last major empire on earth. Over a thousand years of war without batting an eye. One can begin to see why the Crusades were called.

During all of this time, while some Catholic kings may have defended their countries, the Catholic Church herself never retaliated at all but just prayed for peace and hoped the Muslim aggression would stop. However, around the year 1094 A.D, due to the devastation of the Byzantine Empire, Commodore Alexius the 1st called on the pope and the Catholic Church for help in complete desperation. The pope prayed about it for a long time and eventually decided to “come to the aid of our brothers in the East.” THAT was the reason the Crusades were started. An answer to the Emperor’s plea.

Occasionally, thousands of innocent and unarmed Christians were massacred by Muslims while processing on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In addition, more than half of all Christian lands had been seized by Islamic armies. So, the Church also sought to take back the Holy Land in order to create a safe passage for innocent pilgrims processing there. They also wanted to protect Christians around the world. For all of these reasons, the Crusades were called.

Unlike Islam, the Catholic Church had been a mostly peaceful religion and had done more good for the world than anyone else. I’m not saying that Christians were perfect or that abuses didn’t happen during the Crusades because they did, but they were started as wars of self-defense and as a response to the request of Emperor Alexius I. The Crusades had nothing to do with an “aggressive, power hungry church” who killed peaceful people of other religions or anyone who disagreed with the Catholic religion. That is huge myth which in not historical, not tenable, and not true.

Why the Crusades Were “Glorious” by CatholicSay

Source: CatholicSay.com

This post is the first in a series about the most prevalent modern myths about the Crusades and how to refute them.

The Crusades are one of the most misunderstood topics in Church history. Movies and TV present as established fact an outdated anti-Catholic narrative about them that stays alive by sheer repetition. Not only do secular critics of the Church use this narrative to attack Catholicism (and religion in general), but many Catholics uwittingly accept it as true.

The negative “spin" on the Crusades began in the sixteenth century with the Protestant revolutionary Martin Luther, who saw them as an outgrowth of papal authority and power. Later Enlightenment authors such as Voltaire and Edward Gibbon shaped modernity’s negative view of the Crusades by portraying them as barbaric projects undertaken by greedy and savage warriors at the behest of a corrupt papacy. Modern-day Crusade historians, thankfully, eschew the anti-religious prejudices behind this view, and are bringing to light an authentic understanding of these Catholic events from the perspective of those who participated in them. But such scholarship has not eradicated the popular myths.

In order to properly understand the Crusades, we must recognize them as authentically Catholic events in an age of faith. This does not mean that everyone in the Middle Ages was a saint, or that society was perfect; but it was an era in which people made radical life decisions, such as going on Crusade, because of their faith in Jesus Christ and his Church. The modern secular-humanist world, lacking faith, struggles to understand the authentic religious worldview of the medieval period and so is handicapped when trying to understand the Crusades..

The Crusading movement was a Catholic movement. Popes called for Crusades, clerics (and saints) preached them, ecumenical councils planned and discussed them, and Catholic warriors fought them for spiritual benefits. The Crusades cannot be properly understood apart from this Catholic reality. The modern world’s historical amnesia on this point is curable, and the cure begins with Catholics learning the authentic history of their Church and the culture it created. Like the Benedictine monks of old, we modern Catholics can maintain the inheritance of Western Civilization, and correct the errors and biases of our age, through a commitment to learn our history and take pride (where appropriate) for the actions of the men and women who came before us in the Faith.

Many Catholics cringe at the mention of the Crusades, either because they know an anti-Catholic attack is coming, or because they feel embarrassed. But I propose that rather than trying to change the subject or dodge the criticism, we should recognize the “glory" of the Crusades.

What does that mean?

After Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, they sinned against God by worshipping the golden calf. God wanted to destroy the Israelites for their idolatry, but Moses interceded for the people and the Lord relented. Moses’ special relationship with God included the gift of being in the presence of the Lord in the meeting tent, where he spoke to God face to face. Moses pleaded with God for his presence to remain with the Israelites on their journey to the Promised Land so that the other nations would see their uniqueness.

Moses also begged the Lord to show him his glory (Ex. 33:18). The Hebrew word for glory used most often in the Old Testament is kabod, which means “heavy in weight" or something of great importance. In this sense, the Crusading movement—which occupied 600 years of Catholic history—cannot be seen as anything but glorious. That does not mean we whitewash or ignore their bad parts, but simply that we give due attention to their import in the life of the Church.

We live in a time ripe for a reinvigorated sense of Catholic identity, and a thorough knowledge of the Crusades helps us build it. Catholics need to know the authentic history of the Church in order to defend it from its many critics in the modern world; however, for a truly vibrant Catholic identity to take root and flourish, defending the Church is not enough. We must go on the attack, and present the story of our Catholic family with vigor, courage, and resolve.

In the words of Walter Cardinal Brandmüller, president emeritus of the Pontifical Committee for the Historical Sciences:

[W]e should finally stop being like the frightened rabbit that stares at the snake before it is swallowed by it. This defeatist attitude, this whining self-pity that has gained so much ground… in Catholic circles, is an insult to God. What is needed is a new, forceful consciousness of being Catholic.

Recognizing the “glory" of the Crusades is one way that we can take pride in our Catholic identity and contribute to a forceful and positive resurgence of the Faith in the Western world.

The Australian: Church fear over Syria refugee intake

The Australian
November 21, 2015 12:00AM
Dennis Shanahan

Archbishop Anthony Fisher: ‘Groups like the Yazidis, Christians and Zoroastrians are at peril of extinction in the Middle East at the hands of Daesh.’

The Turnbull government’s plan to take a majority of the 12,000 extra Syrian refugees from persecuted Christian groups and other religious minorities in the ­Middle East is in danger of being derailed.

Christian leaders fear they are being blocked from recommending persecuted people to be part of the Australian intake ­because of confusion over the ­Immigration Department’s selection process and the selection rules of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Government sources believe drafting of the September 9 decision has undermined the clear intention of cabinet, which was to concentrate on the most persecuted groups who could not return to their homes in Syria. These included Christians, Yazidis and Jews, who would form the bulk of the extra refugees accepted.

A requirement included in the decision — that the UNHCR had to register the refugees — meant those who are displaced in Syria or living in tents or with family members outside the official UN camps were not registered.

The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, who has written to Malcolm Turnbull about the issue, expressed concern yesterday that the bulk of the ­refugees would be Muslims rather than the persecuted non-Muslim groups the government ­indicated in September, such as Christians, Yazidis, Zoroastrians and Jews.

“The community and the Oriental Christians are feeling very anxious and can’t get clarity on what the Australian government is trying to achieve,” Archbishop Fisher told The Weekend Australian last night.

The Archbishop said Islamic State, also known as Daesh, wanted to “exterminate or enslave” Christians as part of its belief in the terrorist Caliphate.

“Groups like the Yazidis, Christians and Zoroastrians are at peril of extinction in the Middle East at the hands of Daesh,” Archbishop Fisher said.

Church concerns about the Australian intake emerged as the US House of Representatives voted to suspend a program giving Syrian refugees safe haven in the US, a move Democrats slammed as giving in to xenophobia after the Paris attacks. The vote yesterday on the Republican legislation, which seeks to impose more stringent security provisions on screening of Iraqi and Syrian refugees, easily had the required support to pass. The bill now heads to the Senate, where its fate is uncertain.

