3 первых христианских мученика турецкой Церкви

Прошлая неделя была полна большим количеством горя. Многие из Вас услышали к настоящему времени о нашей огромной потере здесь, которая случилась в Малатье, (турецкая область в 300 милях к северо-востоку от Антиохи) городе, где учеников начали называть христианами (Деян. 11:26).

В среду утром, 18 апреля 2007, 46-летний немецкий миссионер и отец трех Тильман Геске приготовился идти в офис, поцеловав жену, и попрощавшись с сыном, как оказалось, до момента их встречи в вечности и сказав: “До свидания! Я люблю вас.”

Тильман арендовал место офиса у издательства Зирве, где он готовил примечания к новой турецкой Библии для обучения. Зирве был также офисом Евангельской Церкви города Малатья. Служа церкви, Зирве печатает и распространяет христианскую литературу в Малатье и в соседних городах Восточной Турции.

В другой части города, 35-летний Пастор Нежати Айдын, отец двух детей, сказал до свидания жене, также уезжая в офис. С утра они изучали Библию и просили в молитве, чтобы приходили новые люди на изучение Библии. Угур Йюксель также с утра собрался на изучение Библии.

Ни один из этих трех мужчин не знал, что ждало их на изучении Библии, это должно было быть испытанием их веры, которое закончится их входом в славу Божью, чтобы получить корону праведности от Христа и честь от всех святых, ждущих их в присутствии Бога.

На другом конце города десять молодых людей, возраст которых менее 20 лет, приняли последнее решение для испытания веры христиан, переживая любовь к Аллаху и ненависть к неверующим и чувствуя угрозу исламу.

На Пасхальном служении в воскресенье, пятеро из этих парней были на евангелизационном служении, которое Пастор Нежати и его помощники устроили в зале заседаний гостиницы в городе. Парни были известны христианам как "ищущие". Никто не знает то, что случилось в сердцах тех парней, когда они слушали Евангелие. Они были тронуты Святым Духом? Они были обличены в грехе? Они слышали Евангелие в глубине души? Сегодня мы только имеем начало истории.

Эти молодые люди, один из которых - сын мэра в Области Малатьи, другой же его племянник, являются частью «тариката», или группы “преданных сторонников” в Исламе. Членство в тарикате весьма уважаемо здесь; это походит на членство в братстве. Фактически, считается, что никто не может войти в высшие слои общества и власти без членства в тарикате. Эти молодые люди все жили в общежитии, принадлежащем все тому же тарикату, подготавливаясь к университетским вступительным экзаменам.

Молодые люди взяли оружие, большие ножи, веревки и полотенца, готовые к их заключительному акту служения Аллаху. Они знали, что будет много крови. Придя в момент изучения Библии, около 10 часов утра, очевидно изучение Библии началось.

После того, как Нежати прочитал главу из Библии, нападение началось. Парни привязали руки и ноги Угура, Нежати и Тилмана к стульям и снимая все на камеру своих мобильных телефонов, они мучили наших братьев почти три часа*

[Детали пытки *
Тильману нанесли 156 ударов ножом, Нежати 99 раз, ударов же на теле Угура было слишком много, чтобы можно были их сосчитать. Парни потрошили их внутренности и резали кишки перед их глазами. Они были кастрированы и заставляли смотреть, как парни режут на куски те части тела, которые были отрезаны. Пальцы были обрублены, их носы и рты, и задние проходы полностью разрезаны. Наверное, самым худшим для христиан было наблюдать как их братья мучимы. Наконец, их горла были разрезаны от уха до уха головы, фактически обезглавлены.]

Люди по соседству с издательством сказали позже, что они слышали вопли, но предположили, у владельцев возникли внутренние споры, таким образом они не отреагировали.

Тем временем, другой верующий Гёкхан и его жена неторопливо проводили утро. Они спали до 10, съели завтрак, и, наконец, около 12:30 Гёкхан и его жена пришли в офис. Дверь была заперта изнутри, и он не смог открыть своим ключом. Он позвонил на мобильный и, хотя слышал гудок, не слышал телефон, звонящий внутри офиса. Он набрал номера мобильных телефонов других братьев, и, наконец, Угур ответил на звонок: “Мы не в офисе. Поезжайте на встречу в гостинице. Мы приедем туда,” сказал он тихим голосом. Пока Угур говорил, Гёкхан услышал на заднем вопли и странные рычащие звуки.

Он позвонил в полицию, и самый близкий из полицейских прибыл приблизительно через пять минут. Он, постучав в двери, крикнул “Полиция, откройте!” Поначалу полицейский думал, что это была обычная небольшая ссора. Но потом он услышал вопли и булькающий стон. Полицейский понял, что внутри творится что-то серьезное и, приготовив спуск своего пистолета, стрельнул несколько раз в дверь. Один из нападающих открыл дверь для полицейскому, который войдя внутрь увидел ужасную сцену.

Тильман и Нежати были изрезаны, фактически обезглавлены с шеями, разрезанными от уха до уха. Горло Угура было аналогично сильно порезано, и он был едва жив. Трое нападавших бросили оружие перед полицейским.

Тем временем Гёкхан услышал громкие вопли на улице. Кто -то упал с третьего этажа офиса. Сбежав вниз, он нашел человека на улице, который был, как он позже узнал, Эмре Гюнайдын. У него была обширная травма головы и он странно рычал.

Пробуя спуститься вниз по водосточной трубе, чтобы убежать, Эмре потерял равновесие и упал вниз. Судя по всему, он был главным лидером нападавших. Другой нападающий был найден, скрываясь на балконе нижнего этажа.

Чтобы понять эти события нам необходимо вернуться на шесть лет назад. В апреле 2001 года, Совет Национальной безопасности Турции (Милли Гювенлик Курулу) начал рассматривать евангельских христиан как угрозу национальной безопасности Турции, в равной степени Аль-Каиде или террористической группе ПKK (курдской рабочей партии). Утверждения, сделанные в прессе политическими лидерами, комментаторами и журналистами, были наполнены ненавистью против миссионеров, которые, как они утверждают, давали взятки молодым людям, чтобы те поменяли религию.

После этого постановления в 2001, начались гонения и угрозы на церкви, пасторов и христиан. Покладывание бомб, физические нападения, устные и письменные угрозы - только некоторые из способов, которыми пытались запугать христиан. Самый существенный же использование пропаганды СМИ.

С декабря 2005, после длинной дискуссии относительно угрозы христианства, жена бывшего Премьер-министра Эджевита, историк Ильбер Ортайлы, профессор Хасан Юнсал, политический деятель Ахмет Тан и писатель-пропагандист Айтунч Алтындал, каждый начал кампанию в своей сфере, чтобы привлечь внимание общественности к вырисовывающейся угрозе христиан, которые стремились “купить их детские души”. Скрытые камеры устанавливались в церквях и снимали церковную службу и затем использовали этот «сенсационный» материал, чтобы развить чувство опасности опасение и антагонизм к христианству.

В переданном по телевидению ответе чиновника из Анкары, Министр внутренних дел Турции с ухмылкой, когда говорил о нападении на наших братьев. Среди общественного протеста против этого события в пользу свободы религии и мысли, СМИ и чиновники все же подводят итог, давая послание такого рода: “Мы надеемся, что Вы получили хороший урок. Мы не хотим здесь христиан.”

Судя по всему, это было организованным нападением, руководимым неизвестным матерым лидером тариката. Как и убийство Хранта Динка в январе 2007, и католического священника Андреа Санторо в феврале 2006, молодежь используется, чтобы осуществлять убийства по религиозным мотивам, потому что общественная симпатия к молодежи сильна, и правосудие к ним более благосклонно, чем к взрослым, обвиняемым в том же самом преступлении. Даже родители этих детей поддерживают их действия. Мать 16-летнего мальчика, который убил католического священника Андреа Санторо, смотрела на камеры, в то время, как ее сын шел в тюрьму и сказала, “он будет служить Аллаху.”

Молодые люди, участвовавшие в расправе в настоящее время находятся в заключении. Сегодня новости сообщили, что их будут судить как террористов, таким образом их возраст не будет влиять на строгость наказания. Один из нападавших, Эмре Гунайдын находится все еще в интенсивной терапии. Криминальный отдел полиции считает, что очень важно, чтобы он остался в живых, иначе в случае его смерти, все концы, связанные с этим преступлением, будут потеряны.

Турецкая церковь ответила как подобает истинным ученикам Иисуса: сотни христиан и множество пасторов прибывали с такой скоростью, как они могли, чтобы поддержать маленькую церковь Малатьи, и ободрить христиан, решить юридические проблемы, и представлять христиан в СМИ.

Когда Сузанна Геске (жена Тильмана) выразила желание похоронить ее мужа в Малатье, губернатор пробовал остановить это; понял же, что он не может это остановить, был распространен слух, что “это грех рыть могилу для христианина.” В конце концов, с мужеством, которое необходимо записать в анналы христианской истории, мужчины из церкви в Адане (около Тарса), привезли лопаты и вырыли могилу для их убитого брата на заброшенном армянском кладбище, которому свыше 100 лет.

Угур был похоронен его семьей по мусульманским традициям течения Алеви в его родном городе Элазыг, его верующая невеста, наблюдала издалека как семья ее жениха, которая отказалась от него из-за веры, ради которой он умер, хоронила его по традициям, от которых он отказался.

Похороны Нежати прошли в его родном городе Измир, город, где он стал христианином. Темнота не понимает свет. Хотя церкви сказали, что они прощают за это событие, но до сих пор есть предубеждение, что христианам нельзя доверять. Прежде, чем верущие загрузили гроб на самолет в Малатье, гроб прошел две проверки через рентген, чтобы удостовериться, что он не был загружен взрывчатыми веществами. Это не обычная процедура для мусульманских гробов.

Похороны Нежати было прекрасным событием (см. фото ниже).
Как проблеск с небес, тысячи турецких христиан и иностранных миссионеров приехали, чтобы показать их любовь к Христу, выражая честь этому человеку, выбранному, чтобы умереть для Христа. Жена Некати Шемса провозгласила мир, сказав: “Его смерть имела огромное значение, потому что он умер для Христа, и он жил для Христа …, Нежати был подарком от Бога. Я чувствую себя избранной, потому что он был в моей жизни, я чувствую себя коронуемой с честью. Я хочу быть достойным этой чести.”
(Похороны Нежати)

Верующие смело приняли эту точку зрения на похоронах Нежати, оказываясь перед риском быть замеченными публично и аналогично стать новой целью террористов. Как и ожидалось, антитеррористическая полиция сопровождала и делала видеосъемку каждого посетившего похороны для их архива. Церемония похорон проходила в баптистской церкви района Буджа, и он был похоронен на маленьком христианском кладбище в предместьях Измира.

Два помощника губернатора Измира там торжественно наблюдали это событие с первых рядов. Множество агентств СМИ были там, сопровождая репортажи живыми новостями и фотографиями. Кто знает воздействие эти похороны возымели на тех, которые наблюдали? Это - начало их истории также. Молитесь за них.

В интервью, которое потом вышло на первых полосах самых больших газетах Турции, Сузанна Геске в телевизионном интервью выражала ее прощение. Она не хотела мести, она сказала репортерам: “О Бог, прости им, поскольку они не знают то, что они делают,” она сказала, искренне соглашаясь со словами Христа на Голгофе (Лук 23:34).

