Of 2017, and the Continuing Struggle of and with Islam
Ringing in the new year of 2017, rife with predictions from seers and others on what might happen during this 100th anniversary of the Fatima revelations, has already seen its troubling signs. One thousand or so ‘migrants’ from sub-Saharan Africa tried to storm the border, rushing and fighting their way into southern Spain. They fought with riot police with rocks and clubs, but were turned back. What happens when they return with rifles and grenade launchers? I am not sure there are enough police in all of Europe to fend off the potential millions who may want to ‘seek asylum’ from the dysfunctional societies which their creed has helped to create. We are facing interesting times, and should all meditate on the lessons learned from Charles Martel in 732 at the battle of Tours, Don Juan and Saint Pius V at Lepanto in 1571, and from Jan Sobielski in 1683 at the gates of Vienna. A loss of any one of these battles would have likely turned a large swath of Europe into an Islamic caliphate. Why would such not happen again, and are we as prepared, and as cohesive a society, as they?
Just looking at the drunken revelry in Britain provides a glimpse of an answer: Flabby shirtless men, semi-clad women, boozy and careless, are not the stuff from which a culture is built. I won’t provide a link to preserve what modesty we have left. How Christian is Europe in any real, practical sense of that term? Without Christianity, and by that I mean a spiritually and intellectually strong and vigorous Catholicism, there can be no hope, no foundation, no solidity with which to ‘resist’, if such be the word, perhaps ‘perfect’, ‘elevate’ or, even, ‘evangelize’ other cultures. Or is that now too quaint and unecumenical to consider?
We may include, at the present historical moment, two basic ‘other cultures’, both inimical to Catholicism. Secularism (with its close cousin relativism), and Islam, which at present are sort of allies, at least in Western lands where Islam is still not dominant, but this uneasy alliance will not last for long. Amongst the clearest manifestations of relativism are the LGBT and gender-fluid crowd, who believe there is no objective truth to human sexuality or sex, nor to human nature, and that whatever is your fleeting desire of the present moment, often of the most disordered variety, defines who ‘you’ are. The various forms of Islam, of course, do not believe this, but are sort of quiet for now, again at least in once-Christian lands. They maintain a rather different view of human nature, according the Qur’an: Men are men, and women are women, but not in the sense of Catholicism, nor in a sense fully compatible with Christianity. On New Year’s Eve, another attack, in Istanbul, with a militant gunman in, where else, a nightclub, spraying bullets with an AK-47, killing 39 and wounding dozens more. IS, or ISIS, or whatever the acronym du jour now is, has claimed responsibility:
In continuation of the blessed operations that Islamic State is conducting against the protector of the cross, Turkey, a heroic soldier of the caliphate struck one of the most famous nightclubs where the Christians celebrate their apostate holiday
I would counter that the revelers in the club were likely not celebrating any ‘apostate’ holiday. The end of the Christmas octave? Or is New Year’s now considered a Christian ‘holy day’ in the Islamic world? Perhaps the Islamic attacker was upset that these Christians were celebrating the countdown of the minutes from the date from the birth of Christ, a calendar first formulated by the sixth century Christian monk Dionysius Exiguus. This is contrary to Islam, which a century or so later began counting the calendar from 622, commemorating the Hijra, the flight of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina. Yes, perhaps that was it. In the Catholic culture, New Year’s Day is in a far more important sense the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, a day of obligation in the universal Church, and the Church strongly recommends spending an hour in adoration before the blessed sacrament on eve of the solemnity, New Year’s Eve. God rest the souls of the victims, heal all of those wounded, and have mercy on the perpetrator(s).
William Kilpatrick is right: Islam is inconsistent and incompatible with Christian society. It may be compatible with a secular, relativist society, but such a society, once Islam becomes dominant, will not remain secular and relativistic for long. Do the Democrats and Liberals really think Islam will allow them to maintain their most cherished ideals?
But, all in all, Happy New Year, as we hope for the best, even if we expect something less than that. At the very least, the paradoxes and incompatibilities of the various non- or anti-Catholic strains in our society may become more and more evident, leading people perhaps to query, to wonder, to seek, and perhaps even arrive at some sort of truth, maybe even the Truth.
Carney’s Amoral Majority
After five defections – euphemistically described as ‘crossing the floor’ – and three by-elections, Mark Carney and his Liberals how have their coveted majority. One wonders what bowls of pottage were offered in back-room deals. In the archaic monarchical system that is the Dominion of Canada, this majority allows the newly-minted Prime Minister to rule[…]Continue reading→
Saint Kateri , Canada’s Protectress
This was the title given to Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, by Pope Benedict XVI, when he canonized her on October 28th, 2012, along with six others, in Saint Peter’ Square (she had been beatified by Pope John Paul II back in 1980). With Saint Joseph as our protector, along with the Canadian martyrs, we seem to[…]Continue reading→
A Tale of Two Benedicts
A grace-filled Holy Week to all our readers! As we await and prepare for the Resurrection about to dawn upon us, we might keep in mind two Benedicts: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, requiescat in pace, elected on this day in 2005; and today’s commemoration of the mystic pilgrim, Benedict Joseph Labre, who died on this[…]Continue reading→
My Name is Bernadette
April 16th is a propitious day, for besides the anniversary of Father de Valk’s death, who founded Catholic Insight in its print form decades ago, and the commemoration of the ‘two Benedicts’, mentioned in accompanying posts, today we also recall Saint Bernadette Soubirous, the young visionary to whom the Virgin Mary appeared numerous times at[…]Continue reading→
Saint Lydwina of Schiedam and Suffering Joyfully
Saint Lydwina of Schiedam (1380 – 1433) was one of the countless and glorious ‘victim souls’ in the history of the Church, those whose lives are filled with suffering, often of an unimaginable intensity, but who suffer joyfully. She was a fifteen-year old Dutch girl, out skating one day, when she fell and broke one[…]Continue reading→
The Glorious Martyrdoms of Martin and Maximus
As we enter into Eastertide, we recall on this 13th of April Pope Saint Martin I (+655), one of the noblest, if most tragic, of the successors of Saint Peter. Born in Umbria, Italy, he was of noble lineage, with great intelligence combined with charity and love of the poor and the Church. While still[…]Continue reading→
Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów
We celebrate Saint Stanislaus today (+ April 11, 1079), in light of this Easter Octave, a bishop and martyr who accepted the episcopacy only at the direct order of Pope Alexander II. He proved a wise and courageous leader of his flock, put to death by his own king, Boleslaus, for rebuking the monarch’s ‘immoral[…]Continue reading→
Saint Gemma Galgani
On this April 11th, in 1903 – the same year that the Italian Guiseppe Sarto was elected Pope later that summer as Pius X – a lovely, young Italian woman died, by the name of Gemma Galgani. She lived a brief life of 24 years, as did a number of other young saints, including Pier[…]Continue reading→
An Ideological and Improper Translation
I noticed something odd with the psalm reading at Mass the other day. Our bishops’ conference here in Canada has decreed that the Mass in English – Novus Ordo – use the ‘NRSV’, the ‘New Revised Standard Version’, an ‘updated’ translation of the original RSV, first published in 1952. This ‘new translation’ has the tendency[…]Continue reading→
Saint Jean-Baptiste de la Salle: A Teacher for Teachers
Jean-Baptiste de la Salle (1651 – 1719), a French nobleman, ordained a priest, founded the first order in the Church’s history entirely without priests, and this came about almost by accident. I say ‘almost’, for, of course, there are no accidents with God. Destined for ordination from an early age, Jean-Baptiste never looked back, even[…]Continue reading→