Archbishop Fisher said there were mixed messages coming from the federal government and the Immigration Department, which put in doubt the government’s initial request at a meeting on September 9 for all the churches to nominate refugees who were persecuted and “ready for family reunion or quick integration into Australian society”.

The Immigration Department has received several thousand ­applications and a handful of families, including Muslims and Christians, have already arrived in Australia.

In the wake of the latest Islamic State terror attacks in Paris, including attackers who flowed in to France with Syrian refugees, there have been public calls to stop the intake completely or limit it to Christians.

Concern among Christian groups, particularly the Oriental Christian churches, which include the Copts, Melkites, ­Antiochian Orthodox, Maronite and Assyrians, has spiked as evidence flows from the US that the UNHCR will not give Christians priority, and has indicated a majority of the refugees going to the US will be Muslim.

Eastern Christian Welfare Australia, which represents 12 churches and is trying to identify genuine refugees, said last night it believed the current system was failing to target “vulnerable minorities who cannot obtain UNHCR registration; who do not live in refugee camps; and who do not have immediate family members to propose them”.

In a statement to The Weekend Australian, the welfare group said Christians were afraid to go to the official refugee camps because they were predominantly filled with Muslims and had also been infiltrated by the terror fighters.

“Vulnerable Christian and minority refugees who are not registered with the UNHCR or who do not have immediate family members in Australia are caught up in the bureaucracy,” the statement said.

“We believe a new visa subclass is needed to cater for minority applicants, as the current humanitarian visas fail to do this.”

The requirement for refugees to be registered with UNHCR is causing concern. There is a strong view within church groups that the government should use the Special Humanitarian Program, which has previously been used to relocate Copts from Egypt, more widely.

Scott Morrison, who was immigration minister before being appointed Treasurer, said this week Christians would make up a “very large component” of the 12,000 refugee intake in response to reports of 25 US states moving to stop all Syrian refugees being accepted.

“We are focusing on those persecuted minorities and that obviously includes a very large Christian component — in fact the majority, I would expect,” Mr Morrison said.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, who has visited Jordan and Lebanon in recent weeks and this week welcomed the first Sunni Muslim family to Australia from the Syrian intake, said the government would not discriminate and was concentrating on taking women, children, persecuted groups and families.

A spokesman for Mr Dutton said the Immigration Minister had made it clear Australia would take refugees not only from the UNHCR program but also under the Special Humanitarian Program. He has previously said the Australian government will not be told by the UNHCR who to take, and Australia will make the decision on who is accepted.

FRONT PAGE MAG: D.C. Refuses to Arm Persecuted Christians Fighting [Islamic Terrorists] ISIS

To still not know which “side” U.S. leadership is on is to be beyond naïve.
 
By Raymond Ibrahim [Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.]
Source: FrontPageMag

In recent months, Mideast Christians have been forming militias to fight the Islamic State (IS) and other jihadi groups in both Iraq and Syria—even as the Obama administration, which arms the “opposition,” refuses to arm them.

In Iraq, some of the few remaining Assyrian Christians have formed militias under the name Dwekh Nawsha (literally meaning “self-sacrifice” in Christ’s native tongue of Aramaic). Most of these fighters are from among those Christians displaced from the Ninevah Plain due to the atrocities committed by IS and are on the frontlines fighting the jihadis.

They were formed soon after the U.S.-supported Kurdish Peshmerga, who are leading the fight against IS in the region, retreated from many Christian villages without a fight last summer, declining to protect them from the IS advance which led to the usual atrocities.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, “Christians have taken up arms because they want to protect their own land, and many no longer trust the Kurds to do it for them.” Indeed, the Kurds, including the Peshmerga, have been known to abuse and even persecute Christians. Like IS, Kurds are Sunni Muslims too.

“We will stay here, and Christians will protect Christians. Not Arabs or Kurds protecting us, but Christians,” said local commander Fouad Masaoud Gorgees.

In neighboring Syria, approximately 500 Syriac Christian fighters recently assembled and managed to prevent the Islamic State from entering the ancient Christian settlement of Sadad. But on October 30, IS captured a town less than five miles away, leaving Sadad vulnerable to continued assaults.

Even the Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox church, Ignatius Aphrem II, traveled to Sadad to boost the morale of Christian defenders. Said Aphrem:

It was emotional but it was also very encouraging to see our young people determined to defend their land and stay in their homeland. To see them ready to fight and to sacrifice for their land, I think that’s what’s very meaningful, that made me very proud of them.

There’s a reason why Christians are frantically trying to save Sadad from the clutches of IS. As one Syriac Christian fighter put it, Sadad “is a symbolic place for us and we will not allow it to fall again.”

He is referring to the events of October 2013, when the U.S.-supported Free Syrian Army—widely touted as moderate but in fact working with al-Qaeda’s Al Nusra Front—captured the town. They made a graphic video (with English subtitles) of those whom they killed, the “dogs of Assad”—“dog” being an ancient Islamic epithet for Christians—while shouting Islam’s victory-cry, “Allahu Akbar” (which John McCain equates to a Christian saying “thank God”) and praise for the Free Syrian Army.

During their one week occupation of Sadad, the moderate/radical coalition tortured, raped, and murdered 45 Christians; the bodies of six people from one family alone, ranging from ages 16 to 90, were found at the bottom of a well (an increasingly common fate for “subhuman” Christians).

At the time, Syriac Archbishop Selwanos Boutros called it Syria’s “largest massacre of Christians.” Even so, this massacre was wholly ignored by the Obama administration and so-called mainstream media in an effort to maintain the narrative that the Free Syrian Army was “moderate.”

Concerning the Sadad massacres, the archbishop had asked in 2013:

We have shouted aid to the world but no one has listened to us. Where is the Christian conscience? Where is human consciousness? Where are my brothers?

As persecuted Mideast Christians have well learned since, most Western governments—the Obama administration at their head—could care less about their fate. They care only about one thing: overthrowing Assad—at any cost, including by directly or indirectly arming the Islamic terrorists that persecute Christians in horrific ways, including slaughtering those who refuse to renounce Christ for Muhammad.

Yet truly “moderate” Christian militias fighting the Islamic State are denied arms from Washington: “Lobbyists in D.C. are blocking weapons and equipment from reaching Dwekh Nawsha, the Christian militia force that has been fighting ISIS in Iraq’s Assyrian Nineveh plains.”

Retired Lt. Col. Sargis Sangari, an Iraq war veteran who served 20 years in the army, says: “As much as you’re giving money to all these individuals who are killing each other [the “moderate” terrorists, Kurds, etc.], why don’t you try to give it to the Assyrians?”…. Currently, their [Christians’] lack of resources prevents them from launching an offensive.” U.S. funding, training, and equipment would allow these Christian militias to take the fight to IS, added Sangari.

Of course, all of this assumes that U.S. leadership actually wants the Islamic State and other “moderate” jihadis to be defeated in an offensive by anyone—a dubious assumption.

Still, persecuted Christian pleas have not totally fallen on deaf ears. A few Western Christians, mostly Americans, have traveled to the Middle East to help the indigenous Christians fight the jihadis.

Seeing their governments, which possess the military capability to annihilate the Islamic State, do next to nothing—not even help arm Christians—against IS, these Western Christians have decided to take it on themselves to fight the good fight on behalf of the weak and oppressed.