В стране, где проливание крови ради кровной мести столь же нормальна как дыхание, было очень много сообщений относительно церкви так как этот комментарий Сузанны Геске сделал переворот. Один журналист написал по поводу ее комментария: “сказала Она в одном предложении то, что никогда не могли сделать 1000 миссионеров в течение 1000 лет.”

Миссионерам в Малатье скорее всего придется уехать, поскольку их семьи и дети стали публично идентифицированными как цели по отношению к враждебному городу. Оставшиеся 10 верующих скрываются. Что случится с этой церковью, этим светом в темноте? Скорее всего, она уйдет в подполье. Молитесь о мудрости, чтобы турецкие братья из других городов пришли, чтобы вести церковь, оставшуюся без лидерства. Разве мы не должны быть заинтересованы в этом большом городе Малатье, городе, который не знает что творит? (Ион. 4:11),

Когда пастор Фикрет Бёджек пошел с одним братом, чтобы дать показания Управлению Безопасности в понедельник, они были сопровождены в Отдел по брьбе с терроризмом. На стене была огромная диаграмма, покрывающая целую стену, перечисляющую все крайние террористические ячейки в Измире. В одной заметной колонке были перечислены все евангельские церкви в Измире.

Пожалуйста молитесь за церкви в Турции. “Не молитесь против преследования, молитесь за стойкость,” убеждает пастор Фикрет Бёджек.

Церковь потеряла своих лучших братьев; чтобы были плоды в наших жизнях, возобновленная вера, острое желание распространять Евангелие, и чтобы подавить больше темноты в Малатье … оно того стоит. Молитесь, чтобы мы стояли с дерзновением против внешней оппозиции и особенно молитесь, чтобы мы стояли неумолимо против внутреннего греха, нашей истинной изнурительной слабостью.

Мы знаем точно, что Иисус Христос был там, когда наши братья отдавали свои жизни за Него. Он был там, когда Стефан был побиваем камнями в присутствии Савла из Тарса.

Когда-нибудь видео этих сметрельных пыток наших братьев может октрыть нам больше о силе, которую Христос дал им, чтобы вынести свой последний крест, о мире, который Дух Бога давал им, чтобы пострадать за их возлюбленного Спасителя. Но мы знаем, что Он не оставлял их. Мы знаем, что их разумы были полны Священного Писания, усиливающего их, чтобы вынести пытки, поскольку темнота пыталась подчинить Свет непокоряемого Евангелия. Мы знаем, что они каким-то способом, которым они были в состоянии, взглядом или словом, поощряли друг друга, чтобы выстоять до конца. Мы знаем, что они были уверены, что скоро будут со Христом.

Мы не знаем всех деталей. Мы не знаем наксколько суровым будет наказание. Но мы молимся - и убедительно просим Вас молиться - чтобы когда-нибудь, по крайней мере, один из тех пяти парней пришли в веру из-за свидетельства в смерти Тильмана Геске, который дал свою жизнь как миссионер его возлюбленным туркам, и свидетельству в смерти Нежати Айдина и Угура Юкселя, первых мучеников за Христа своременной турецкой Церкви.

Репортаж подготовлен Дарлин Бёджек, Протестанская церковь г. Измир.

Пожалуйста, пожалуйста, пожалйста передавайте это сообщение всем молящимся христианам, кого вы только знаете, во всех странах, которые вы знаете. Вы можете связаться с нами по электронной почте: trkizmir@yahoo.com

Материал переведен и отправлен: Сергей Скачков,
Русско-Турецкая протестантская церковь, г.Измир.

Source: SAVED.RU

Una familia turca estrangula a su hija

La fallecida, de 14 años, es la última de las 70 víctimas de este tipo que se registran en el país

Era sólo una niña. Tenía 14 años. Hoy está muerta. En Turquía la edad no importa. Menos si se es mujer. Nuran Halitogullari fue, primero, víctima de una violación. Después, de estrangulamiento. Su padre, en consejo familiar, decidió que una hija violada era un deshonra que había que ocultar. Lo organizó todo. Él y su hijo ¬hermano de la fallecida¬ enrollaron un cable eléctrico alrededor del cuello de la joven y apretaron hasta ver que se quedaba sin respiración. Luego, la enterraron ¿Motivo? Limpiar el honor.

P. O. Estambúl - Tenía 14 años. Está muerta. No fue víctima de un accidente. Su padre y su hermano la estrangularon con un cable eléctrico. ¿Su delito? Haber sido violada por un extraño. Nuran Halllitogullari salió de su casa, en un barrio de Estambúl, en dirección al supermercardo. Un hombre se cruzó en su camino. La secuestró y la mantuvo durante cuatro días retenida. La violó y la sometió a todo tipo de vejaciones sexuales. Cuando consiguió escapar, llegar a casa y contarle a sus padres lo sucedido, no encontró ni un abrazo ni una palabra comprensiva. El hecho de haber sido violada significaba muerte.
Nuran estaba condenada. En Turquía (con el 92% musulmana), como en Jordania (mayoría musulmana), Irán (con el islam como religión de estado)... el honor de la familia está por encima de cualquier cosa. Y así fue. El padre de la niña de 14 años decidió, en consejo familiar, que la joven Nuran era una deshonra y por ello debía morir. Lo organizó todo con su hijo, hermano de la fallecida, y llevaron a cabo el asesinato. Cogieron un cable eléctrico, lo enrollaron alrededor del cuello de la joven y apretaron hasta cerciorarse de que no respiraba. Una vez perpetrado el «crimen de honor», cogieron el cadáver, lo trasladaron hasta un bosque cercano y lo enterraron.
La desaparición de la joven podía levantar sospechas por lo la propia familia denunció a la Policía que la niña llevaba varios días sin aparecer. La planificación y la sangre fría no sirvieron de nada. Alguien dio el soplo y las detenciones se sucedieron. El padre, el hermano y otros 12 implicados ya han pasado a disposición judicial y han confesado el crimen. Han declarado, además, que pretendían matar al violador, pero que no pudieron debido a las medidas de seguridad de las que estaba provisto.
La historia se repite. Nuran, la niña que no cumplirá 15 años, es la última víctima de un crimen que es habitual en Turquía. Según el «Turkey Post», alrededor de setenta mujeres mueren al año por este tipo de ajusticiamiento. Uno de los casos que sacudió a la opinión pública ocurrió el pasado febrero cuando dos hombres entraron en un hospital y acribillaron a balazos a su hermana. Vengaban, de esta manera, el honor de la familia que había sido ensuciado porque la mujer había tenido un hijo fuera del matrimonio. Reuters 2004-04-29 LR.ESP.

Source: Conocereis de Verdad

Martyrs in Algeria - The Seven Trappist Monks

On March 27, 1996, Muslim extremists kidnapped seven Trappist monks from their monastery in the Atlas Mountains near Algiers. After two months, the Groupe Islamique Arme (GIA) announced that the monks' throats had been cut. The bodies were never recovered; the severed heads were buried at the monastery in Tibhirine. There they await the restoration of the monastery, in a calmer time.
The martyr-monks of Tibhirine came to world attention when the last testament of their prior, Father Christian de Cherge, was released by his family in France. Father Christian closed his letter by addressing the murderer he expected would kill him one day: "And you also, the friend of my final moment, who would not be aware of what you were doing. Yes, for you also I wish this `thank you' — and this adieu — to commend you to the God whose face I see in yours ... may we find each other, happy `good thieves,' in Paradise, if it pleases God, the Father of us both. Amen." I remember writing at the time that this last testament would make a fine second lesson in the Office of Readings for the feast of Father Christian de Cherge and Companions, Martyrs.
John Kiser, a former international technology broker with an interest in world religions, found the story of Father Christian, his fellow Trappists, and their Algerian Muslim friends and enemies irresistible. His search for the truth about this drama, a powerful metaphor for our times, is now available in "The Monks of Tibhirine: Faith, Love, and Terror in Algeria" (St. Martin's Press). It's a fine read which does justice to the martyrs without turning them into plastic saints.
Kiser's evocation of the friendships that grew between the monks and their Muslim neighbors is particularly poignant. One of the Tibhirine Trappists was a physician, and the local villagers came to depend on him for basic health care. Other Muslims did odd jobs around the monastery, which maintained a classically Trappist, no-frills rhythm of prayer and work. It was a way of life that fit well with the poverty of the people with whom the monks lived.
The Trappists did not proselytize. Rather, they hoped that, by living Christian charity with integrity, they would demonstrate that their faith was no threat to the dominant Islamic culture of Algeria. Genuine religious freedom in the Islamic world may be an impossibility, given current Muslim self-understandings and resentments. But perhaps tolerance is a possibility. That, at any rate, is what the monks of Tibhirine tried to embody by being themselves — consecrated Catholic religious — while living respectfully among Muslim neighbors.
Kiser also does a good job of describing the kind of extremists who murdered the monks — unemployed, ill-educated young men, full of unfocused angers, easy prey for the Islamist rabble-rousing of politically ambitious (and similarly ill-educated) clerics. One wonders just how many hundreds of thousands of such young men exist throughout the Arab Islamic world. At the same time, Kiser argues that the murder of the monks, which was condemned by many Islamic leaders and seems to have been deeply resented by a majority of pious Algerians, was a turning point in that strife-torn country. I hope he's right, but I tend to doubt it; 40 people were killed in one recent month by a still-active GIA.
If there is one disconcerting thing about this otherwise ennobling book, it's John Kiser's suggestion that the Trappists and those Muslims who became their friends learned to appreciate each other on the common ground of a general religiosity, mediated through charity and fellow-feeling. It seems very unlikely. Christian de Cherge seems to have been a theologically adventurous soul. At the same time, his "testament" is thoroughly and unmistakably Christian. A man who wrote the way Father Christian did about his possible assassin was not a man affirming generic pieties; he was a man with thick, deep roots in a particular tradition, Christianity, and specifically Catholic monastic Christianity. The Muslims who became the monks' friends were similarly rooted in a specific, thick religious tradition.
All of which reminds us that genuine interreligious dialogue means taking differences seriously, not looking for some mythical "neutral" position at which differences disappear.

George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. Weigel's column is distributed by the Denver Catholic Register, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Denver. Phone: 303-715-3123.

Mártires de Argelia 10 años después

Today's (unofficial) Martyrs

Today's (unofficial) Martyrs of the Roman Catholic Church (Catholic Victims Of Violence):

Not all these mortal acts of violence were perpetrated by muslims, however by far most of them, alas!

Martyred: Muslim murder and mayhem against Christians

President Bush's repeated assertions about the peaceful nature of Islam were briefly interrupted when the State Department issued the annual report required by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. This year, as in the past, our Muslim-world partners in the coalition against terrorism were prominently featured among the most violent, most intolerant regimes in the world. Religious minorities are persecuted in over 20 states where Islam is the official or dominant religion. The million Christians who have fled the Muslim world in the past five years were hardly seeking sanctuary from the peaceful face of Islam.

