A friend wrote:

“Since you are a Christian, how come you aren’t screaming and writing about the 13 churches that were burned down by Muslims in Nigeria last week. Here is where Christians really fall down and should learn a lesson from Jews. Scream for your fellow Christians!”

I replied:

But a lot of people do write about the awful persecutions performed by Moslems against Christians in Nigeria. What a lot of people _don’t_ write about is the threat of Moslem immigration in America or the West generally. It’s very easy for Christians or conservatives to talk about ethnic problems in _other_ countries. For example, Theodore Dalrymple writes incredibly grim, apocalyptic articles for City Journal about the impending end of civilization in Britain and Europe, often discussing racial problems with brutal frankness. But when I submitted an article about the Grutter decision to City Journal, they rejected it as too “apocalyptic.” Conservatives and Christian are not willing to see ethnic/racial/religious problems HERE.

Here is a very candid word from Col. Ghaddafi, quoted on VDare — which links to his own web site where you can read it for yourself:

“It is in Turkey’s economic interest to be part of Europe. It is also in the interest of the Muslim world that an Islamic nation such as Turkey is within the European Union, as a Trojan horse…Admitting Turkey into European Union is like an attempt to transplant a human organ into a body of another person with a different blood group, and they never have any biological compatibility.”

Something to think about as we contemplate the rising spectre of Sharia law being applied in our Western countries.

Clever litarary illusion by Khaddafy. The original Trojan Horse was the means by which Europeans conquered Troy, a city in what is now Asian Turkey. Now the entire nation of Turkey becomes a Trojan Horse to reverse that historical defeat and conquer Europe.

Looking at the John Zmirak article at vdare, I see this:

“Personally, I’m rooting for Arinze—the first black pope would get a free pass from the leftist media for several years. His sheer exoticism would permit this solidly orthodox cleric to clean house. [VDARE.COM NOTE: Some readers may disagree. Please complain to John Zmirak—not us!]”

Are the people at vdare so concerned about the prospect of their readers’ being angry at Zmirak’s advocacy of a black Pope that they must make a special point of deflecting any possible attacks over it? The note makes vdare’s readership sound like an irate mob ready to pounce on any white-racially incorrect statement.

The selection of a Pope is well out of our hands, and, in any case, sooner or later, there will be a black Pope, a fact that in and of itself will do nothing either to weaken or strengthen the white majority character of the Western countries (has the West become “Polandized” as a result of the Papacy of JPII?). That battle will go on regardless.

VDare does that all the time for a variety of issues that might elicit a significant amount of response. They just don’t want a barrage of e-mail coming to them for what their columnists say.

I think it can be argued that a black pope would be an unparalleled disaster for Western Civ. I mean, if we can have a Nigerian as supreme pontiff of the RC church, perhaps the chief spiritual leader of Christendom, how can you argue the necessity of keeping out the immigrant hordes from the Dark Continent? How can you refuse a Nigerian as street-sweeper when you accept a Nigerian as pope? And would the Nigerian pope be likely to argue for stenghtening Europe’s borders against people from his own homeland? Might not one pope thus equal 20,000,000 laborers, drug dealers, pimps, criminals, Mahometans, fetishists, etc.? Nay, it could be The End.

And it could also be just the opposite of The End. Perhaps such a Pope would be a traditionalist who would have more respect for the historic particularity of different peoples, and reject the One-World Open-Borders philosophy of his (white) precedessor. The point is, (1) we have no idea of what the effect of a black Pope would be, and (2) we have no influence over the decision in any case. As the Serenity prayer puts it, let us ask God for the courage to change the things we can, the patience to accept the things we can’t, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Sagacious words from Mr. Auster. I for one am cautiously encouraged by the apparent stiffening of the Vatican’s posture toward Islam.

Cardinal Arinze seems pretty good as post-conciliar cardinals go, but I share Shrewsbury’s reservations about elevating a non-white Third Worlder to the Holy See at a time when the West’s greatest problem is out-of-control immigration from the Third World and the Roman Catholic Church’s position is to let the West be overrun.