Brett Felton, a former American soldier who once served in Iraq, now sees himself as a “soldier of Christ” and has returned to help train Dwekh Nawsha against IS.

According to the 28-year-old, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. But here we’re actually fighting for the freedom of the people … to be able to live without persecution, to keep the church bells ringing.”

U.S. vet Jordan Matson, who has the words “Christ is Lord” inscribed in his vest, said: “I decided that if our government wasn’t going to do anything about it, I would… We’re getting shot at [by IS/jihadis] on pretty much a daily basis…. We don’t have the technology that the United States military has to push our enemies away.”

First the Christians of Iraq and then Syria implored the West for help against the Islamic persecutors that the United States unleashed by overthrowing secular strongman Saddam Hussein and now against Bashar Assad.

Brutally persecuted Christians were totally ignored by both government and media.

Then they implored the Obama administration to simply stop arming their persecutors. When that too fell on deaf ears, vastly outnumbered and underequipped Christians gathered to fight the Islamic State head on, hoping the U.S., which showers the “opposition” with weapons, would help equip them against IS.

No such luck. As a result, a few Western Christians who believe in religious freedom are risking their personal lives to help their Mideast brothers against the scourge of “ISIS.”

In light of all this, to still fail to understand which “side” U.S. leadership is on—they currently claim to be on the side of “democracy,” “freedom,” and “human rights”—is to be beyond naïve.

Time to Roll-up our sleeves for the Crusades!

Just as how the first Crusades were initiated, we need another Crusades to drive out the soldiers of Satan from advancing in our lands killing all our men and raping our women.  Christ battled with Satan so must we battle with his minions-- the Muslim terrorists!

hristian militia that is now rising in Iraq to attack ISIS, all wearing wooden crosses.

Hundreds Of Christians Form A Huge Militia And Are Now About To Attack ISIS And They Will Continue To Attack ISIS Until They Retake Their Homes And Towns And Until They Retake The Whole City Of Mosul

By Ted on July 2, 2015 in Featured, General

By Theodore Shoebat

A large and valiant militia, consisting of hundreds of Christians, has been formed to fight against the Islamic persecution and invasion of Christian lands in Iraq. They number in the dozens, they adorn themselves with crosses hanging from their necks, they have denied the self, they are filled with contrition, they are ready to fight the enemies of God, their hearts are prepared to endure holy war, their minds are set on the precepts of Heaven, their very beings are taken by the Word of God, “piercing even to the division of soul and spirit” (Hebrews 4:12). They call themselves the “Ketaeb Babylon.”

According to another Ketaeb Babylon commander, there are “hundreds of Christian fighters located now in various areas of Salaheddin… in addition to others responsible for protecting churches in Baghdad province.” As hundreds have already been recruited, the numbers of volunteers to “fight the Daesh (ISIS) terrorist organization” is continuing, he said.

They hang around their necks wooden crosses, just as the Crusaders of old did when — in the old relic of Christendom — the Christians placed the Cross on their chests and on their shoulders, beautifully manifesting the words of Christ: “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” (Mark 8:34)

They are training to retake their homes that were captured by ISIS in areas in like Mosul which was captured last year. When the heretic Muslims overtook Christian neighborhood and areas, they were given the choice to convert, leave, pay the tax, or die. Most of them fled, but some wanted to fight back, and these are the men who are determined to take up the whip and the Cross, to strike the thieves of lives and those who prey upon souls, and drive them away from the holy Temple of God, that is, the Body of Christ, “the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you” (1 Corinthians 6:19). In fact, the majority of the “Ketaeb Babylon” unit are from Mosul.

The militia trains in a military base near the Baghdad airport, and some Muslims are actually training them on how to use the AK-47, and how to utilize basic combat maneuvers. But this does not mean that they forget Christianity, for as they present themselves in their military parades, they cry out to the mother of our Hope, chanting Ya Mariam (Oh, Mary!).

Now, why would they do this? The wife of Ahasuerus, Esther, commanded the death of Haman, Jael, the mother of Barak, “blessed be she in her tent” (Judges 5:24), struck the head of Sisera with a nail, and Deborah exhorted Barak to fight the enemies of God, and Mary, whose Seed — Jesus Christ — shall bruise the head of the old serpent (Genesis 3:15), and whose image was hoisted above the ship in the Battle of Lepanto, when the Christians crushed the Muslims, told our Lord, “They have no wine.” (John 2:3)

And as Christ transformed the water to wine, ocean of peoples who are His enemies “shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation” and they shall be thrown “into the great winepress of the wrath of God.” (Revelation 14:19-20)

So as Mary was the one who requested more wine, so shall she be with Christ in the day when He makes the oceans of His enemies into blood. For the Scripture says, “the Lord my God will come, And all the saints with You.” (Zechariah 14:5) And the Apostle speaks of “the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.” (1 Thessalonians 3:13). Would not Mary be among the saints, and would she not — by her very actions and Faith — have a great position amongst the saints, having gathered so many treasures in Heaven? So then these Christian militants, as the Christian warriors of old, express their honor towards Mary, the mother of our Salvation.

One of the Christian soldiers, 17-year-old Chaldean Christian Frank Samir, made it every clear that this battle against the Muslim terrorists is a holy war:

"We heard that the Christians had an opportunity for jihad (holy war), and we all came and volunteered… Our children are dying; our Christian families were displaced. How do we ourselves accept that people say the Christians are not fighting? On the contrary, we want to fight everywhere"

Notice how they use the word “jihad.” Now, this does not mean that the Christians took a Muslim word, or that they adopted the Islamic concept of holy war. No. It is only another indication that the Muslims took the idea of holy war from Christianity, and applied it to themselves. The original jihad (or the idea of holy war or struggle against the enemies of God) was a Christian concept. Islam, being a Christian heresy, took this concept and gave it an Arabic word, and advanced their own heresy through the use of holy war. Christianity has holy war, but it is for righteousness. Islam has holy war, but it is for evil.

Fares Issa, aged 38, said:

"I did not hesitate to volunteer with my brothers to fight Daesh (ISIS) …I will continue fighting (them) until the liberation of Mosul and their expulsion from all the areas of Ira"

In their training center the Christians display a large Cross, and alongside the Cross are the words: “God is greatest” and “There is no god but God.”

There are nine training courses, and each course is two weeks. Rayan al-Kaldani, the secretary general of Ketaeb Babylon, said:

"The main aim of forming our forces is the liberation of Mosu… We took part in the operations to liberate the city of Tikrit and other operations, including Baiji, in Salaheddin provinc"

According to Kaldani, the Christian soldiers are under the command of Abu Mahdi al-Mohandis, who is amongst the top commanders in the “Popular Mobilisation” forces, which consists mainly of Shiite fighters.

One commander who calls himself Hajji Ali, a leader of one of the Shiite units said that the training “focuses on close-quarters combat, unconventional warfare and war inside the cities. …Their eyes are on Mosul and the areas occupied by Daesh”.

The volunteers say Mosul is the main goal, but their fight is not limited to that city.

Mosul “is our first aim,” said 16-year-old Raymoun Salwan, who was displaced from the city.

But “I will continue to fight terrorism wherever it goes in Iraq and every place,” he said.

