More from the article:
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"While Francis asks Europeans to embrace Muslims, he himself seems to have embraced the fallacy of the “new Jews.†The “new Jews,†of course, are the Muslims. To assuage their guilt over the Holocaust, Europeans determined to banish every trace of prejudice from their lives. But since there were relatively few Jews left to practice their openness on, Muslims—the “new Jewsâ€â€”became the beneficiaries of the new-found tolerance. No one seemed to notice—or care—that Muslims as a group are deeply anti-Semitic. In short, the “new Jews†were like the old Nazis. In retrospect, the substitution of the “new Jews†for the old Jews as reparation for the Holocaust has to rank as one of the dumbest projects ever conceived.
Yet this self-contradictory idea goes unchallenged in Rome. This doesn’t necessarily indicate a lack of intelligence, but it does suggest a lack of something else—namely, mental fortitude. Now, mental fortitude is not unrelated to intestinal fortitude. It often takes guts to speak the truth. In other words, the fighting spirit also plays a part in the life of the intellect. It is a passionate desire to get at the truth of things, no matter the cost or danger. Unfortunately, one doesn’t see much evidence of it in the bishops’ approach to world affairs. Instead, they seem content to repeat secular clichés such as “Islamophobia,†“xenophobia,†and—one of the pope’s favorites—“encounters between cultures.†For many in the hierarchy, the mere repetition of these incantations is all the argument that is needed. Moreover, insofar as they approach issues from a distinctly Christian point of view, they ignore the Church’s rich tradition of reason, and rely instead on the emotional tug that one feels when he is told that Christ wants us to welcome migrants “with arms wide open.â€
Warfare, whether physical or ideological, is a constant in world affairs. While hoping for peace, nations and institutions can’t afford to lose their readiness to fight. But it’s difficult to summon that fighting spirit if you won’t acknowledge that you’re under attack. Many in the Church have succumbed to a double-barreled disinformation campaign intended to put them off their guard. It comes from Islamists on the one hand, and cultural Marxists on the other. So far, it has been quite effective.
Generals speak of the fog of war, but one can also speak of the fog of ideological war. Indeed, the fundamental purpose of ideological warfare is to create a fog of confusion in the mind of one’s enemies. As a result of this fog, the Church’s leadership has failed at the essential task of accurately sizing up the dangerous situation that they—and we—face.
Islam has been a perennial foe of Christianity. Arguably, it presents a greater threat to Christians than Nazism or communism. In alliance with the cultural Marxist heirs of communism, it is a formidable enemy, and it ought to be seen as such. The Church was once a bulwark against Islam. And it can be today. The Church doesn’t command armies any more but, then, much of the battle that needs to be fought now has to be fought on the intellectual, informational, and spiritual levels. To fight this culture war successfully, Church leaders must recover the fighting spirit displayed by previous popes, bishops, saints, and warriors. They also need to acquire that clear-eyed view that Catholics of earlier generations took when faced with an ideological foe."