With shocking regularity, human-rights groups report the death of Christians at the hands of Muslim militants in Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East. In Pakistan, Islam has been the official religion since 1973, and over the years, the State Department has urged our ally to repeal section 295(c) of the penal code. This is the section that stipulates the death penalty or life in prison for blaspheming Mohammed, and the State Department notes that it "contributes to inter- religious tension, intimidation, fear, and violence." A Christian Pakistani, Ayub Masih, was jailed five years ago on a blasphemy charge, and he has now filed his final appeal against the death sentence imposed on him. Masih is alleged to have said, "If you want to know the truth about Islam, read Salman Rushdie." An accusation by a Muslim neighbor was enough to secure the blasphemy conviction. Under Pakistan's "Hudood ordinances," the legal testimony of religious minorities is accorded half the weight of Muslims'. The testimony of a non-Muslim woman is halved again.

Most recently, gunmen from the "Army of Omar" opened fire on a Protestant congregation worshipping at St. Dominic's Catholic Church in Bahawalpur, killing at least 16. Islamic-party leaders in Pakistan immediately claimed that the massacre was a conspiracy to defame Muslims.

Then, Saudi Arabia. In a bracing departure from diplo-speak, the State Department says, "Freedom of religion does not exist in Saudi Arabia." For many years, Christians have been flogged, imprisoned, and executed by a Saudi government that prohibits non-Muslim worship even in private homes. A Muslim who converts to another religion is subject to the death penalty by beheading.

Nigeria is another nightmare. The Center for Religious Freedom, part of Freedom House, maintains a "New Martyrs List," to call attention to the most horrific cases. In one bloody week in May 2000, over 200 people were killed in Kaduna. Among the dead was Rev. Clement Ozi Bello, a 26- year-old former Muslim who had recently been ordained a Catholic priest. The young priest was attacked by a mob that dragged him from his car, tied him up, and gouged out his eyes, before leaving him dead on the side of the road. In October, churches and Christian-owned shops were gasoline-bombed in an area of Kaduna now adorned with pictures of Osama bin Laden. More than 6,000 people have died in religious conflicts in Nigeria since the end of military rule two years ago. "Our people are being shot, butchered, and roasted," says Kaduna bishop Josiah Fearon.

The anti-Christian violence in Nigeria has been the direct result of the adoption of Sharia law, the strict Islamic code, by ten of the country's largely Muslim states in the north. Under Sharia, certain crimes are punishable by flogging, amputation, and beheading. The governor of one of these states dismisses the national constitution that proclaims Nigeria a secular country. "To be good Muslims," Ahmed Sani says, "we have to have Sharia to govern our lives, because God has told us that any Muslim who does not accept Sharia is not a good believer." Sani dispatched local officials to Saudi Arabia and Sudan to learn some more about the application of Sharia.

In Algeria, the military assumed power a decade ago, to prevent the Islamic Salvation Front from imposing Sharia on the country. Since then, Algeria has been engaged in bloody civil war. In 1994, the Armed Islamic Group pledged to eliminate Jews and Christians from Algeria. The group is deadly serious, having massacred thousands and even hijacking an Air France plane.

In the Philippines, an organization called Abu Sayyaf, with ties to al-Qaeda, wants to form an independent Islamic state in the southern islands. In May 2000, a Filipino Catholic priest was murdered along with four others among the 27 hostages kidnapped from two Catholic schools. Before being killed, Rev. Rhoel Gallardo was tortured for refusing to wear Muslim clothing and say Muslim prayers. During negotiations for the hostages' release, Abu Sayyaf demanded that all crosses be removed from churches.

Egypt, where the influence of Sharia law is growing, is home to the largest Christian community in the Middle East. The Coptic Orthodox are the targets of both militant Islamic groups and local security forces. Young Christian women are pressured to convert to Islam, while converts from Islam to Christianity have been tortured and imprisoned. Over the past 20 years, more than 30 massacres of Coptic Christians have occurred. In January 2000, during several days of rioting by Muslim mobs in Al-Kosheh, more than 100 homes and shops were destroyed, and 21 Christians and one Muslim killed. The Center for Religious Freedom says that the Egyptian government covered up these crimes to avoid the "politically sensitive" issue of punishing Muslims for murdering Christians.

Eventually 96 people were tried for the massacres in Al-Kosheh. The only four Muslims to be convicted were held responsible for the accidental killing of the Muslim. The longest sentence is being served by a Christian, Surial Gayed Isshak, for allegedly "publicly insulting Islam." Amnesty International has declared Isshak a "prisoner of conscience" and called for his release.

In Sudan, the Islamic government is carrying out genocide against the Christian population in the south. Secretary of State Powell has labeled Sudan "the biggest single abuser of human rights on earth." Two million people have died since 1983 in a civil war that ignited when the Khartoum government tried to impose Sharia on non-Muslims. Christians are slaughtered from the air by bombers, enslaved on the ground, and forced to convert to Islam or starve. Writing in the Winter 2001 issue of The Middle East Quarterly, Prof. Hilal Khashan of the American University of Beirut explains that Khartoum's rulers believe that non-Muslims in the south are their "lost brothers" who must be redeemed by Islam. According to Khashan, "This attitude reflects the fact that Muslims, devout or otherwise, tend to believe that Islam, the ultimate divine truth, is destined to prevail at the expense of other religions."

From reports by government and human-rights groups, a pattern clearly emerges: Predominantly Christian countries generally respect religious freedom, as do Buddhist countries (absent Communist domination). The Center for Religious Freedom concludes, "The religious areas with the largest current restrictions on religious freedom are countries with an Islamic background. This parallels problems with democracy and civil liberties in general, but the negative trend is stronger with respect to religion."

Hilal Khashan points out that religion has been a decisive factor in most civil wars in Arabic-speaking countries, and there have been at least a million deaths (compared with 150,000 Arab deaths in combined Arab-Israeli wars since 1948). The murderous intentions of the extremist Muslims have clearly overwhelmed the influence of the pacific practitioners continually cited by President Bush. Journalist Amir Taheri noted in the Wall Street Journal recently that 28 of the 30 active conflicts in the world involve Muslim governments or communities.

In his oft-cited book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Samuel P. Huntington writes, "Wherever one looks along the perimeter of Islam, Muslims have problems living peaceably with their neighbors. . . . Muslims make up about one-fifth of the world's population but in the 1990s they have been far more involved in intergroup violence than the people of any other civilization." Huntington further argues that Islamic militancy is not a heretical strain of Islam. "The underlying problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power."

While scholars of the Koran debate whether or not its teachings justify violent jihads against non-believers, Christians in dozens of Muslim countries live with the fearful reality that they risk martyrdom at the hands of Islam-as they long have. Again, Huntington (writing in 1996): "Some Westerners, including President Bill Clinton, have argued that the West does not have problems with Islam but only with violent Islamist extremists. Fourteen hundred years of history demonstrate otherwise."

Source: The Free Library by Farlex - Author: O'Beirne, Kate

Our Lady, Queen of Martyrs, pray for us!

Hear the voice of a Christian Martyr singing a hymn in Arabic to the Blessed Mother, while watching a slideshow of his funeral mass. Hear the angelic voice of Father Ragheed Ganni, a 35 year old Chaldean Catholic Priest killed on Sunday June 3rd, 2007 with three of his deacons right after celebrating mass at Holy Spirit Chaldean Catholic Church in Mosul, Iraq. The car of Father Ragheed and the three deacons was stopped by terrorists shortly after leaving the church. They were forced to get down from the car and asked to declare their conversion to Islam. When the four martyrs refused they were brutally gunned down with machine guns. Lord, protect all the innocent people of Iraq and all those trying to defend them. Jesus we trust in you and we are sustained by the prayers of your most Holy Mother to whom you never refuse a request. We pray for the repentance and conversion of Father Ragheed's killers and all other terrorists. May She who gave birth to us at the foot of the cross beg you for mercy.

Source: Catholic Church Conservation

The Forty-Two Martyrs of Amorion

Icon: ST. GEORGE THE GREAT MARTYR, PATRON SAINT OF THE ARMED FORCES

ISLAM'S JIHAD AGAINST US IS NOT CONVENTIONAL.
Nor has it ever been. Our enemies are neither guided by the Geneva Conventions, nor by the Catholic Catechism, nor the rulings of the International Court of Justice and the US Supreme Court nor by the resolutions of the United Nations. Rather, the norms which determine the behavior of the Muslims engaged in war against us are drawn exclusively from the Quran and that which is derived therefrom. "I [Allah] will instill terror in the hearts of the infidels. Therefore, strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.: Surah 8: 12. "Kill them wherever you find them" Surah 2: 191. "… fight them until … there is no religion but for Allah" Surah 1: 193. "…slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush…" Surah 9: 5. "For the infidels, cut out garments of fire; boiling water shall be poured on their heads." Surah 22: 19. "The punishment of those who resist Allah and his apostle [Muhammad] … is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and feet cut off on opposite sides of the body or they should be imprisoned." Surah 5: 33. "Whoever desires a religion other than Islam, it shall not be accepted from him, and in the hereafter he shall be one of the losers." Surah 3: 85
The above are but a few of the Quranic precepts which propel our enemies to plot and carry out their atrocities against us. There is no shortage of young men in ISLAMOFASCIST societies who are inspired by these precepts and who volunteer to engage in acts of terror even at the cost of their own lives.
What we are facing today is not a war between states or blocks of states as in past wars against Nazi-Fascism and Marxist Communism, but rather a war waged by a large confederation of people who adhere to a particular religion, indoctrinated in their mosques and madrassas, who are building a world-wide structure of their co-religionists preparing for a long struggle against us. The war against the infidel - jihad - is not new; it has been going on for fourteen centuries, at times vigorously and at others less so. Now as in times past, the goal remains the same - through jihad to the ultimate victory of Islam over all mankind which means nothing more or less than the conversion of all to Islam or their destruction, enslavement and subjugation followed by the establishment of a world-wide caliphate which is a totalitarian religio-political system based on the precepts of the Quran, Hadith and Sharia of, by and for the Muslim umma.

Read more...

Pakistani and Other Islamic Martyrs

By Robert Royal - Special to the HERALD

Following is part of an ongoing series of articles appearing in the Herald based on Bob Royal's book Catholic Martyrs of the 20th Century.