We have to prepare our minds and intellect for this spiritual war that we are in. This is why I made a 2-disk DVD series on teaching the warring spirit of the Christian Faith.

CLICK HERE TO GET OUR 2-DISK DVD SERIES ON CHRISTIAN MILITANCY AND CHRISTIAN WARFARE AND JOIN THE FIGHT TODAY!

Hey, Did the Crusaders Have "Legitimate Grievances"

From Created Minority Report and it's my thought also running on this question!

Obama said today:

Governments that deny human rights play into the hands of extremists who claim that violence is the only way to achieve change. Efforts to counter violent extremism will only succeed if citizens can address legitimate grievances through the democratic process and express themselves through strong civil societies.

Yeah, terrorists have "legitimate grievances" y'know.

It's funny. Everytime Obama brings up the violence radical Muslims do, he brings up the Crusades. I wonder if he'll ever bring up the "legitimate grievances" Christians had with Muslims which led to the Crusades.

prolly not, right?

Why we need to talk about the real enemy: ISLAMIC JIHAD!

In response to TERRORIST ATTACK IN PARIS FRANCE, we need to look seriously what Islam and Muslims can do to us if we dare to question their beliefs!

What you will learn from this video are:

• History of the Quran
• HIstory of Islam
• Life of Muhammad
• Why Jews and Christians were expelled from Madina and the entire the Middle East
• The Crusades
• Dhimmitude
• History of the Islamic Caliphate under the Turks
• Muslim Brotherhood
• The State of Israel
• Political Correctness
• Rising of Islam in the West and their agenda to dominate
• What we can do as INFIDELS (non-Muslims)
• Who are we in the eyes of Muslims and who are the Muslims.

THANK YOU MS. BRIGITTE GABRIEL! Add her at Twitter @act4america 

Muslim Leaders Declare Aim Of World Domination. Rome, London, Spain, Paris, America, ISIS

MUST WATCH!

Our political policies have failed us when Muslim immigrants are UNWILLING to ASSIMILATE within our societies. They refuse to pledge allegiance to our country's CONSTITUTION but to Islam and Muhammad. They want SHARIAH to be the law within our democratic countries.  Now, every Muslim is making headlines with a CLEAR INTENTION of ISLAMICIZING the Christian world (secular world) including ROME and the VATICAN STATES.  Our POLITICIANS have failed us and our RELIGIOUS LEADERS do not directly condemn violent verses form the Quran and Hadiths out of POLITICAL CORRECTNESS. If we keep silent, soon ISLAM will SILENCE our rights to voice our objection.  While we are still DEMOCRATIC, let's say NO TO ISLAMIZATION and NO TO SHARIAH!

IT'S TIME! We need another CRUSADES!

ISIS Declares War On The Vatican, And Says, “Muslims will be at war with the Roman Christians”.

Will the IGLESIA NI CRISTO® of FELIX Y. MANALO and other anti-Catholics come for the defense of the CHURCH IN ROME against Muslims? -CD2000

URGENT: ISIS threatens to invade Rome and fly its flag over the Vatican (IraqiNews.com)

By Theodore Shoebat

ISIS has now declared war on the Vatican in their manifesto, which contains numerous details on their plans to invade Rome. In their manifesto they quote one of ISIS’ spokesman Shaykh Abū Muhammad al-’Adnānī ash-Shāmī as saying:

O soldiers of the Islam- ic State, be ready for the final campaign of the crusaders. Yes, by Allah’s will, it will be the final one. Thereafter, we will raid them by Allah’s per- mission and they will not raid us… And so we promise you (crusaders) by Allah’s permission that this campaign will be your final campaign. It will be broken and defeated, just as all your previous campaigns were broken and defeated, except that this time we will raid you thereafter, and you will never raid us. We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women, by the permission of Allah, the Exalted. This is His prom- ise to us; He is glorified and He does not fail in His promise. If we do not reach that time, then our children and grandchildren will reach it, and they will sell your sons as slaves at the slave market

Moreover, ISIS makes it clear that Rome is their main target, stating that their jihad will not end until Rome is fully taken, and thus making Rome their top priority:

Finally, do not forget that Allah is with the Mus- lims and will never abandon them to His ene- mies. And the Islamic State will remain until its banner flies over Rome.

They go on to quote al-Qaeda agent Abū Hamzah al-Muhājir, when he spoke of a future Islamic conquest of Rome:

…by Allah, we will not rest from our jihād until we are under the olive trees of Rome, after we destroy the filthy house called the White House

Notice how he says the conquest of Rome will happen after they conquer the White House, and notice how he says that they will not rest until they conquer Rome. Again, this places Rome as the major priority of the Muslim expansion. They continue on to say that Rome does not just signify the Vatican or the Italian city, but the Christians of Europe in general, and that after the Muslims defeat them, then they will take the city of Rome:

the Muslims will be at war with the Roman Christians. Rome in the Arabic tongue of the Prophet (sallallāhu ‘alayhi wa sallam) refers to the Christians of Europe and their colonies in Shām prior to the conquering of Shām at the hands of the Sahābah. There will be a pause in this war due to a truce or treaty. … Then the Romans will commit treachery by raising the cross and killing a Muslim. This will lead to the continuation of the war between the Muslims and the Romans. They will demand access to those who enslaved some of them or the former captives themselves who accept- ed Islam so as to fight them. This enslavement will have taken place either before the signing of the truce or after the treachery, and Allah knows best. These events all lead up to the final, greatest, and bloodiest battle – al-Malhamah al- Kubrā – between the Muslims and the Romans prior to the appearance of the Dajjāl and the descent of al-Masīh. This battle ends the era of the Roman Christians, as the Muslims will then advance upon Constantinople and thereafter Rome, to conquer the two cities and raise the flag of the Khilāfah over them.

The Holy League, a confederacy of Catholic nations (that consisted mainly of Spain and Italy) that formed in the late 16th century to fight the Ottoman Turks, will rise again. This is not just some utopian dream, but an event foretold by God; for in the Book of Daniel it says,

For the ships of Chittim shall come against him: therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation against the holy covenant: so shall he do; he shall even return, and have intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant. (Daniel 11:30)

Chittim consists of Cyprus, Greece, and Italy. The New King James renders it as “ships from Cyprus”, while the Douay-Rheims presents the passage as, “And the galleys and the Romans shall come upon him”. The Greeks, Cypriots, and Italians will be appointed by God to fight the Muslim armies of the Antichrist. The Greeks and the Cypriots are Eastern Orthodox, while the Italians are Roman Catholics.

The holy centurion, Cornelius, was amongst the first warriors to join the fold of Christianity, and he was “of that which is called the Italian band” (Acts 10:1). And the Italians of today, the inheritors of that mighty Cornelius, will be amongst the forces who will fight the Antichrist.

The Catholic world will therefore join forces with the Eastern Orthodox world, and together they will combat and crush the empire of the revived Ottomans and their Islamic confederacy. It will be a holy war; the Cross will be our banner; our souls will be armed with the Sword of the Spirit, and the hilt of the sword will be gripped in the thrall of mighty Christendom! The Holy League will rise again, and the New Crusade will end with the sword stained by pagan blood!

The New Crusade will be one based on Christianity, its foundation will be Orthodox theology; it will unsheathe the sword of truth and the eternal blade of the Spirit, and through Christ the warriors will sternly charge and conquer their enemies.

