 |
| Image: Battle of Lepanto |
Frank Szedlak writes, in his recent article entitled, My Experience of a Not So Stealth War Against
Christianity: “I wonder why the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy
does not understand Islam’s war against our Church and Christianity.”
First of all I have a question: Szedlak is talking—perhaps unconsciously—about
a “war against our Church and Christianity.” So I ask: Is the Church different from Christianity? I’m asking
because people who introduced such words are those who believe that
Christianity (meaning both Catholics and non-Catholic heretics) is bigger than
the Church. That’s a false idea. Put
simply, Catholicism is Christianity and
Christianity is Catholicism—there is no
Christianity outside Catholicism.
That said, well, as for Szedlak’s wondering, I myself also do wonder
why today’s Catholic faithful find it hard to understand that today’s “Catholic
Church hierarchy” is simply the number
one enemy of the Catholic Faith. Szedlak says: “I wonder
why the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy does not understand Islam’s war against
our Church and Christianity.” Well the problem isn’t really that it “does not understand” but simply
that it is altogether indifferent to our holy religion and its teachings,
believing rather that people can be saved in any religion—any religion. This is simply
a common belief of all Vatican II popes. So why do today’s Catholics find it
hard to understand this? Or rather, why do they refuse to understand this?
Szedlak writes: “The battle to end
Christianity is approaching its conclusion in some European countries, with
lines being drawn in the U.S. as well. Western societies have made a Muslim
takeover that much easier through birth-control and abortions, through which
the West has lost its sustainable population. How our generation behaves could
determine whether the Western way of life continues. ...Our Church, our
culture, our society, our people do not have long to wake up. We need to fight
for souls. We need to pray for all people. We cannot stay silent and passive.”
But I say no! “We” cannot wake up simply because the “we” do
not really exist, because the “we”—in reality, and like the so-called “hierarchy”—stand
for indifferentism as well. Religious Indifferentism is the belief that it does not
matter what religion a man professes, he can be saved nonetheless. Today almost
all Catholics all over the world hold this notion—a notion which the Church,
before Vatican II, roundly condemned as a heresy in very strong language,
holding it to be a denial of extra ecclesiam nulla salus (i.e.,
“Outside the Church there is no salvation,” a dogma which, of course, has been
unanimously rejected by all Vatican II popes and their lay followers). Below,
we feature a brief passage from Mirari Vos, an encyclical by
the last great monk-pope, Gregory XVI (August 15, 1832), which condemned this
heretical notion:
“13. Now We consider another abundant source of the evils
with which the Church is afflicted at present: indifferentism. This perverse
opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation
of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is
maintained. Surely, in so clear a matter, you will drive this
deadly error far from the people committed to your care. With the admonition of
the apostle that “there is one God, one faith, one baptism”[16] may those fear
who contrive the notion that the safe harbour of salvation is open to persons
of any religion whatever. They should consider the testimony of Christ Himself
that “those who are not with Christ are against Him,”[17] and that they
disperse unhappily who do not gather with Him. Therefore “without a doubt, they
will perish forever, unless they hold the Catholic faith whole and
inviolate.”[18] Let them hear Jerome who, while the Church was torn into three
parts by schism, tells us that whenever someone tried to persuade him to join
his group he always exclaimed: “He who is for the See of Peter is for me.”[19]
A schismatic flatters himself falsely if he asserts that he, too, has been
washed in the waters of regeneration. Indeed Augustine would reply to such a
man: “The branch has the same form when it has been cut off from the vine; but
of what profit for it is the form, if it does not live from the root?”[20]
“14. This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that
absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for
everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over
and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to
religion from it. “But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error,”
as Augustine was wont to say.[21] When all restraints are removed by which men
are kept on the narrow path of truth, their nature, which is already inclined
to evil, propels them to ruin. Then truly “the bottomless pit”[22] is open from
which John saw smoke ascending which obscured the sun, and out of which locusts
flew forth to devastate the earth. Thence comes transformation of minds,
corruption of youths, contempt of sacred things and holy laws — in other words,
a pestilence more deadly to the state than any other. Experience shows, even
from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth, dominion, and glory
perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion,
license of free speech, and desire for novelty.”