Pakistan’s relatively small Christian community of 2 million, about 3 percent of the population (two-thirds of them Catholic), has been subjected to systematic repression and death. Pakistan became an independent nation in the 1940s when India, which had previously included the region now known as Pakistan, ended its long existence as a British colony under the leadership of Mohandas Gandhi.
Though created to secure religious security for its own population, the Pakistani government has not extended religious rights to non-Muslims. In fact, in 1986 Pakistan adopted a religious blasphemy law. Section 295.C of the new Penal Code declares: "Whoever by words, either spoken, or written, or by visual representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly, or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death." Given the ease with which such a sweeping law can be abused, it made it all but inevitable that Christians will be condemned to death.
Trials, when they occur, are far from impartial or peaceful. In 1993, Salamat Masih, a 12-year-old, and two other Christians were accused of having written a blasphemous slogan on a village mosque, even though all three were only semi-literate and were unlikely to have been able to write anything at all. During the course of their trial, they were attacked by an armed band. Salamat and one of his co-defendants were wounded and Manzoor Masih was killed.
International pressure forced the Lahore High Court to overturn the conviction of the surviving youths. The judge who made the decision, Arif Iqbal Bhatti, was assassinated shortly after. The two young Christians went into exile, but Islamic Fundamentalists have offered a $30,000 bounty for their deaths.
This incident was only one of many in Pakistan. In February 1997, 30,000 Muslims in the Punjab province burned and looted 13 Catholic churches and a Salvation Army center. Christian schools, businesses, and homes were sacked. The village of Shantigar, with a mostly Catholic population of 15,000, was destroyed. Police were slow to respond to reports of such illegal attacks by one group of citizens on another. Several Catholics were killed in the mob violence and John Paul II took the unusual step of sending a personal protest to the government.
A public demonstration in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, against the Shantigar violence only led to further arrests and beatings. Violent incidents occur almost daily. In May 1998, Ayub Masih was arrested merely for mentioning the controversial Islamic novelist Salman Rushdie — a charge he denied. But the blasphemy law makes it easy for anyone with a grudge against a Christian to bring unsubstantiated complaints that may lead to a mandatory death sentence.
Perhaps the most blatant instance of Christian martyrdom in Pakistan occurred in May of 1997. John Joseph, Bishop of Faisalabad and the first native Pakistani to run that diocese, died under suspicious circumstances in front of a court building. Pakistani officials claimed later that the bishop had committed suicide out of protest against anti-Catholic repression. Suicide by a courageous Catholic bishop, who had advocated non-violence, would, of course, have been an unorthodox way to protest.
The bishop had already distinguished himself for his public defense of those condemned under the blasphemy laws. For that work, he had received multiple death threats. A night watchman at the court reported to police that he had seen a car pull up to the gate and two men throw out a body. Though he called the police, they did not arrive for two hours. The bishop’s death evoked international outrage, but the Pakistani government has not carried out any credible investigation into the matter. At Bishop John Joseph’s funeral, Muslim mobs burned and looted Christian homes and the police fired on the 10,000 people gathered to mourn his passing.
The case of Pakistan is an important one because it reflects an emerging pattern in the Muslim world. Under the guise of religious law, Pakistan is making it all but impossible for Christians and other non-Muslims to find work. According to a Pakistani bishop, 90 percent of them are unemployed, and those who find jobs usually have to work at the mot menial tasks such as street cleaning. They are discriminated against when they look for housing.
The blasphemy law is merely the strongest weapon in the government’s battles against non-Muslims. This type of forced Islamization is by no means accepted by all scholars of the Koran in the Muslim world. But some Muslim countries, under Fundamentalist pressure, have even petitioned the United Nations to block the very use of terms such as "Islamization" to describe growing Fundamentalist campaigns of religious purity that involve persecution and death.
Saudi Arabia, the homeland of Islam, is even far more restrictive than Pakistan. Public Christianity is absolutely forbidden and, at least in theory, it is a punishable offense to say Christian prayers in your own home. When the Coalition Forces were stationed in Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Gulf War, for example, they were told they were not allowed to offer Christian prayers before battle. As elsewhere in the Islamic world, a Muslim who converts to Christianity is subject to the death penalty.
Saudi Arabia has a large contingent of guest workers, almost a quarter of the population, many of whom are Catholics from the Phillippines. Those caught trying to organize Christian services have been arrested and beaten; almost a thousand cases have been documented since 1990 alone. But penalties can be far worse: flogging, amputation, and beheading. Oswaldo Magdanal and Renato Poesdio, two Filipinos. were scheduled for beheading on Christmas day 1992 until an international protest led to their deportation. Just before Christmas day 1999, another Filipino was arrested for having an English-language Bible in a locked cabinet at his workplace.
Roughly equivalent abuses of rights occur throughout the Muslim Middle East in Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. Even Turkey, the most secular and Westernized of the Islamic countries, still restricts open Christian practice and converts from Islam may face death there. Turkey and Iran have also been trying to extend their influence into the mostly Islamic Central Asian Republics that have become independent since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
It seems certain that the Islamic world will show widespread and continuing persecution and martyrdom of Christians for many years to come.

Source: Arlington Catholic Herald
Robert Royal, Ph.D. is president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C. Dr. Royal holds a B.A. and M.A. from Brown University and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the Catholic University of America. He has taught at Brown University, Rhode Island College, and The Catholic University of America. He received fellowships to study in Italy from the Renaissance Society of American (1977) and as a Fulbright scholar (1978). From 1980 to 1982, he served as editor-in-chief of Prospect magazine in Princeton, New Jersey. He is a regular columnist for Crisis magazine and his articles have appeared in numerous scholarly journals and other publications, including First Things, Communio, the Wilson Quarterly, the Catholic Historical Review, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, National Review, The Wall Street Journal, and The American Spectator. His most recent book publication is The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century: A Comprehensive Global History (2000, Crossroad). He writes and lectures frequently on questions of ethics, culture, religion, and politics, and has appeared on various television and radio stations around the United States.

Is Calling the Christian God 'Allah' Wrong?

By Michelle Vu, Christian Post Reporter
Thu, Aug. 23 2007 09:57 AM ET

One of America’s pre-eminent evangelicals is challenging the advice of a retiring Roman Catholic Bishop in the Netherlands who has raised eyebrows worldwide by suggesting Dutch Christians pray to “Allah.”
Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, argues that it is inappropriate for Christians to call God Allah based on irreconcilable theological differences associated with the name Allah and core Christian beliefs.
The key condition behind calling the Christian God Allah is that Allah must refer to the same God as the one in the Bible. However, this requirement presents “a huge problem for both Muslims and Christians,” contends Mohler.
The theologian pointed out that the Qur’an explicitly denies that Allah has a son, and Islam considers the idea of a triune God to be blasphemy.
“Thus, from its very starting point Islam denies what Christianity takes as its central truth claim – the fact that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of the Father,” wrote Mohler on his web blog Wednesday.
“If Allah has no Son by definition, Allah is not the God who revealed himself in the Son. How then can the use of Allah by Christians lead to anything but confusion …and worse?”
Last Monday, during an interview with a Dutch TV program, 71-year-old Bishop Tiny Muskens promoted the idea of Dutch Christians calling God Allah, believing that it would ease much of the conflict between the Christian and Muslim faiths. Muskens contended that God doesn’t mind what He is called and the arguments over what to call Him is an invention of man.
“Allah is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn’t we all say that from now on we will name God Allah? …What does God care what we call Him? It is our problem,” said Muskens, according to The Associated Press.
The retiring bishop was a former missionary to Indonesia – the most populous Muslim country in the world – for eight years, where he said priests used the name “Allah” while celebrating Mass.
In response, Mohler pointed out that it would be difficult to support the argument that “Allah” can be used as a generic term for God. The theologian said separation of Allah from the language, theology, and worship closely associated with it is difficult. Moreover, even non-Arabic speaking Muslims use Allah when referring to their god.
Another irreconcilable difference is that Jesus commanded his followers to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
“When this command is taken seriously and obeyed, the whole issue is greatly clarified – a Christian cannot baptize in the name of Allah,” stated Mohler.
“So Bishop Muskens is disingenuous at best when he suggests that God does not care about His name. This is not a matter of mere ‘discussion and bickering,’” said Mohler.
“If Allah has no son, Allah is not the father of our Lord Jesus Christ…This is no mere ‘discussion and bickering.’ This is where the Gospel stands or falls,” the theologian concluded.
Bishop Muskens in the past endorsed other controversial ideas which went against the Vatican leadership – such as those who are hungry can steal bread and that condoms should be permissible in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

L'Islam n'est pas une religion pacifique

Ergun Caner, un ancien Musulman converti à Jésus-Christ témoigne que l'Islam n'est pas la religion paisible et tolérante que certains voudraient nous présenter, et qu'Allah n'est absolument pas le Dieu de la Bible !
Ergun Caner possède deux doctorats, dont un en théologie. Il est actuellement professeur de Théologie et d'Histoire de l'Eglise au Criswell College à Dallas, au Texas. Il est marié, et père d'un garçon.