Why Christians needed the CRUSADES! And why we still need it today!

Taken from The Splendor of the Church blog

ROME will be fought! Islam cannot take it away from Christians! Long LIVE ROME! Long LIVE the POPE!

If Muslims would attack the Vatican and the Pope, will the Iglesia Ni Cristo® and other anti-Catholic Protestants will they side with the Catholic Church and Protect the Vatican and the Pope?

Italian Bishop: Muslims Must Condemn Islamist Violence or Leave Italy

Says Nobody Wants Enemies in Their Own Home
Rome, September 08, 2014 (Zenit.org) Staff Reporter 

An Italian bishop has called on Muslims in traditionally Christian countries in Europe to publicly denounce Islamist persecution or they should be "courageous" enough to own up to their beliefs "and leave our country," because "nobody wants enemies in their own home."

In a forceful editorial in his local diocesan newspaper this past weekend, Bishop Tommaso Ghirelli of Imola called on citizens to stop blaming foreigners en masse. “Rather we are asking the Muslims who live among us to show that they are honourable men, and publicly condemn these persecutions and acts of cruelty,” he said. “Otherwise they ought to have the courage to leave our country, because nobody wants to have enemies in their own home.”

He added: “We know that they are intimidated by fundamentalists, but the time has come to break the vicious cycle of abuse.”

He also called on politicians to fulfil their duty to protect and defend the lives and the freedom of the people, otherwise they “will pay dearly for every silence and every act of cowardice.”

Bishop Ghirelli’s words have already shaken consciences. The president of the House of Islamic Culture in Imola, Mohamed Sabir, wishes to address the bishop’s concerns during commemorations on September 11, the 13thanniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Here below is the full text of Bishop Ghirelli’s editorial:

***

THE CALIPHATE AND REFUGEES

September 7, 2014

Let’s take a look at what’s behind the influx of refugees and immigrants arriving by sea, and the vast number of youth and entire families from Africa and the Orient that have come into Europe across the “mare nostrum” [the Mediterranean Sea] in the space of one year. The number is about 150,000, by the end of the year it will be almost 200,000.

It is certain that we will see not one, but a complete series of dramatic conflicts, political problems and social tensions. This is the reason we are talking now about a third world war in progress. As well as the immediate response to the emergency, the most important thing [to do] is to look further than the sea. Which means also looking – by reflex – at our own home: not only in political spheres, not only in business affairs, but also inside our own hearts. Is there fatalism or resignation there? What is happening to me?

So, let’s look then at distinguishing first of all the refugees – those in search of asylum – and the immigrants – those in search of work.

The wars the refugees are escaping from are not natural phenomena. Who is causing them? For what reasons? Who precisely are the contenders? We must be informed and be informed by the ones who know. Also this diocesan weekly is called to play a part here.

Some dramatic warnings were launched at the end of the terrible month of August by Syrian and Iraqi bishops at the Meeting in Rimini. The proposal to have another day of prayer for Syria and the Middle East on Sunday September 7 was launched, repeating the one of a year ago at Pope Francis’ invitation. We note that in the meantime the conflict has extended and has aggravated, even if politicians have become more circumspect, by recognizing some of their grave errors. The number of victims however is rising; the persecution of Christians has spread to other religious minorities and the cruelty and arrogance of the armed bands have reached levels of bestial paroxysm. Faced with the armed actions of ISIS, the people are appealing to Governments and International Authorities.

It is my view that we must be demanding of them, like the courageous mothers of the Russian soldiers.

Politicians, you have the duty to protect and defend - not supremacy, but the lives and the freedom of the people, otherwise you will pay dearly for every silence and every act of cowardice. And we the citizens must stop blaming foreigners en bloc. Rather we are asking the Muslims who live among us to show that they are honourable men, and publicly condemn these persecutions and acts of cruelty. Otherwise they ought to have the courage to leave our country, because nobody wants to have enemies in their own home. We know that they are intimidated by fundamentalists, but the time has come to break the vicious cycle of abuse.

The situation is grave, so let’s all get started without hesitation, going beyond either do-goodism or intolerance.

Bishop Tommaso Ghirelli, Bishop of Imola.

Islam's 'Purpose Driven' Jihad

Read the PART I Introduction of this article from Facing Islam

The Purpose of Islam

Order the Book

One of the most telling aspects of Islam concerns its calendar, which begins from a pivotal event in the life of its founder, Muhammad. Born circa 570 A.D., Muhammad, according to classical Muslim sources, began having revelations at about the age of forty, in a cave near Mecca, where he used to retreat in prayer to Allah. These powerful experiences, during which he was told by a spirit being (later to be identified as the angel Gabriel) to “Read and Recite” were frightening, yet compelling: “He pressed upon me so tightly I thought it was death!” [1]

Yet neither Muhammad’s birth nor the beginning of his self-proclaimed prophethood mark the start date of the Islamic calendar. It is not merely the message, nor the messenger, which defines Islam’s purpose.

Muhammad’s initial message of Allah as the only true God, and submission (“islam”) to him the only true way, did not attract many followers in Mecca, and he fled north to Medina (Yathrib) in 622 A.D. to escape persecution. This migration is called the Hijra, and it is the pivotal event in Islamic history, and in its self-understanding.

Following the Hijra, Muhammad won a series of battles against various Jewish and Arab tribes, consolidating his power and expanding his forces until returning to take Mecca in 632 A.D. These victories were taken by Muslims as divine validation of the truth of Islam and of its very purpose; Muhammad’s life became The Example for all Muslims, and the story of his victory over southern Arabia as the prototype for Islam’s goal of eventual victory over the whole world.

This new purpose may be seen in the Quran itself, as during the ten year Medinan period, Muhammad’s revelations took on a distinctly warlike, supremacist tone, with strident anti-Christian and anti-Jewish messages, and commands to wage jihad against the unbelievers until the whole world had submitted to Allah’s rule, as can be seen from these Medinan verses:

9:5. Then when the Sacred Months have passed, then kill the Mushrikun [unbelievers] wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush. But if they repent and perform As-Salat [the Islamic ritual prayers], and give Zakat [alms], then leave their way free. Verily, Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

8:39. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah [disbelief and polytheism: i.e. worshipping others besides Allah] and the religion will all be for Allah Alone. But if they cease [worshipping others besides Allah], then certainly, Allah is All-Seer of what they do.

9:29. Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth [Islam] among the people of the Scripture [Jews and Christians], until they pay the Jizya [the poll tax for non-Muslims] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

Islamic tradition combines the revelations of the Quran (literally, the “recitations”), together with the Hadiths (traditions about Muhammad) and the Sira (the Life of Muhammad, the most significant written by Ibn Ishaq in the mid-eight century). The Quran cannot be understood properly without the Hadiths and Sira, which form the Sunnah (or ‘Way’) of the Prophet for Muslims. The two most revered collections of Hadiths (Bukhari and Muslim) recount Muhammad as saying:

I have been commanded to fight people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and perform the prayer, and pay zakat. If they say it, they have saved their blood and possessions from me, except for the rights of Islam over them. And their final reckoning is with Allah. (Sahih Bukhari 8:387, Sahih Muslim 1:33)

Thus the full weight of Islamic tradition set up an ultimate purpose for Muslims to fight, to wage jihad to spread Islam. Also according to Muhammad’s example, the Muslims were permitted to take spoils of war (“booty”) from their victories, thus adding a temporal incentive to the call to jihad. Though very little of Islamic tradition was codified in the first decades after Muhammad’s death in 632 A.D., the purpose to wage jihad and conquer in the name of Islam were clearly embraced by his followers, as the Muslim armies swept forth from southern Arabia, in less than a century conquering a vast area stretching from the Iberian peninsula in the west, to central Asia in the east. Raymond Ibrahim has concisely written about the historical reality of these early Muslim conquests elsewhere.