What the Church needs in her next pope is a cardinal who will reach back to the Church’s ancient traditions for strength, someone who can see deeper into the past than the opening of Vatican II. Often we are uncritical supporters of men who are pretty weak prelates as long as they do not openly contradict the Church’s teachings on contraception, abortion and a celibate male priesthood, through sheer relief that they are not worse. (Rather as some accept Republicans just because they aren’t Democrats.) As vitally important as those things are, defending them alone is not enough. Catholicism is more than a collection of moral stands, it is a way of life and, most importantly, a way of worship. The Church - especially in her most important things, liturgy and worship - has been devastated by the modernist onslaught that Vatican II unleashed. At a time when the Church is being cut off - deliberately, it seems to me - from her historic roots in Latin Christendom, I question whether an African or Asian is the man we need. I believe we need a cardinal who is steeped in the Church’s Latin, Western traditions, one who can begin to steer the Church back to her traditional forms of faith and worship.

I do not know if such a cardinal exists today; if he does he is likely to be Italian. Pope John Paul II has upheld the Church’s teaching about life and the priesthood, but he has been a liturgical and theological wrecking ball, casually contradicting encyclicals of previous popes, encyclicals that are logical and incremental developments of the Church’s tradition, while promoting a bogus and unwarranted ecumenism. His advocacy of mass immigration has been positively destructive for the nations of Western Christendom, including the one where he is a guest, Italy. I worry about his successor because John Paul has appointed almost everyone (if not everyone) eligible to succeed him.

The Mass is the key to a Catholic restoration. The Church needs to return to the Traditional Latin Mass and recover her traditional strength if she is to overcome the modernist virus that so saps her today. Unfortunately, I fear the Vatican II modernist John Paul II will be succeeded by a man of the same type. Our trial will continue. HRS

Mr. Sutherland:

What about JPII’s achievement of producing the Catechism? From the outside that looks like something pretty impressive. My father is taking a Catechism class and call it “a work of art.”

These are good arguments by Mr. Sutherland, and it would be good if they were made by the Cardinals selecting the next Pope. I didn’t mean to deny the possible further weakening effect that the election of a black Pope might have on Western identity. But it’s also possible that such a Pope might be the opposite of what Western patriots expect—a traditionalist uncorrupted by Western liberalism. In any case, I would of course prefer a Pope along the lines Mr. Sutherland recommends.

To Mr. Cella,

Why did the Church need a new catechism? In any case, there is a quite a bit of tinkering in the new one; fudging of the Church’s teaching about capital punishment is one well-known area. (As it happens, I have very serious reservations about capital punishment, but I am not about to pretend that Catholic tradition forbids it altogether, as the new catechism comes very close to saying.) Even the catechism is a manifestation of what troubles me about John Paul II. He is hyperactive. Modernist that he is, he can never be satisfied with the Church as she was, with tradition as it is. He is always tinkering, always innovating, often for no good reason if the standard is what will strengthen faith.

Does it make sense that in one 25-year pontificate the Church has beatified and canonized almost as many people as in all of her history previously? I should not presume to question canonizations, but is there not the risk that this hyperactivity risks debasing the standard, much as the U.S. Army debased the Bronze Star by giving one to anyone who went anywhere near a combat zone in Vietnam? What higher purpose was served by adding another cycle of mysteries to the ancient prayers of the Rosary? To me, it looks as though John Paul just wanted to put his mark on this devotion.

John Paul’s legacy will be one of great confusion. An extraordinary cult of personality, unprecedented in the papacy, has grown up around him, while the Church has fallen into even greater disarray than when he took Peter’s keys. Concentrating on the grand spectacles, the million-man Woodstock-like Papal Masses and his incessant travelling, John Paul has allowed the bishops of many lands, including the United States, to become near-schismatics. Most of those near-schismatics he has appointed. Some have become disgraceful accessories to predatory homosexual priests; some are homosexual themselves. If the Pope has done anything to correct this, I am unaware of it. On his watch the standards of liturgical discipline have collapsed even farther than they had under Paul VI.