Déshérité par son père.
Ergun Caner est le fils aîné d'un mwazien musulman. Un mwazien est un prédicateur. En 1982, à l'âge de 16 ans, Ergun assiste à une réunion de réveil à Columbus, dans l'Ohio, à l'invitation d'un camarade de lycée. Il se convertit à Jésus-Christ. C'était deux jours après avoir assisté à sa première réunion dans une église chrétienne. Quelques jours après, au cours d'une réunion de jeunes chrétiens, il mangeait sa première tranche de jambon.
Le lendemain de sa conversion, Ergun se rendit à la mosquée. Les jeunes musulmans chiites de son ancien groupe de jeunes ont tout fait pour "séparer le bon grain de l'ivraie, qui s'était, selon eux, introduite dans la vie d'Ergun. A cette époque, les parents d'Ergun étaient séparés (ils ont divorcé plus tard). Quand son père découvrit qu'il était devenu Chrétien, il s'opposa à Ergun très sévèrement. Voyant qu'Ergun refusait de renier sa foi en Christ, son père le déshérita. Il fit face à la direction de La mecque et récita une prière de rejet de son fils. Il était honteux de voir son fils aîné s'être tourné vers Jésus-Christ. Ce fut la fin des relations entre Ergun et son père. Ergun n'a plus revu son père au cours des 17 années qui suivirent. Il ne le revit qu'en 1999, trois jours avant la mort de ce dernier.
La mère d'Ergun était Suédoise, et son père Turc. Ils s'étaient installés aux Etats-Unis, où étaient nés les petits frères d'Ergun. Une année après avoir reçu son salut, Ergun fut appelé au ministère de prédicateur. Il avait commencé ses études universitaires à l'âge de 16 ans. Il est devenu à 17 ans pasteur d'une petite église de campagne à Manchester, dans le Kentucky.
Il a reconnu que, pour lui, c'était un mystère d'avoir été ainsi appelé par Dieu, car, à cette époque, Ergun ne parlait pas très bien l'Anglais, et ne comprenait pas pleinement les Ecritures. Il se sentait très seul, parce ni sa mère, ni sa grand-mère, n'étaient Chrétiennes. Mais il répondit joyeusement à son appel. Au cours de la semaine qui suivit sa conversion, il conduisit à Christ ses petits frères.
L'Islam n'est pas une religion pacifique.
En tant que fils d'un mwazien, Ergun dut apprendre les hadith dans le Coran. Il s'agit des paroles et traditions qui concernent Mahomet, le prophète de l'Islam. Ergun témoigne que le thème central de l'Islam est la conquête militaire du monde. Les infidèles, ceux qui ne sont pas Musulmans, doivent se convertir ou être conquis par la force. Si le Musulman meurt au cours de ce combat, ou guerre sainte (encore appelée djihad), on lui promet une entrée immédiate au plus haut niveau du Paradis. C'est la raison pour laquelle, lorsqu'ils sont pressés de l'avouer, la plupart des Musulmans vous diront que ceux qui meurent au cours d'attentats suicides vont directement au Paradis, selon les enseignements du Coran.
Pour les Musulmans, le Coran sort directement de la bouche d'Allah. Le Coran n'a aucune considération pour ceux qui ne sont pas Musulmans. Il enseigne d'une manière très stricte qu'ils doivent être convertis par la guerre sainte. Dans la Sourate 2 :190, Allah dit ceci : "Combats pour la cause d'Allah contre tous ceux qui s'opposent à toi. Chaque fois que tu t'empares d'eux, mets-les à mort". Pour honorer et adorer Allah, le Musulman doit absolument s'engager dans la guerre sainte. Cette guerre est littérale et non spirituelle. Pour un Musulman, donner sa vie pendant le djihad représente l'appel divin le plus élevé. La Sourate 4 :95 dit ceci : "Ceux qui restent assis (chez eux) ne peuvent être égalés à ceux qui luttent et combattent pour la cause d'Allah, en y consacrant avec ardeur leurs ressources et leur vie".
Selon la doctrine du djihad, il y a trois niveaux de djihad. Le premier niveau est celui de l'affrontement direct, comme lors des attentats du 11 septembre.
Le second niveau consiste à montrer aux ennemis à quel point ils sont vulnérables. Ergun a fait remarque que lorsque le journaliste américain Daniel Pearl a été assassiné, ce meurtre a été filmé sur vidéocassette. Il ne fait aucun doute que ceux qui ont tué Pearl appartiennent aux moudjahidines, qui constituent le groupe extrémiste musulman le plus radical.
Le troisième niveau de djihad consiste à humilier les ennemis, en leur "coupant les jarrets". Ergun remercie Dieu que le Président Bush ait réagi comme il l'a fait. "S'il ne l'avait pas fait, la deuxième vague d'attentats aurait été bien pire que la première", reconnaît-il. Le Coran enseigne que si l'ennemi est faible, il faut le conquérir. S'il est fort, il faut le respecter, jusqu'à ce que l'on soit capable de l'affronter.
Quand on demande à Ergun si Osama bin Laden est encore vivant, il répond par l'affirmative. "Osama est considéré comme un martyr de la foi musulmane. S'il était mort, les Musulmans l'auraient proclamé haut et fort".
Un Musulman proclame la paix avec Allah, pas la paix avec les hommes.
Ergun précise que le mot "Islam" signifie "Paix avec Allah", et non "Paix avec nous" ! "C'est nous qui sommes les infidèles. Nous sommes donc des ennemis", dit Ergun.
Il explique que lorsqu'un Chrétien commet un acte de violence (comme faire sauter une clinique qui pratique des avortements), il le fait en désobéissant aux enseignements de Jésus-Christ. Mais que lorsqu'un Musulman s'engage dans la guerre sainte, il le fait pour obéir aux enseignements de Mahomet. "Ne vous y trompez pas", dit Ergun, "les Musulmans sont en guerre contre nous, et ce ne sont pas seulement les Musulmans intégristes".
Osama bin Laden est un Musulman sunnite. Pourtant, les Sunnites sont moins radicaux que les Chiites. Chaque fois qu'Osama bin Laden parle à la télévision, il cite le Coran. Selon Ergun, "il est difficile de citer le Coran hors de son contexte". Même pour un Musulman qui ne connaît pas bien le Coran, la guerre sainte est bien plus qu'une simple confrontation intellectuelle. Elle est un combat réel, une bataille, un conflit qui promet la plus haute bénédiction au Musulman qui y perd la vie.
Mahomet s'est fait l'écho de cette espérance dans la Hadith 4 :73, où il déclare : "Sachez que la Paradis se trouve à l'ombre de l'épée". Les Musulmans qui affirment que ce combat peut être simplement intellectuel devaient relire la Sourate 2 :216, qui dit : "Vous recevez l'ordre de combattre, mais vous le dédaignez. Il vous est possible de dédaigner quelque chose qui est bon pour vous, et que vous aimiez quelque chose qui est mauvais pour vous. Mais Allah le sait, et vous ne le savez pas". Il est impossible de prétendre que ce texte signifie autre chose qu'une guerre réelle.
En général, on devient Musulman par sa naissance. Mais beaucoup de Musulmans sont illettrés. Ils dépendent donc de la parole de l'imam, qu'ils considèrent comme étant la vérité. Un imam est l'équivalent de notre pasteur. Les Musulmans ne peuvent pas mettre en question ce que dit l'imam.
Ergun rappelle que, selon les résultats d'un récent sondage Gallup, "les Musulmans haïssent les Chrétiens". Il ajoute que les Musulmans ne font aucune distinction entre les Américains et les Chrétiens, car la culture de l'Amérique est chrétienne. "Quand vous dites que quelqu'un est Turc, il va de soi que ce dernier est un Musulman".
Ergun croit que les Etats-Unis auraient dû achever la Guerre du Golfe. Il croit que nous n'achèverons la guerre contre le terrorisme que lorsque nous aurons réglé le problème de Saddam Hussein, l'un des principaux pourvoyeurs de fonds pour l'Islam. "Si nous ne le pourchassons pas, cela ne finira jamais", dit Ergun, "Saddam continuera le djihad".
Une incroyable opportunité.
Au milieu de la tempête actuelle, Ergun affirme que les Chrétiens disposent d'une incroyable opportunité de témoigner à des Musulmans. Ceux-ci commencent à comprendre quelle est la nature réelle de leur religion. Beaucoup ne veulent pas participer à la violence et se convertissent à Christ. C'est l'enseignement de la grâce qui permet réellement de les atteindre.
Selon Ergun, "la chose réellement la plus importante est d'enseigner les Musulmans sur la grâce". Pour un Musulman, développer une intimité personnelle avec Dieu est une notion toute nouvelle. Enseignez-leur qu'ils n'ont plus besoin de vivre dans la crainte des "balances d'Allah". Les Musulmans croient qu'il s'agit de balances réelles (2 Sourate 4). Ils croient que les "balances d'Allah" vont décider de leur salut ou de leur damnation éternelle. Si leurs mauvaises actions pèsent plus lourd que les bonnes sur la balance, les Musulmans savent qu'ils seront damnés. Voilà la seule sécurité éternelle dont ils peuvent disposer !
Il faut aussi que les Chrétiens sachent que l'Allah des Musulmans n'a rien à voir avec le Dieu des Chrétiens. Selon Ergun, "aucun Musulman sérieux ou lettré ne dirait qu'Allah a un Fils, ni qu'il y a trois Personnes en Dieu, ni même que Dieu est un Etre personnel". Allah est le Créateur et le Juge.
Les attributs de Jésus-Christ sont complètement différents. Il est rempli d'amour, doux, toujours prêt à faire grâce et à pardonner. Ergun se révolte quand il entend quelqu'un dire qu'Allah est identique au Dieu de la Bible. "Beaucoup croient qu'on peut aller à Dieu comme on va à Chicago, en prenant l'avion, le train ou l'auto !" Ergun dit que l'Amérique se conduit de plus en plus comme Orpa, la belle-fille moabite de Naomi (qui avait préféré rester dans le paganisme, plutôt que d'accompagner sa belle-mère et Ruth à Jérusalem, à la rencontre du vrai Dieu).
Le 19 octobre 2001, Ergun a témoigné devant le sous-comité des Nations Unies pour les Affaires Culturelles. Etant expert de l'Islam et parlant l'arabe, Ergun a été invité à participer à des projets importants dans ce domaine. Il n'y a que vingt anciens Musulmans qui soient actuellement des prédicateurs chrétiens en Amérique. Parmi eux, huit seulement sont professeurs de Théologie, et Ergun est l'un d'eux.

L'Islam n'est pas une religion pacifique. Article de CBN News du 7 mars 2002.
L’original de cet article peut être consulté en anglais sur le site Internet :http://www.cbn.com/700club/profiles/Ergun_Caner.asp
Reproduction de la traduction française autorisée, pourvu qu’elle soit intégrale.
Adresse d'Ergun Caner : The Criswell College, 4010 Gaston Avenue, Dallas, Texas, 75246, USA.
Adresse électronique : Secaner@criswell.edu

The True Face of Islam - by Father Emily

We quote from Catholic Apologetics Information:

The events that struck the United States on Monday the 11th of September shocked the world both by the sheer violence as well as by the cool and calculated determination with which the emblems of the “invincible American power” have been hit. It is not our intention to propose a political analysis of these events, since it has been done already by more qualified and authorized persons. It is our duty rather as Catholics, to analyse these events in the light of our faith and to draw conclusions for our Christian life. Indeed, if the 11th of September is an open declaration of war against the western world, it is obvious that all of us should be concerned by what will happen in the near future and we must prepare ourselves for this new situation. Actually, an event, such as the one on the 11th of September was not a random event; it simply marks a new step in the escalation of a war with the intended conquest of the western countries by the Islamic world. This attack against the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, should exemplify for many the striking opposition, which exists between two civilizations, two cultures, two different worlds; the Islamic one and the one we call simply, Judeo-Christian Democracy (although we know these terms to be so alien to one another!). Many have refused to admit this opposition, others have simply ignored it and a large number have never realized the inherent intensity. After the 11th of September, it is no longer possible to be oblivious to such a reality.
That is why it is very important for us as Catholics to understand the implications of this battle, since, for various reasons the actual political and religious stakes are deliberately concealed by our leaders. Indeed, the leader of the interfaith dialogue in the United States, Bishop Brown, just signed a joint declaration with the Muslim religious leaders, which states: “We believe that the One God has called us to be men of peace. There is nothing which is Christian or Muslim, that could justify the terrorist actions”. At the same time and in the same vein, the European bishops strongly condemned this unprecedented attack on the American people, saying: “There is no justification for violence and destruction; there is no theological foundation for terrorism - not in the Christian, Jewish or Muslim faith”. Mr. Tony Blair holds exactly the same discourse and declares with a learned assurance: “ . . . such acts of infamy and cruelty are wholly contrary to the Islamic faith.”
Since, we still want to believe that these leaders are sufficiently educated and cultured to know the true nature of Islam, we are obliged, unfortunately, to say that they are simply and boldly lying. They deceive themselves and they try to deceive others either to maintain their position to fit the ‘politically correct’ agenda; or because they fear the consequences of denouncing the true enemy, by whom, through irresponsible and short-sighted immigration policies, westerners have effectively surrounded themselves. When the coward fears the battle, he says to his enemy: “we are friends.” “Yes, we are”, the enemy answers, ”that is why, if you do not want me to continue to destroy your cities and your countries, you just have to surrender!” So, whatever may be the reasons that motivate our political and religious leaders to vindicate Islam of their capacity for terrorism, they simply continue to lie and to refuse to address the true source of this problem. That is why the Islamitization of our western countries will continue to spread until the Blessed Virgin Mary intercedes to save what remains of Christian civilization.
Allow me to present a few quotations from the Koran (alternate spelling: Qur’an, which is the religious charter of Islam from which the Moslems draw all their moral and political tenets). The quotes that should suffice to convince us of the real threat that Islam represents for the Church and Christian Civilization. Let us first quote Mr. Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, speaking of the extremist, violent nature of Islam:
“ ‘. . . then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them, in every stratagem (of war).” (Surah 9, verse 5) The note that accompanies this verse in the respected translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali states that, “when war becomes inevitable it must be pursued with vigour . . . The fighting may take the form of slaughter, or capture, or siege, or ambush and other stratagems.” The World Trade Centre attack cannot be dismissed as merely the work of a small group of extremists. The Muslims celebrating the tragedy in America are doubtless recalling the words of the Koran, urging Muslims to ‘fight a mighty nation, fight them until they embrace Islam’.” (The Daily Telegraph, 17 September 2001)
Ultimately, the aim of Islam is the Islamitization of the world as God revealed it to His Prophet: “He has sent his apostles wit the rule of the true religion to make it triumph over all other religions.” (48, 28) “Fight in God’s way until all cults will be the one of the unique God”. God then, sends his believers for the conquest of the world in His name: it is the Holy War, the well-known Islamic Jihad that commands: “to fight until they embrace Islam.” “The enemy combatants will, as well, be conquered: they will be captured and killed according to the custom that God held previously toward their precursors, for you will not find any change in God’s custom.”(33, 61) “Believers, fight the unbelievers who are in your neighbourhood and may they find you harsh.” (9, 123) But the god of Islam promises reward for his combatants: “God bought for the believers their persons and their wealth to give them paradise in exchange. They kill or they are killed. Promise of God in the Thora, in the Gospel and in the Koran.” (9, 111) Finally, let us quote these last verses of the Koran, which will give us much to ponder following the events of September 11th and for those to come? “But, how many cities did we destroy, which were living in luxury? . . . your Lord would not have destroyed these cities without having sent in their metropolis, an apostle to recite our verses” (28, 58-59) “They did not believe . . . God grab them . . . and they were severely chastised . . . they were proud . . . They lost” (40, 20-83). “We are going to destroy the guilty and to install you at their place on this earth.” (14, 14)
The above noted quotations are sufficiently relevant to show that Islam cannot be considered to be a normal ‘pacific’ religion. This is a mistake made by many Christians of the Western nations through naivety and a mind-set moulded by the pervasive influences to ‘think in a politically correct manner’. Indeed, the actual leaders of the Islamic countries do not leave us any doubt as to how to interpret these verses of the Koran. Mr. Alija Izetbegovic, the President of Bosnia, published an Islamic Declaration wherein he wrote:
“ . . . there is an incompatibility between Islam and the non-Islamic systems; there is no peace nor coexistence between the ‘Islamic faith’ and the social and political institutions which are non-Islamic . . . The Islamic renewal cannot begin without the religious revolution, but it cannot go ahead and succeed without the political revolution. Our way does not begin with the conquest of the political power, but with the conquest of the people. . . Thus, we must be, first of all, preachers and then soldiers . . . The Islamic movement must and can take power as soon as it will be naturally and numerically strong enough for not only to destroy the existing power, but also to build the new Islamic power . . .”
Upon reading the above passage, the inevitable question remains: How can any religious or political leader, after such a declaration and an honest consideration of these quotations from the Koran, dare to proclaim “there is nothing in Islam which can justify these actions”, when the propagation of Islam, through subversion and violence, remains the ultimate objective in all their efforts. The specialists of Islam acknowledge the expansionist propensity and blatant aggression with which Islam has proceeded to engulf the West since the time of its’ foundation to the present day. History, itself, provides the testimony for this assertion. The leaders of the Western nations are so blinded by the rhetoric of their own democratic principles, they refuse to identify the enemies of the people for whom they were elected to govern. This blindness and cowardice, on the part of the leaders, leave wide open the way for Islam, which, in turn, takes advantage of this weakness to make (through terrorism, for example) a revolution to overthrow the West. It is, then, just one step in a premeditated revolutionary process, a part of which the world witnessed on September 11th, and yet, the Western nations do not appear to see or, at least, do not want to see!
A few years ago, Father Vincent Serralda, a French priest who lived for fifty years in North Africa and who can be considered to be an expert on the Islamic World, prepared a study to analyze the Koran and to warn French families of the danger of Islam. He wrote in the preface of his study, the following:
“Islam is always at war, even when it tries smiling. His war is the extinction of Christianity. That is what a careful reading of the Koran revealed to me. It is this combat to death that I am proposing to unveil to the French families who have not yet suffered the Moslem hostility and who cannot suspect the pretension of their Imams for a world imperialism”.
What then, can we do to save the Church, to save what remains of our Christian Civilization, from such a peril? Humanly speaking, the battle appears to have been lost. It should be obvious that it is not a war in Afghanistan that will solve the problem since Islam has spread worldwide and has been welcomed in all the Western countries in the name of Democracy. The democratic system is, indeed, so absurd that in the name of its principles, acquired through the French Revolution, the democratic countries grant to their enemies protection and liberty to establish and to develop within their own nations. Ironically, what kind of hospitality would these same democratic leaders receive if they would attempt to institute a western democracy within an Islamic country, for instance Saudi Arabia or North Sudan, and build there, according to their religion, a Catholic church, a Protestant Temple or a Synagogue? We know obviously that this inane hospitality of our present Western world would certainly not be reciprocated.
Oh the madness of the modern-democratic man; he is now imprisoned, blinded, tied by the system that he invented in 1789, a system ‘to make him free’! To free himself from the sweet yoke of God, man replaced the Rights of God with the ‘rights of man’, so-called, and he is now the chained slave ensnared by his proud and deceptive motto: Liberty-Equality-Fraternity. Islam has exploited to the fullest extent this non-sense and weakness of this system and like a worm, has devoured the fruit from the inside. In fact, it is very convenient for Islam that the political and the religious leaders in the democratic nations dissociate it from these acts of terrorism. Thus, the day approaches, when powerful enough, Islam will assume control within the various Western nations through any means conducive to its thirst for conquest. Until that dreadful time, it continues its clandestine conquest unimpeded. Interestingly enough, even the literature of the Sikhs contain references to forewarn the sleeping democratic countries: “ . . . they aim to make France an Islamic Republic by the year 2015, and Britain by 2025, through conversions, immigration and high Muslim birth rates.” The former President of Algeria adds strength to this statement when he said during a UN tribune: “We will overcome you by the wombs of our women!” They have the boldness to publicly announce their intention and our leaders remain complacent, having lost completely any sense of honour and patriotism; they even work to vindicate Islam!
Christian civilization, caught between a dying democracy and a vigorous Islam, appears to be condemned to imminent death. Islam, like a cancer growing faster and more efficiently on a weak and sick body, develops and grows on the ruins of democracy and Christianity. Democracy and Christianity, having nothing left to oppose Islam, like the fatally wounded man, imploring the mercy of his torturer, tries in desperation to avoid the deathblow, offers him . . . dialogue! It is pitiful, but it is the discourse, unfortunately, that we hear everywhere: “Let us fight against terrorism. Islam has nothing to do with it, and thus, let us dialogue with Islam for peace in the world!” The discourse of the Pope, the recent visit of President Bush to the Islamic Centre of America, the declaration of Mr. Kissinger, the joint declaration of the Christian-Islamic Committee; they are all uniting their voices in this foolish concert, the purpose, of which, serves only to give a good, but none-the-less false, conscience to those who join this tiresome chorus.
Yet, my dear Faithful, let us not become discouraged and let us, more than ever, have confidence in the might of Our Queen of Heaven, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and in the efficacy of her powerful weapon, the Holy Rosary. If humanly speaking, the situation for the Church and the remnants of a Christian Civilization appear to be desperate, we know, then, that our hope and our strength cannot rely on human power, but only on a divine protection. “The gates of hell will not prevail” and “in the end Her Immaculate Heart will triumph”. Our combat for the reign of Christ the King in our society is the true and just cause; this cause will lead us infallibly to victory.
At the opposite, the war of the western-democratic nations against terrorism is a useless and false battle, because it only considers the consequences of the problem and not the cause of it. For it to be a useful battle, the centre and cause of the problem must be attacked. While the West may address to some extent an aspect of the problem, it leaves, in the name and for the sake of Democracy, the source of the problem is untouched. They are hitting the nail, but not on the head. Thus Islam, methodically perseveres with the Holy War to render western civilization impotent, to subject him, and annihilate him for the triumph of its false god.
Thus, on a natural level, the fate of democratic nations is inevitable. These nations, having betrayed in 1789 their Christian heritage, will pay under the Islamic yoke for their perversities and revolt against the One, True God. Let us not forget the still, very relevant warning of Our Lady at Fatima: “Wars are God’s chastisement because of sin”. Who would deny that the Western nations do not have to pay for their iniquitous laws of abortion, divorce, contraception, homosexuality and their licentiousness and immoral behaviour against Christian modesty? This immorality which is now spread everywhere like a filthy wind by sexual education in the schools, television, movies, books, magazines, immoral dress, etc., is leading so many souls to hell. Alas, we know that this corruption has been propagated by the enemies of the Church to de-Christianize our countries and to annihilate Christian Civilization, and all under the banner of ‘liberty and democracy’.