Thus it is Muhammad’s flight to Medina (the Hijra) and the events surrounding it which herald the transformation of Islam from a marginal religious movement into a religious-political-military community (the ‘Umma’), which soon established itself as the dominant force in the Arabian Peninsula and the world of its time. And it is from this date of the Hijra that the Muslim Calendar begins.

The calendar emphasis, which rests not on Muhammad’s birth, nor on the beginning of his so-called revelations, but on Islam’s reinvention with force, victory, wealth and dominion defines Islam’s self-awareness and its purpose. Writ large, Islam sees its purpose as bringing the whole world under submission to Allah and Islam through the practice of jihad.

(Read PART 11)... PART III to be continued by the Author.

[1] Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, trans. by A. Guillaume (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 106.

THE CRUSADES IN CONTEXT

By Dr. Paul Stenhouse

Current wisdom would have it that 'five centuries of peaceful co-existence' between Muslims and Christians were brought to an end by 'political events and an imperial-papal power play,' that was to lead to a centuries-long series of so-called "holy-wars" that pitted Christendom against Islam, and left an enduring legacy of misunderstanding and mistrust.'[1]

A school textbook, Humanities Alive 2, for Year 8 students in the Australian State of Victoria, carries the anti-Christian/anti Western argument further:

Those who destroyed the World Trade Centre are regarded as terrorists. Might it be fair to say that the Crusaders who attacked the Muslim inhabitants of Jerusalem were also terrorists?[2]

Muhammad died in Medina on June 8, 632 AD. The first of the eight Crusades to free the Holy Places in Palestine from Muslim control, and offer safe passage to the Holy Land for Christian pilgrims, was called only in 1095. At the risk of sounding pedantic, the period in question is not 'five centuries,' but four-hundred and sixty-three years; and those years, we contend, were not characterized by 'peaceful coexistence'.[3]

Islam's attack on Christianity

For the Christian states bordering the Mediterranean, it was a four-hundred and sixty-three year period of regular, disorganized [and occasionally organized] bloody incursions by Muslim mainly Arab and Berber land and sea forces. These came intent on booty - gold, silver, precious stones and slaves - on destroying churches, convents and shrines of the 'infidels,' and on the spread of politico-religious Islam throughout Europe from their bases in the Mediterranean and the Adriatic.

At the time of Muhammad's death there were flourishing Christian and Jewish communities in Arabia, and throughout the major centres of the Persian Empire. The whole of the Mediterranean world on its European, Asian and African sides, was predominantly Christian.

It had taken only a few years for Muslim tribesmen from Arabia, inspired by Muhammad's revelations and example, to invade the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire whose emperors devoted more time to religious disputation than to defending their empire. In 633 Mesopotamia fell. After a few years the entire Persian Empire fell to the marauding Arab tribesmen who drove the young Persian emperor Yazdagird into the farthest reaches of his empire, to Sogdiana [Uzbekistan], where he was eventually murdered by his Tartar bodyguard in a miller's hut.

Damascus fell in 635, and Jerusalem capitulated five years after Muhammad died, in February 638.

The fall of Alexandria in 643 sounded the death knell of more than thousand years of Hellenic civilization that once enriched the whole of the Near East with its scholarship and culture. Henri Daniel-Rops claims that from the point of view of the history of civilization, Alexandria's fall was as significant as the fall of Constantinople to the Turks eight-hundred years later.[4]

Cyprus fell in 648-9 and Rhodes in 653. By 698 the whole of North Africa was lost.

Spain invaded

Less than eighty years after Muhammad's death, in 711, Muslims from Tangiers poured across the 13 km wide strait of Gibraltar into Spain. By 721 this Arab-Berber horde had overthrown the ruling Catholic Visigoths and, with the fall of Saragossa, set their sights on southern France.

By 720 Narbonne had fallen. Bordeaux was stormed and its churches burnt down by 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Abdullah al-Ghafiqi in early spring 732. A basilica outside the walls of Poitiers was razed, and 'Abd al-Rahman headed for Tours which held the body of St Martin [who died in 397] apostle and patron saint of the Franks.

He was to be defeated and killed by Charles Martel and his Frankish army on a Saturday in October, 732, one hundred years after Muhammad's death, on the road from Poitiers to Tours a defeat that was hailed by Gibbon and others as decisive in turning back the Muslim tide from Europe.

Attacks on France, however, continued, and in 734 Avignon was captured by an Arab force. Lyons was sacked in 743. It wasn't until 759 that the Arabs were driven out of Narbonne. Marseilles was plundered by them in 838.

Muslim incursions into Italy had been a feature of life from the early 800s. The islands of Ponza [off Gaeta] and Ischia [off Naples] had been plundered, and then, in 813 Civitavecchia, the port of Rome, whose harbour had been constructed by Trajan, was sacked by the Arabs.

In 826 the island of Crete fell to Muslim forces which retained it as their base until 961. From around 827 they then began nibbling at Sicily. They captured Messina and controlled the Strait of Messina by 842, and finally took the whole island in 859, after Enna fell to them.

In 836 the Neapolitans self-interestedly invited the Muslim forces to help them against the Lombards and set the stage for more than a century of Muslims raids along the Adriatic, involving the destruction of Ancona, and Muslim progress as far as the mouth of the Po. 'Saracen Towers'[5] south of Naples, built in the ninth century to warn locals of the approach of Arab fleets from Sicily and Africa still charm visitors to the Neapolitan coast.

Bari, now home to the relics of St Nicholas of Myra, the original 'Father Christmas,' fell to Khalfun, a Berber chieftan, by another act of treachery in 840. From 853-871 the notorious Muslim brigand al- Mufarraj bin Sallam, and his successor, another Berber named Sawdan, controlled all the coast from Bari down to Reggio Calabria, and terrorized Southern Italy. They even plundered the Abbey of St Michael on Mt Gargano. They claimed the title of Emir, and independence of the Emir in Palermo.

Sacking of St Peter's

Naples herself had to beat off a Muslim attack in 837. But in 846 Rome was not to be so fortunate. On August 23rd 846, Arab squadrons from Africa arrived at Ostia, at the Tiber's mouth. There were 73 ships. The Saracen force numbered 11,000 warriors, with 500 horses.[6]

The most revered Christian shrines outside the Holy Land, the tombs of Sts Peter and Paul, were desecrated and their respective Basilicas were sacked, as was the Lateran Basilica along with numerous other churches and public buildings.

The very altar over the body of St Peter was smashed to pieces, and the great door of St Peter's Basilica was stripped of its silver plates. Romans were desolated and Christendom was shocked at the barbarism of the Muslim forces.