I admire the Pope’s physical courage and I believe he is a genuinely faithful man. I admire his stand against Communism (to be honest, though, it was no firmer than that of Pius XII and several of his predecessors; it was only the weakness of John XXIII and Paul VI that made John Paul appear exceptionally anti-Communist). The Church in 1978 was in desparate need of strong traditional leadership. For all his brilliance, Karol Wojtyla has never provided that. HRS

I read a Washington Times editorial last September that was disturbing along these lines entitled “The new cardinals’ virtues.”
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20030929-090655-1999r.htm

With the increasingly multinational composition of the body that will elect, one must wonder.

Thanks to Mr. LeFevre for the link to an excellent example of the hyperactive modernist innovation for its own sake, whose only result can be to weaken tradition and confuse the faithful, that I was alluding to. Most revealing is the closing quote from Cardinal Ratzinger, John Paul’s watchdog in matters of doctrine: an acknowledged hyper-modernist theologian at the Second Vatican Counsel, he is now considered the most conservative of prelates by today’s hyper-modernists. True traditionalists know better! Ratzinger himself admits that he has not moved, the Church has moved to the Left around him. To his credit, in more recent years, Ratzinger has become more honest about the ravages that liturgical “reform” has caused. Still, he remains a man of Vatican II, which is why I would be wary were he to succeed John Paul. HRS

Thanks to Mr. Sutherland for some illuminating remarks. It is very rare to witness criticism of this Pope from the right. I think there is certainly a strong element of Hegelian dialectic at work here. Conservatives and traditionalists are so inclined to defend John Paul II because the attacks against him from leftists are so hysterical and abusive.

This is an old story for VFR readers: the hard Left pushes implacably against the traditions and assumptions men have held for generations, thus making moderate liberals or unprincipled leftists seem conservative by comparison. The Stupid Party then latches on to these moderates as their heroes.

I simply had never applied this exegesis to the Pope.

Mr. Cella wrote, “It is very rare to witness criticism of this Pope from the right.”

It’s actually not that rare at VFR. My own feeling about it (not VFR’s of course, but mine; by the way I’m Catholic, if anybody’s wondering) is that the Pope is not running things at the Vatican — no, not by a long shot: it’s liberal priests among the Vatican Court who are causing the mischief. This situation is no fault of the Pope’s, of course — he’s elderly, quite ill, and doubtless taking tons of medications having the potential to cause tons of side effects, among them the blunting of cognitive function (i.e., the function by means of which we “think”). All these factors together have robbed him of the ability make the fine distinctions and sound judgements required of someone in his position. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that, for quite some time now, it hasn’t been the Pope who’s been calling the shots in the Vatican. In saying this I mean no disrespect whatsoever to the person or the office of the Pope — on the contrary: 1) what the liberals in the Vatican court are doing, trundling him around and putting words in his mouth which he wouldn’t have chosen during the time of his mental vigor, is wrong, and 2) there ought to be some way to handle things decently, delicately, respectfully, and correctly when a pope declines to the point of being too mentally/physically enfeebled to serve.

Uadorned is quite right to note that Pope John Paul II is now enfeebled, although we do not know if his mental condition mirrors his physical ailments. I would rejoin that John Paul was no rock of tradition when he was in full vigor; quite the contrary. If liberals are guiding him today, I fear it may be in directions he is not unwilling to go. HRS

Unadorned, that is; please forgive my typos this morning.