Thus, we are, in fact, witnessing two forces radically opposed to each other: on one side, democracy, which under the banner of the UN and the Charter for the Rights of Man, works to establish a One World Government and to provide people with a corrupt and luxurious materialistic paradise on earth; on the other side, Islam, which under the banner of the Koran, works to establish a One World Islamic Government and to provide its believers with the same kind of paradise, but as an idyllic one in the new garden of Eden in the next life (9, 44-52-55-78). A confrontation is inevitable and it is not dialogue that will prevent it, but it is only the conversion of both parties to the true God and to His Church, which will save the world from disaster.
In order that this conversion occurs (and it will occur when Russia is consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary), this blatant revolt against God and His Christ will have to be eradicated from the surface of the earth. Unfortunately, a lot of blood may be shed, as the Blessed Virgin Mary warned us:
“France, Italy, Spain and England will be at war. Blood will flow in the streets. Frenchman will fight Frenchman, Italian with fight Italian. A general war will follow which will be appalling. For a time, God will cease to remember France and Italy because the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been forgotten. The wicked will make use of all their evil ways. Men will kill each other, massacre each other even in their homes.” (Our Lady, at La Salette, 1846)
Are the events of September 11th marking a signal for the beginning of civil wars in the western nations as our Lady speaks of? God knows! but what we do know is that this persecution of Christianity by Islam has been raging for years in the Third World to the complete indifference of the western nations. The following is a list of the slaughters, perpetuated in the name of Islam; though not exhaustive, it is sufficiently alarming and speaks for itself:
-Egypt, 1999: At, Al-kosseh, police arrest all the Christians after the murder of a Muslim. They were dragged outside the town, beaten and tortured with electricity, the women and girls were raped and finally several men were crucified.
-Nigeria, 1999: Charia (Islamic law as the constitution of the country) was proclaimed in June in the State of Zamfara. Five hundred Christians were killed in one month. The Governors granted three days to the Christians to demolish all the churches. Stoning of people and amputation of hands are multifold. Christians are burnt alive in their houses. In Kaduna alone, Moslems killed between 400 – 1000 Christians. In the south where Muslims are the minority, they practise terrorism: on the eve of Christmas, 4 churches were burnt and 1000 – 2000 Christians slaughtered.
-Senegal, 1999: Interdiction to build any Christian schools and the transformation of churches into mosques.
-Indonesia, 2000: In Ambon, 800 Christians were killed and more than 20 churches destroyed. In Jabok, government troups massacred 22 faithful refugees in a church. Four hundred and seventy thousand refugees have been obliged to flee from the Muslim militia to arrive at Ujung Prabang, an island of the Archipelago. The village of Waai, one of the last Christian villages of Molluscs, was completely burnt. At Christmas, in Jakarta and its suburbs, 18 bomb attacks on churches killing 14 people and wounding 119.
-Saudi-Arabia, 2000: 10 Christians, including 5 children, were imprisoned for meeting in a private place to pray.
-Sudan, 2000: With an estimated 2 million deaths, the civil war in Sudan is by far the bloodiest in Africa's recent history. In spite of repeated condemnations by other nations and human rights groups, the Islamic government in Khartoum shows no sign of lessening its brutal conduct. The Arab-dominated Islamic fundamentalist government in Sudan's north has declared a jihad against the south, which is dominated by animists and Christians. In one day, 122 women and children were deported to the North, all the men having been killed and their villages razed to the ground. Yei, the most important city in the South was bombed: 14 dead and 50 wounded. A Christian school was bombed: 20 children were killed with their teachers.
-Philippines, 2000: The Muslim group, Abu Sayyaf abducted 22 children and 8 Christian adults. The body of Father Gallardo was found with traces of torture. Twenty one Christians were kidnapped by the Muslim group of Milf, led to a mosque, tortured and killed. Sept 19, 2001 - Fear of Muslim guerrillas has compelled a community of Carmelite nuns in Marawi, southern Philippines, to abandon their convent. The Carmelite nuns arrived in the area in 1981. In 1986, some of them were kidnapped by Muslim extremists. Last month, a Columbian missionary from Ireland was killed in Marawi.
-Algeria, 1996-2001: Police in Algeria recently arrested 16 young people for possessing Bibles and other Christian documents. Proselytism by Christians is considered a crime in predominantly Muslim Algeria. Muslims who convert to another religion risk a death sentence. In May 1996, an armed Islamic group murdered seven Trappist monks at the monastery in Thibirine. The following August the same group used a bomb to kill Bishop Pierre Claverie of Oran.
If we are horrified by this worldwide Islamic persecution against Christianity, we should be even more scandalized by the fact that for years, our western nations did absolutely nothing to protect all these poor people from the slaughter. So, as a logical consequence, the list is now extended:
-U.S.A., 11th September 01: More than 6000 people dead and thousands still missing in the attack against the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, with high jacked planes used as suicide bombs.
This tragedy had to happen to move the western nations to react against such an attack. But, what sensible person would believe, considering the texts of the Koran and the list of the world Islamitization quoted above, that Islam would stop its Holy War, because a few bombs will be dropped in the mountains of Afghanistan? On the contrary, we must fear then that the spiral of evil will escalate and that our list of horrors will continue to grow. The western political leaders are perfectly aware of the inevitable issue of this process, otherwise they would not put all their police and armies on maximum alert. Still, they will make a war that will not hit the heart of the problem. Honestly, it is really difficult to imagine more cowardice, more blindness and more hypocrisy in so many people and all at the same time! Such are the fruits of liberal democracy!
What can we do then, in such a desperate situation for the Church and Christian civilization, which seem to be like defenceless victims waiting for the lion (democratic West) or the tiger (Islam) to devour them? It is very important, my dear friends, not to have a defeatist mentality, since, as we said above, we are going to win this battle. We might have to give our life for it, but what is life compared to the reward to come, as St. Paul says. If Muslims are able to sacrifice their lives hoping to get a paradise of carnal pleasures, how much more should Catholics be ready to sacrifice their lives to surely obtain the paradise of eternal and infinite spiritual joys!
That is why, in this gigantic battle that Lucifer wages against everything bearing the name of Christian, I urge you, once more, to take up with faith, courage and strength the weapons of the spiritual combat. This spiritual fight is the first and strongest way to really repel the evil forces. This is not the first battle that the Church has had against the enemies of God and Jesus Christ, and in each battle the Church has won resounding victories when Her ministers and faithful fervently took the spiritual weapons of prayer and penance.
The story of Judith, which we have just read in the Breviary, is quite informative and a relevant example for our time. I strongly encourage you to read and to meditate on this wonderful story, which shows how God delivered His people from a situation no less desperate than the one in which we find ourselves. God listened to the prayers and penance of the priests and people, and sent Judith, (image of the Blessed Virgin Mary) to cut off the head of Holofernes (image of the devil). Her Immaculate Heart will triumph, she will crush the head of the serpent.
“And all the people cried to the Lord with great earnestness, and they humbled their souls in fasting and prayers, both they and their wives… And they cried to the Lord the God of Israel with one accord, that their children might not be made a prey, and their wives carried off, and their cities destroyed, and their holy things profaned, and that they might not be made a reproach to the Gentiles. Then Eliachim the high priest of the Lord went about all Israel and spoke to them, saying: Know ye that the Lord will hear your prayers, if you continue with perseverance in fasting and prayers in the sight of the Lord. Remember Moses the servant of the Lord, who overcame Amalec that trusted in his own strength, and in his power, and in his army, and in his shields, and in his chariots, and his horsemen, not by fighting with the sword, but by holy prayers”. (Judith, 4, 7-12)
What a similitude between the situation of the Israelites and ours today, and what a consoling promise from God through his high priest Eliachim! To the same causes, the same effects. I assure you that we will win this battle, if, like the Israelites, we have recourse to prayer and penance. God will then send us the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Judith of the New Testament, who, by Her prayers and Her intercession, will deliver us from the infernal enemy. Our Lady is as powerful as an army arrayed in battle and she will lead the combat for us against the enemies of the Church and Christian Civilization.
Let us not forget, that when Europe was threaten by the Islamic invasions, the popes organized Rosary Crusades, urging the faithful to have recourse to Mary. When the people began to pray the Rosary to plead for mercy through Our Lady, Europe was saved and Islam invariably defeated by the intercession of Mary. She, to Whom nothing can be denied, is so willing to deliver our petitions to the foot of the Divine Throne when we do as she asks: “pray the daily Rosary” and “penance, penance, penance”!
In 1571, Pope St. Pius V organized a great Rosary Crusade throughout all of Christendom. The graces obtained through this Rosary Crusade enabled the famous victory of the battle of Lepanto against the Turks. This great victory, attributed to the intercession of Our Lady, is commemorated on the Feast of the Most Holy Rosary, the 7th of October. It is because of this victory against Islam that St. Pius V gave to Our Lady the glorious title of Our Lady of Victory.
A century later, the Turks threatened again to invade Europe. This time it was Pope Innocent XI who organized another great Rosary Crusade. The victory of Vienna was the fruit of this Rosary Crusade, we celebrate it on the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, the 12th of September.
Again, a century later, Islam, like an aggressive ram, was pounding on the doors of Europe. Pope Clement XI in 1717, faithful to the example of his predecessors, organized another great Rosary Crusade for all Christians and obtained yet another great victory over Islam. The pope decided in gratitude to the Blessed Virgin Mary, to extend the feast of 7 October to the Universal Church, and to change its name to The feast of the Holy Rosary in order to remind mankind that it was truly thanks to this powerful prayer that victory was won.
The commemoration of these victories of Mary through Her Holy Rosary, enable the Church to teach her faithful, each and every year, an important lesson on the power of the Rosary in the History of the Church thus encouraging us to follow the example of our Fathers in the Faith. This is why, following the example of these great Popes (Saint Pius V, Innocent XI, and Clement XI) who saved Christendom from the peril of Islam by organizing the Rosary Crusade, we must as well, since the peril of the Islam is more imminent than ever, continue to preach and to spread the Rosary with all our strength. The Rosary won battles in the past, it is as powerful as ever and it will win the present battle if only we want to make the effort “to say it well”, as St. Francis of Sales says.
During this month of October, the month of the Holy Rosary, I ask you all to make a special effort to pray your daily Rosary, as Our Lady asks for with so much insistence. Join the Rosary Crusade that we have organised in our district for this purpose and send back to the District House the Enrolment Form that we regularly put on the back page of this bulletin. This apostolate is of crucial importance.
My dear friends, let us realize that the times are serious and the situation of the world and of the Church is tragic; we must come to our knees and beg God and the Immaculate Heart of Mary to protect and to save us. “If my requests are heard”, says Our Lady at Fatima, “Russia will convert and we will have peace”. Let us heed these requests of Our Lady who desires peace and the salvation of souls. She wants us to convert, (cf. her message at La Salette), she wants us to change our life, to practise virtue, to go regularly to confession (promises of the five First Saturdays) and, of course, she wants us to pray the daily Rosary. This is the Crusade for which we are all called and for which Archbishop Lefebvre called priests and faithful: for the re-conquest of Christian Civilization. This is our Holy War for the Reign of Christ the King and the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
We Catholics have the monopoly in this Holy War, but, how much different are our weapons from those of our enemies and how much more different are the fruits and the results of our combat! “Give me an army which prays the Rosary”, says Saint Pius X, “and I will conquer the world.” Let us form then, this army in Great Britain, and may we all spread and promote the Rosary Crusade. I wish that the parents enrol their children and all the members of their family in the Crusade; let zealous people take the initiative to organize groups to pray the Rosary. I would wish as well, when it is possible, that in our Churches and Mass Centres of the District, the Holy Rosary be recited before the beginning of the Holy Mass in order to manifest the commitment of all our faithful in the Rosary Crusade and to bring down upon the Church and the World the blessings which will come from it. Pope Leo XIII confirms the strength of the Rosary prayed in public, when he said: “public prayers are much more excellent and more efficacious than private ones, so ecclesiastical writers have given to the Rosary Sodality the title of ‘the army of prayer, enrolled by St. Dominic, under the banner of the Mother of God’."
Above all, it is in each of our families that we want to implant the holy custom of the daily Rosary.
“It is not by force, nor by arms, nor by any human power, but only by the divine assistance, obtained through the prayer of the Rosary, that the Church, strong like David with his sling, will be able to stand up without trembling against the infernal enemy.
“It is especially in the home that we wish to see the widespread recitation of the Rosary, for we will seek in vain to consolidate the crumbling bases of civil society, if domestic society, the principle and foundation of the Human Community, does not rest on the laws of the Gospel. To attain such a difficult end, we affirm that there is no more fitting means than the recitation of the Family Rosary.” (S.S. Pope Pius XII, 1951)
Most sincerely yours in Our Lady of the Holy Rosary,