Three years later Pope Leo IV [847-855] formed an alliance with Naples, Amalfi and Gaeta, and when a Saracen fleet again appeared at the mouth of the Tiber in 849, the Papal fleet joined forces with its allies and they repelled the Muslim fleet which turned, and ran into a violent wind-storm that destroyed it, like Pharaoh's army long before.

Survivors were brought to Rome and put to work helping to build the Leonine Wall around the Vatican. Twelve feet thick, nearly forty feet in height and defended by forty-four towers, most of this wall, and two of the round towers, can be seen still by visitors to the Vatican. These defensive walls were finished and blessed by Pope Leo IV in 852.

Taranto in Apulia was conquered by Arab forces in 846. They held it until 880.

In 870 Malta was captured by the Muslims. In 871 Bari, the Saracens' capital on mainland Italy, was recaptured from the Muslims by Emperor Louis II, who in 872 was to defeat a Saracen fleet off Capua.. Continuue Reading Here...

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Endnotes

[1] John Esposito, Islam: the Straight Path, 3rd ed. OUP, 1998, p. 58.
[2] See 'Civilizing influence of previous wars fought between East and West', The Weekend Australian, March 18-19, 2006.
[3] This article restricts itself to a brief discussion of these claims and counter claims. We plan future articles that will discuss other controverted issues like the collaboration, in the initial phase of Islamic expansionism after the death of Muhammad, with Muslim military forces, by Christians and others, for political and sometimes religious reasons. We will also look at the claim that the Crusades were anti-Islamic, put relations between the Crusaders and the Byzantines, and the sacking of Jerusalem and Constantinople in context. We will consider the degree to which ongoing anti-Catholic polemic since the 16th century has now become a weapon in the hands of radical Islamists.
[4] The Church in the Dark Ages, J.M. Dent and Sons, London, 1959, p.336.
[5] The term 'Saracen' is sometimes mistakenly derived from the Arabic Sharqi or 'Easterner'. St Jerome considered it to be the name the Arabs gave themselves, deriving their origins from Sarah, Abraham's free wife, rather than from Hagar, his slave. In many of the sources we have used, the term 'Agareni', or'Hagarines,' is found.
[6] Letter from Adelbert, Marquis of Tuscany and protector of the Papal territory of Corsica, to Pope Sergius II in Liber Pontificalis, n.xliv, ed. Farnesiana.

Islamic Desecration of St. Peter's in Rome and St. John Lateran in 846 A.D. etc

Two Momentous But Little Remembered Dates In Western & Church History

By American Catholic

Recently two momentous events in Western and Church History passed with hardly a mention. Actually, these events may be better known in the Muslim world than the Christian world; the Islamic army’s desecration of St. Peter’s in Rome, along with St John Lateran and other churches in 846, and the stunning defeat of the Islamic military onslaught by Charles the Hammer Martel at Tours, France in 732. Though these two events occurred over 100 years apart, they do point out that until the Ottoman-Turkish Islamic defeat in 1683 at the gates of Vienna; Europe was facing a never ending threat from radical Islam. Yet how is it that according to the mainstream media it was the fault of Christians, and specifically Catholics? In my last article, I wrote of the naval Battle of Lepanto in 1571 and the land at the Gates of Vienna in 1683. Some wondered why I didn’t right about Charles the Hammer Martel and some of the earlier Islamic incursions into Europe. Now is a good time to delve into that subject. (For more on Charles the Hammer Martel and the Battle of Tours please read this excellent article by my colleague Donald McClarey.)

Ask most practicing Catholics, Evangelicals and mainline Protestants who Charles the Hammer Martel was and you would probably get blank stares. Perhaps a few young people might be under the false impression that he is some sort of up and coming professional wrestler. However, you would probably stand a better chance of having someone in the Islamic world tell you about Charles the Hammer Martel. The same might be true for the sack of Rome in 846 by Muslim forces who disembarked at Ostia (the Tiber port) and marched right into Rome desecrating holy sites like St Peter’s and St John Lateran and leaving the Eternal City with their plunder. Many in the western world might be surprised why they have never heard this and why those who reside in the Islamic world are better informed of these events than in the Western World. Let us peer back into time to see what we can learn about the past and what it might mean for the future.

It is said that God can make the best out of the worst. As Charles Martel grew older and realized that his mother was simply a consort of his regal father, Charles must have realized that he could have been abandoned to poverty, or worse yet aborted (if that had happened Christianity might have been confined to Ireland!) Charles must have developed a thick skin and a courageous spirit that enabled him not to run at the first sign of trouble. Europe was in a state of near panic by 730 as the well seasoned professional Islamic Army had laid waste to much of the Middle East and North Africa leaving the homes of those past saints like Augustine in ruins. Europe was in the Dark Ages, armies were merely feudal in their makeup, a far cry from the type of regimented units needed to stop the largest invading armies Europe had seen since the days when Rome ruled the world.

Martel wasn’t above putting the fear of God into nobleman and clergy alike to make them realize what life would be like under Islamic rule. Finally, the Church and Manor agreed to give him the men he needed. Martel’s battle plan was as crafty as it was strategic. The Hammer knew that he must attack the invaders head on, along with planting the seed that the booty they had acquired in their previous conquests, and left back at their base camp, was not safe. Both plans worked and Western Europe was saved in the latest of rounds. However, this didn’t mean that the banner of Islam would not be waved again over Europe.

A mere one hundred years later, Islamic forces disembarked from their 73 ships at Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber. From there they marched to Rome, desecrating (old) St Peter’s, destroying the altar, and vandalizing various pontifical tombs, including that of the first pontiff, St Peter. It didn’t end there. St John Lateran, the pope’s official church was also targeted and the tombs of many other saints around Rome, including that of St Paul saw the wrath of this invading army.

While most of Europe would be spared from Islamic rule, Sicily and Spain were the exception. Islamic rule in the agriculturally rich island of Sicily would last for some time. Western words like assassin were really Arabic words that became part of the Sicilian nomenclature. Another Sicilian tradition that would arise from the long stay of the Arab Conquest would become known as the Mafia. Strong men would emerge who would do whatever was necessary to keep political control over a region, sometimes that meant making alliances with other important families, and sometimes that meant killing them.

Spain saw the longest Islamic reign in European History. Islam’s long hold over Iberian Peninsula wouldn’t end until 1492, the same year as an Italian sailing under the Spanish flag would discover not a short cut to India, but the New World. The Reconquestia of Spain took many centuries and the lessons learned here could have wide ranging implications in our modern world.

There is a belief that once a land is conquered for centuries there is no way to get it back to its cultural roots. Yet, in our own 21st century we are seeing before our very eyes in Kosovo that the Christian presence via the Catholic Church is still strong, some have speculated that centuries after the Islamic conquest of much of Albania, there are many crypto Catholics in the land that gave us Mother Teresa.

Why is it that many Muslims both in the western world and in the Middle East and North Africa know far more about their history and that of the Christian West than many Christians? I saw this first hand in the little rust belt Catholic school in which I attended and taught. I also observed this in college. Now I can understand this in college but I am from a small rust belt town, a town which is not unlike many small towns, where doctors who are Muslim send their children to Catholic schools. I believe the answers lies in the strong beliefs of many Muslim families. They simply believe their faith over what they are told by the education and media gatekeepers. Sadly, many Christian families including Catholic families bought into the historical lies that were told by mainstream media and the Higher Education Establishment. I am thinking specifically now of the lies told about Muslim Conquest of Europe and the meek answer of the Christian West, known as the Crusades.