(Note: All emphasis, bold and italics,
paragraph numbers, and reference numbers as in the original on the Papal Encyclicals site;
please go there to see the references).
Below is the
good article by Frank
Szedlak, Jr.:
My Experience of a Not So Stealth War against Christianity
I wonder why the Roman Catholic
Church hierarchy does not understand Islam’s war against our Church and
Christianity. Many sources speak of the terrors induced daily against members
of the flock. This war was as intense in the 15th century as it is now.
The historical record shows the
great battles between the two religions. The Ottomans invaded the European
landmass after the defeat of the Byzantine Empire in Constantinople in 1453.
They established a caliphate and pressed into Europe. They captured Buda in
Hungary in 1541. The battle of Lepanto on October 7, 1571, with the victory of
the Holy League, stymied Muslim expansion. Further defeat of the caliphate
occurred in the Second Siege of Vienna in 1683, with the help of the Polish
army. In 1699, the Ottoman caliphate gave the Hapsburgs territory previously
taken.
These later setbacks for Islam, it
seems, have not been forgotten.
When I studied Turkish history in
1963, while a member of the U.S. Air Force stationed there, the professor, a
Turkish judge, told us that the memory of these defeats burns in the hearts of
the Islamic people. He stated that the Turkish flag with the crescent moon and
star was chosen because of a prophecy: when that sight occurs in the heavens,
the Muslims will rise again. The prophecy, I was told, dates back to the 1600s.
My wife and I, while vacationing
in Egypt in September 1992, saw this sight during the day while riding a bus to
our airplane to return to Cairo. Less than two weeks later, attacks started
against foreigners. A warning was given at the end of September for foreigners
not to travel in the province of Qena in Egypt. The attacks on foreigners
occurred immediately after the warning. We had traveled from Hurgada to Luxor
through Qena two weeks prior and stopped at the small town where an attack
happened later.
We met with Coptic Christians, who
showed us the cross tattoos on their arms and mentioned how mistreated they
were. We were directed to a Coptic church where the Blessed Mother is said to
have appeared to over one million people, including the then-president of
Egypt. The church has a large dome mosaic of the Blessed Mother. Just last
year, another Coptic church, right near the one we visited, was bombed, and
many were killed.
Can our Church leaders say Islam
is a true religion when it rejects the divinity of Jesus Christ and calls for
the extermination of Christianity?
Church leaders do not recognize
that we are in a war – not only for hearts and minds, but also for souls.
Church leaders are not working to prevent the slowdown the stealth invasion of
Western lands and societies. This invasion comes in many forms – not just
through jihad, but also in the realms of education, military life, government,
culture, and interfaith dialogue.
While traveling throughout the Middle
East, we were shown the Islamic schools and how young children memorize the
Koran. The culture and the religion were totally together.
The Republic of Turkey, after the
end of the Ottoman Empire, became a secular government. I remember in the
1970s speaking with Turkish students at Michigan State University about their
battle with Islamists, who were making inroads in Turkish society by little
steps – for example, the fight to allow wearing headscarves. The madrassas were
also making sure their students were the best educated so they could get the
best jobs in the government. The battle lasted decades, and the Islamists won.
Turkey now is an Islamic state, and Christianity is becoming a very small
presence there.
The battle to end Christianity is
approaching its conclusion in some European countries, with lines being drawn
in the U.S. as well. Western societies have made a Muslim takeover that much
easier through birth-control and abortions, through which the West has lost its
sustainable population. How our generation behaves could determine whether the
Western way of life continues.
Our Church, our culture, our
society, our people do not have long to wake up. We need to fight for souls. We
need to pray for all people. We cannot stay silent and passive.
There is a stealth war against
Christianity. It is a war the Church hierarchy does not see.
—OnePeterFive
No comments:
Post a Comment