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The Great and Enduring Heresy of Mohammed - by Hilaire Belloc - 06

I have said throughout these pages that the particular quality of Mohammedanism, regarded as a heresy, was its vitality. Alone of all thegreat heresies Mohammedanism struck permanent roots, developing a life ofits own, and became at last something like a new religion. So true is this that today very few men, even among those who are highly instructed inhistory, recall the truth that Mohammedanism was essentially in its origins a new religion, but a heresy. Like all heresies, Mohammedanism lived by the Catholic truths which it had retained. Its insistence on personal immortality, on the Unity and Infinite Majesty of God, on His Justice and Mercy, its insistence on the equality of human souls in the sight of their Creator -- these are its strength. But it has survived for other reasons than these; all the other great heresies had their truths as well as their falsehoods and vagaries, yet they have died one after the other. The Catholic Church has seen them pass, and though their evil consequences are still with us the heresies themselves are dead. The strength of Calvinism was the truth on which it insisted, the Omnipotence of God, the dependence and insufficiency of man; but its error, which was the negation of free-will, also killed it. For men could not permanently accept so monstrous a denial of common sense and common experience. Arianism lived by the truth that was in it, to wit, the fact that the reason could not directly reconcile the opposite aspects of agreat mystery -- that of the Incarnation. But Arianism died because it added to this truth a falsehood, to wit, that the apparent contradiction could be solved by denying the full Divinity of Our Lord. And so on with the other heresies. But Mohammedanism, though it also contained errors side by side with those great truths, flourished continually, and as a body of doctrine is flourishing still, though thirteen hundred years have passed since its first great victories in Syria. The causes of this vitality are very difficult to explore, and perhaps cannot be reached. For myself I should ascribe it in some part to the fact that Mohammedanism being a thing from the outside, a heresy that did not arise from within the body of the Christian community but beyond its frontiers, has always possessed a reservoir of men, newcomers pouring in to revivify its energies. But that cannot be a full explanation; perhaps Mohammedanism would have died but for the successive waves of recruitment from the desert and from Asia; perhaps it would have died if the Caliphate at Baghdad had been left entirely to itself; and if the Moors in the West had not been able to draw upon continual recruitment from the South. Whatever the cause be, Mohammedanism has survived, and vigorously survived. Missionary effort has had no appreciable effect upon it. It still converts pagan savages wholesale. It even attracts from time to time some European eccentric, who joins its body. But the Mohammedan neverbecomes a Catholic. No fragment of Islam ever abandons its sacred book, its code of morals, its organized system of prayer, its simple doctrine. In view of this, anyone with a knowledge of history is bound to ask himself whether we shall not see in the future a revival of Mohammedan political power, and the renewal of the old pressure of Islam upon Christendom. We have seen how the material political power of Islam declined very rapidly during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. We have just followed the story of that decline. When Suleiman the Magnificent was besieging Vienna he had better artillery, better energies and better everything than his opponents; Islam was still in the field the material superior of Christendom -- at least it was the superior in fighting power and fighting instruments. That was within a very few years of the opening of the eighteenth century. Then came the inexplicable decline. The religion did not decay, but its political power and with that its material power declined astonishingly, and in the particular business of arms it declined most of all. When Dr. Johnson's father, the bookseller, was setting up business at Lichfield, the Grand Turk was still dreaded as a potential conqueror of Europe; before Dr. Johnson was dead no Turkish fleet or army could trouble the West. Not a lifetime later, the Mohammedan in North Africa had fallen subject to the French; and those who were then young men lived to see nearly all Mohammedan territory, except for a decaying fragment ruled from Constantinople, firmly subdued by the French and British Governments. These things being so, the recrudescence of Islam, the possibility of that terror under which we lived for centuries reappearing, and of ourcivilization again fighting for its life against what was its chief enemy for a thousand years, seems fantastic. Who in the Mohammedan world today can manufacture and maintain the complicated instruments of modern war? Where is the political machinery whereby the religion of Islam can play anequal part in the modern world? I say the suggestion that Islam may re-arise sounds fantastic -- but this is only because men are always powerfully affected by the immediate past: -- one might say that they are blinded by it. Cultures spring from religions; ultimately the vital force which maintains any culture is its philosophy, its attitude toward the universe; the decay of a religion involves the decay of the culture corresponding to it -- we see that most clearly in the breakdown of Christendom today. The badwork begun at the Reformation is bearing its final fruit in the dissolution of our ancestral doctrines -- the very structure of our society is dissolving. In the place of the old Christian enthusiasms of Europe there came, for a time, the enthusiasm for nationality, the religion of patriotism. But self-worship is not enough, and the forces which are making for the destruction of our culture, notably the Jewish Communist propaganda from Moscow, have a likelier future before them than our old-fashioned patriotism. In Islam there has been no such dissolution of ancestral doctrine -- or, at any rate, nothing corresponding to the universal break-up of religion in Europe. The whole spiritual strength of Islam is still present in the masses of Syria and Anatolia, of the East Asian mountains, of Arabia, Egypt and North Africa. The final fruit of this tenacity, the second period of Islamic power, may be delayed: -- but I doubt whether it can be permanently postponed. There is nothing in the Mohammedan civilization itself which is hostile to the development of scientific knowledge or of mechanical aptitude. I have seen some good artillery work in the hands of Mohammedan students of that arm; I have seen some of the best driving and maintenance of mechanical road transport conducted by Mohammedans. There is nothing inherent to Mohammedanism to make it incapable of modern science and modern war. Indeed the matter is not worth discussing. It should be self-evident to anyone who has seen the Mohammedan culture at work. That culture happens to have fallen back in material applications; there is no reason whatever why it should not learn its new lesson and become our equal in all those temporal things which now give us our superiority over it -- whereas in we have fallen inferior to it. People who question this may be misled by a number of false suggestions dating from the immediate past. For instance, it was a common saying during the nineteenth century that Mohammedanism had lost its political power through its doctrine of fatalism. But that doctrine was in full vigour when the Mohammedan power was at its height. For that matter Mohammedanism is no more fatalist than Calvinism; the two heresies resemble each other exactly in their exaggerated insistence upon the immutability of Divine decrees. There was another more intelligent suggestion made in the nineteenth century, which was this: -- that the decline of Islam had proceeded from its fatal habit of perpetual civil division: the splitting up and changeability of political authority among the Mohammedans. But that weakness of theirs was present from the beginning; it is inherent in the very nature of the Arabian temperament from which they started. Over and over again this individualism of theirs, this "fissiparous" tendency of theirs, has gravely weakened them; yet over and over again they have suddenly united under a leader and accomplished the greatest things. Now it is probable enough that on these lines -- unity under a leader -- the return of Islam may arrive. There is no leader as yet, but enthusiasm might bring one and there are signs enough in the political heavens today of what we may have to expect from the revolt of Islam at some future date -- perhaps not far distant. After the Great War the Turkish power was suddenly restored by one such man. Another such man in Arabia, with equal suddenness, affirmed himself and destroyed all the plans laid for the incorporation of that part of the Mohammedan world into the English sphere. Syria, which is the connecting link, the hinge and the pivot of the whole Mohammedan world, is, upon the map, and superficially, divided between an English and a French mandate; but the two Powers intrigue one against the other and are equally detested by their Mohammedan subjects, who are only kept down precariously by force. There has been bloodshed under the French mandate more than once and it will be renewed[2]; while under the English mandate the forcing of an alien Jewish colony upon Palestine has raised the animosity of the native Arab population to white heat. Meanwhile a ubiquitous underground Bolshevist propaganda is working throughout Syria and North Africa continually, against the domination of Europeans over the original Mohammedan population. Lastly there is this further point to which attention should be paid: -- the attachment (such as it is) of the Mohammedan world in India to English rule is founded mainly upon the gulf between the Mohammedan and Hindu religions. Every step towards a larger political independence for either party strengthens the Mohammedan desire for renewed power. The Indian Mohammedan will more and more tend to say: "If I am to look after myself and not to be favoured as I have been in the past by the alien European master in India -- which I once ruled -- I will rely upon the revival of Islam." For all these reasons (and many more might be added) men of foresight may justly apprehend, or at any rate expect, the return of Islam. It would seem as though the Great Heresies were granted an effect proportionate to the lateness of their appearance in the story of Christendom. The earlier heresies on the Incarnation, when they died out, left no enduring relic of their presence. Arianism was revived for a moment in the general chaos of the Reformation. Sundry scholars, including Milton in England and presumably Bruno in Italy and a whole group of Frenchmen, put forward doctrines in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries which attempted to reconcile a modified materialism and a denial of the Trinity with some part of Christian religion. Milton's effort was particularly noticeable. English official history has, of course, suppressed it as much as possible, by the usual method of scamping all emphasis upon it. The English historians do not deny Milton's materialism; quite recently several English writers on Milton have discoursed at length on his refusal of full Divinity to Our Lord. But this effort at suppression will break down, for one cannot ever hide a thing so important as Milton's attack, not only on the Incarnation, but on the Creation, and on the Omnipotence of Almighty God. But of that I will speak later when we come to the Protestant movement. It remains generally true that the earlier heresies not only died out but left no enduring memorial of their action on European society. But Mohammedanism coming as much later than Arianism as Arianism was later than the Apostles has left a profound effect on the political structure of Europe and upon language: even to some extent on science. Politically, it destroyed the independence of the Eastern Empire and though various fragments have, some of them, revived in maimed fashion, the glory and unity of Byzantine rule disappeared for ever under the attacks of Islam. The Russian Tsardom, oddly enough, took over a maimed inheritance from Byzantium, but it was a very poor reflection of the old Greek splendour. The truth is that Islam permanently wounded the east of our civilization in such fashion the barbarism partly returned. On North Africa its effect was almost absolute and remains so to this day. Europe has been quite unable has been quite unable to reassert herself there. The great Greek tradition has utterly vanished from the Valley of the Nile and from the Delta, unless one calls Alexandria some sort of relic thereof, with its mainly European civilization, French and Italian, but beyond that right up to the Atlantic the old order failed apparently for ever. The French in taking over the administration of Barbary and planting therein a considerable body of their own colonists, of Spaniards, and of Italians, have left the main structure of North African society wholly Mohammedan; and there is no sign of its becoming anything else. In what measure Islam affected our science and our philosophy is open to debate. Its effect has been, of course, heavily exaggerated, because to exaggerate it was a form of attack upon Catholicism. The main part of what writers on mathematics, physical science and geography, from the Islamic side, writers who wrote in Arabic, who professed either the full doctrine of Islam or some heretical form of it (sometimes almost atheist) was drawn from the Greek and Roman civilization which Islam had overwhelmed. It remains true that Islam handed on through such writers a great part of the advances in those departments of knowledge which the Graeco-Roman civilization had made. During the Dark Ages and even during the early Middle Ages, or at any rate the very early Middle Ages, the Mohammedan world detained the better part of academic teaching and we had to turn to it for our own instruction. The effect of Mohammedanism on Christian language, though of course a superficial matter, is remarkable. We find it in a host of words, including such very familiar ones as "algebra," "alcohol," "admiral," etc. We find it in the terms of heraldry, and we find it abundantly in placenames. Indeed, it is remarkable to see how place names of Roman and Greek origin have been replaced by totally different Semitic terms. Half the rivers of Spain, especially in the southern part of the country, include the term "wadi," and it is curious to note how far in the Western Hemisphere "Guadeloupe" preserves an Arabic form drawn from Estremadura. The towns in North Africa and the villages for that matter as a rule were rebaptized, the names of the most famous -- for instance, Carthageand Caesarea, disappeared. Others arose spontaneously, such as "Algiers,"a name derived from the Arabic phrase for "the islands" -- the old roadstead of Algiers owing its partial security to a line of rocky islets parallel with the coast. The whole story of this replacing of the original names of towns and rivers by Semitic forms is one of the most valuable examples we have of the disconnection between language and race. The race in North Africa from Libya westward is much of what it has been from the beginning of recorded time. It is Berber. Yet the Berber language survives only in a few hill districts and in desert tribes. The Punic, the Greek, the Latin, the common speech of Tripoli (a surviving Greek name, by the way), Tunis, and all Barbary, have quite gone. Such an example should have given pause to the academic theorists who talked of the English as "Anglo-Saxon," and argued from their place names that the English had come over from North Germany and Denmark in little boats, exterminated everybody east of Cornwall and replanted it with their own communities. Yet of such fantasies a good deal survives, most strongly, of course, at Oxford and Cambridge.

ENDNOTES
1. It was from this fact that certain French writers opposed to the Church got their enormous blunder, that the Immaculate Conception came to us from Mohammedan sources! Gibbon, of course, copies his masters blindly here -- as he always does, and he repeats the absurdity in his "decline and Fall."
2. Written in March, 1936.
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