I am not going to delve into the Crusades because I discussed that in this article. In addition, my colleague Joe Hargrave also delved into the subject with great care and circumspect. However, in a quick summary the Crusades were a small defensive action fought by a group of poorly skilled western soldiers who had more in common with those noble but outmatched members of the Charge of the Light Brigade than any modern western trained fighting force. The original Islamic invading armies were as skilled as they were ruthless.

I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t mention the various Marian apparitions that many feel demonstrates the Blessed Mother’s continuing outreach to the Muslim world. Fatima in Portugal is the only town in Portugal with an Islamic name, and yet this is where the Blessed Mother appeared in 1917. Zeitoun in Egypt not only saw many Christians healed of various ailments, but it also saw many Muslims cured as well. Even famed leaders like Gamal Adbul Nasser came to see and believe in the 1968 apparition. One must remember that Christ never called Mary, “mother, “because she is the world’s mother. Perhaps through these apparitions she is reminding the Muslim world that before the Middle East and North Africa was Muslim, it was Christian. (For more on this please read, Trials and Tribulations Follow Marian Apparitions.)

The Western World and particularly Western Europe has bought into the popular lies of reproduction or lack thereof. The truth of the matter is while Muslim family size in Europe resembles the Catholic family of old, much of the lapsed Anglican, Luther and Catholic families of Western Europe are aborting and contraception themselves right off the planet. For our friends who are Protestant and thinking, “what a minute this Catholic belief in non contraceptives has nothing to do with us?” Actually, the truth of the matter is until 1930 not one Christian church allowed contraceptives. The Anglican Church was the first.

It would stand to reason that when you allow the Dictatorship of Relativism, as our brave but often ridiculed Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI has defined it, you are going to be deceived every time. The deception didn’t end with abortion and contraception, it continues on with a false notion that our Christian and specifically Catholic forbearers were blood thirsty aggressors trying to rid the helpless Muslim world of their belief. While much of the western world salutes Saladin, the famous Islamic general during the Crusades, all too often academia denounces both the Catholic Church and the Knights Templar for their roles in the Crusades.

Even iconic explorers like Christopher Columbus have been demonized by academia. Columbus was either a blood thirsty conqueror taking advantage of the sinless Native Americans, or some sort of Bible thumping explorer bent on converting heathens to Catholicism. Both counts are hideously in error. The New World was plagued with the same sort of blood thirsty marauding tribes as was Dark Ages Europe.

For his part Christopher Columbus was far from sinless, but because he was very devout in his Catholic beliefs, the treatment of Native Americans was far better than most explorers. Columbus named most of the islands he discovered for the various saintly titles ascribed to the Blessed Virgin Mary. A recent Discovery Channel show about Columbus conceded that he was more religious and pious than other explorer. However, one of the “Columbus experts” featured in the show described Columbus in terms that one would think of as a religious nut. The expert said he certainly was “a holy roller.”

Why do Christians take this sort of abuse from academia when the Muslim world would object in the most strenuous terms to their famous ancestors being treated in this way? Perhaps the answer lies in faith, or lack thereof for the modern world. Too many in the western world’s main ambition is to be liked and admired by the secular powers that be. Jesus foretold that this would happen and reminded us we can’t serve two masters. Unfortunately it would appear that for many in the western world, they have already decided which master they will serve.

Where did this all start? Shortly after the Protestant Reformation Martin Luther was abruptly shown the door at the Marburg Colloquy (1529,) when he became upset that some of his fellow reformers didn’t believe in the Eucharist and (and some would later deny most of the miracles of Jesus.) Luther’s ego thought all those who disagreed with some of the abuses of the clergy within the Catholic Church would naturally listen to his ideas. They didn’t and so the division that Jesus warned us about had begun (John 10:16.) It would escalate in the ideas of the French Revolution, where thousands of the faithful from simple peasants to Catholic clergy would meet their earthly end with the guillotine. From there it morphed off into the radicals ideas of Karl Marx, Fredrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Sigmund Freud, Saul Alinsky and on it went. The poor would be used as a foil by those saw in them a way to grab power. The elites could now mold and shape the world in their warped image of rebellion and anger. They were not happy warriors but warriors of death and mayhem.

Where will it end? It will not end until those merchants of death and mayhem have seized control. A hint may lie in their treatment of Pope Benedict XVI. While then Josef Cardinal Ratzinger, he was hailed for his action in putting an end to the Abuse Scandal. However, now that he is pontiff, the New York Times and CNN use the lies of an ambulance chasing attorney and his sidekick, a disgraced former archbishop who was blackmailed by his secret homosexual partner. Instead of apologizing for his actions, this former archbishop has made no bones about his hatred of Pope Benedict XVI and the traditional sexual teachings of the Catholic Church. Many in the mainstream media realize that many of the abusers were of their camp, those who wanted to change the Church to suit the whims of the world. Who might be next? Perhaps those who faithfully live by the teachings of the Catholic Church like Eve Tushnet who admits that she is same sex attracted, but faithfully lives under the teachings of the Church. (For more on this read this positive article some time ago from the New York Times on Eve Tushnet.)

Thankfully, there are some in the west who haven’t been swayed by those who truly hate God, His goodness and His love. This remnant band of goodness is still faithful to what they were taught. This can easily be seen in the fruits of their labors. In my book, The Tide is Turning Toward Catholicism, I noted the dioceses where orthodoxy is flourishing and where vocations to the priesthood and women’s religious life are increasing. A new crop of orthodox minded bishops are paving the way for young priests and nuns (who joyfully wear the veil or habit.) They happily embrace the teachings of the Catholic Church and don’t apologize for it. Sadly outside of Catholicism and Evangelicalism, much of Western Christendom is in a statistical freefall. While the mainstream media embraces those churches and leaders who have changed their doctrine to suit the Dictatorship if Relativism, the faithful have voted with their feet and left for more orthodox minded churches. (If this last paragraph intrigues you, please read If You Want The Political Left To Run Governments, Look At What The Religious Left Had Done To Religion (Left It In Tatters.) along with The Coming Open Rebellion Against God and finally The Jesus the Professional Left Chose To Ignore.

The speed of the liberal churches demise is happening at an alarming rate. Fifty years ago the Anglican Church of CS Lewis was the epitome of respect; rates of attendance at Anglican churches in Britain were some of the highest seen in the western world. Today the Archbishop of Canterbury has welcomed the establishment of some form of futuristic Sharia Law for Britain, all the while there are more Britons attending Friday prayers in their respective mosques than Anglicans attending church services on Sunday morning.

These sad events didn’t happen out of thin air, they occurred because too many Christians put their faith in trust in the latest whims of the modern world. They sold their birthrate for a mess of relativistic pottage that said the demented rants of men like Voltaire, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Freud and Alinsky were on par and often superior than that of Jesus, St, Peter, St Paul, St Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas, St Theresa Avila, St Joan of Arc and Pope Benedict XVI. In addition, many Christians forget not only the teachings and lives of these important men and women, but they also forget the dates and events that made up not only their lives, but the heritage and lives of all those today who call themselves Christians. We know this doesn’t have to be, so and in places where the Faith hasn’t been watered down, the faith is alive. We just have to decide which master we will serve.

Dave Hartline