This thread started as one about the dubious delights of Islam, but has become a gripe session (on my part, anyway) about the parlous state of Roman Catholicism. To get back to the original subject, in the Zmirak VDare article mentioned above, there are two other worthwhile links about Islam. One is to a recent speech by Georgetown’s Fr. James Schall, S.J. The title is “Belloc on the “Apparently Unconvertible” Religion.” No points for guessing which one it is. The other is to an article in La Civiltà Cattolica by Fr. Giuseppe De Rosa, S.J. entitled “I Cristiani nei paesi islamici” (Christians in Moslem Countries). I believe an English translation is available. Fr. De Rosa pulls no punches in describing how Christians have always been abused by Moslem rulers and how they continue to be abused today, including in Egypt, a country we are all assured is a moderate, secular ally of the United States. The warning for falteringly Christian lands importing large numbers of religiously confident Moslems could not be clearer. Back to Catholicism for a moment: Fr. De Rosa’s article is a hopeful sign that reality may be intruding slightly on the Holy See’s manic multicultural ecumenism; articles appearing in Civiltà Cattolica are supposed to be cleared by the Vatican Secretary of State. HRS

The strangling and stifling “P.C.” that predominates in the midst of all this makes me wonder what planet I’m on! Here is a case where a prison worker in Britain is let go because he made an “insensitive” off-hand remark about Osama bin-Laden shortly after 9/11:

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35938

Not only is the majority restrained from any substantive resistance to alien invasion, you can’t even make a disparaging remark about the head of the most dangerous and despicable Mohammedan terrorists — even though he supposedly doesn’t represent “true” Mohammedans.

If this is the baseline, Britain is doomed. Oh, Brittania!

I am also very glad that your organization is there. I am an American living in Germany (my husband is German) and I still cannot believe the horrific immigration and asylum problems they have here as well. The Germans are afraid to open their mouths and say anything for fear of being labelled a “Nazi”. Most of them pretend all of this is not happening and choose to look the other way. It’s been drilled into us practically from the time we are born to feel guilty for being white and Christian. All (really, without exception) of the third-world asylum seekers and immigrants I have encountered over the years let it be known, that they hate Germany and Germans and that they are just here “for the money” and that all Germans are “heathen swine’s” and that German girls are good for a “good time” sexually, but they would (Allah forbid) never marry one!
Well now, who are the real Nazis? Of course, we aren’t allowed to view those comments as “racist”, are we? Where is their political correctness? Germany is in a crisis right now. There is no longer enough money and no longer enough jobs, but the “guest workers” who have been welcomed here for over 40 years from middle eastern countries are still here, and so are their children and grandchildren. They’re certainly not going anywhere. They are thinking of having healthcare workers learn Turkish or Arabic in order to care for the ever-increasing older generation now in retirement here. Funny, they’ve been here for so many years and never bothered to learn German! Gee, I wonder why that is. Whatever the reason, it couldn’t be their fault could it? They believe it must be those “Nazi” Germans.

I would just like to ask if you have also taken up the issue of Turkey entering the European Union? The consequences of this Islamic, economically-catastrophic, non-European country entering the EU with 90 million (as of 2010) “new Europeans” (ha, ha now that’s funny), who just happen to be 99% Muslim and with the right to wander and settle in any part of Europe they wish to, would mean political death for the rest of Europe. I believe that would make them the largest member in Parliament. Well, we all know what they could do with that! Not even to mention opening Europe’s borders to the problematic Middle East. We think we have problems with immigration now. Wait until that happens! In the meantime, our law-makers in Europe and the rest of the western world will continue to welcome third-world immigrants (legal or illegal, they still bring problems) being too inconsiderate to care what this will mean for future generations of whatever white Europeans and Americans are left. I don’t think it is wrong or “racist” to want to preserve our race, culture and ethics. Ca. 70% (maybe more?) of the earth’s population is non-white and they obviously are allowed and even strongly encouraged to preserve their heritages. Why not us? By the way, how many asylum-seekers from third-world countries does Japan import? They are just as guilty of so-called war crimes as anyone else. And they are doing rather well economically-they could also take in a few million third-world immigrants! Why have they not been taught the same self-hate and guilt that we in the west have?

I could not believe it when recently U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan urged European leaders to hurry up and take on more third-world immigrants, promising that we would be the real winners, benefiting from the diversity these people will bring to “enrich” our bland cultures! Huh? Hey whatever! He obviously cannot wait until the white race is eradicated!