The logo for the pope's
visit to Morocco implies
submission to Islam
Pan-religious sentimentality flourishes in the current pope’s apparent
embrace of Islam as morally equivalent to Judeo-Christian ethos and culture
By Maureen Mullarkey
January 22, 2019
St. Francis of Assisi traveled to Egypt in 1219 with the Fifth Crusade, determined to proclaim the truth of the gospel to Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil.
Celebratory anticipation of the 800th anniversary of that meeting between saint and sultan began two years ago with Pope Francis’s trip to Egypt. Initiated by the Franciscans, the extended jubilee culminates this March with a papal visit to Morocco.
Vatican media foregoes the traditional papal insignia in promotion of this trip.
[Not that the papal insignia has figured in any of the event logos for this Pontificate, as far as I can recall.] Apropos of our age of slogans and Instagram politicking, it has chosen a logo created specifically for the event.
Vatican News explained the choice: “A cross and a crescent . . . are symbols of Christianity and Islam which highlight the inter-religious relation between Christians and Muslims.”
Inter-religious relation is an airy trope drawn from the optimism of Pope John Paul II. During a memorable 1986 inter-faith convention in Assisi, John Paul hailed “the seeds of truth found in all religions.” He sealed the words with a respectful kiss on a Koran.
A balmy ménage of many-colored pieties and alternative practitioners, the event buoyed enthusiasm for religious relativism. Its pan-religious sentimentality survives in the current pope’s apparent embrace of Islam as morally equivalent to Judeo-Christian ethos and culture.
Since 1986, Islam’s character and purposes have become clearer. Evidence of the scale of its distance from Assisi’s cross-cultural smorgasbord of religious impulses has sharpened. If this Vatican logo tells us anything, it is that Pope Francis is comfortable with Islam’s ascendancy. The “relation” made visual here is one of domination.
This crescent does not appear alongside the cross, as if a companion to it. Rather, the Islamic symbol encircles the Christian one. What passes for a cross is feeble, barely recognizable. A watery post and cross beam curved like the blade of a scimitar, more evocative of the sword of Allah than the rood on which Christ hung. I
t is a logo for dhimmis.
Emphasizing Pope Francis’s personal comity with Islam, the design reflects the amour propre of a 21st-century ecumenist who mistakenly sees himself in the footprint of his namesake. Our self-styled “Servant of Hope” acts and speaks in disregard of Islam’s lethal rejection of Christianity and its doctrinal premises — a fatal blunder that the friar of Assisi did not make.
Nothing could be further from the sensibility of the historic St. Francis than concession of his faith’s truth claims in order to coexist with Islam. His aim was conversion, not reciprocal understanding.
However pacific his proselytizing manner, he held fast to the stern substance of St. Paul’s words: “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers… What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?”
(2 Cor 6)
Despite commemorative hype — a soothing blend of anachronism and myth — the difference between the travels of these two Francises is vast.
Il Poverello was not “reaching out” to the sultan in a gesture of interfaith dialogue. He was seeking the conversion of Islam via baptism of the sultan; Pope Francis seeks only rapprochement.
A former soldier himself, St. Francis was militant in his intentions, if peaceful in his methods. Present depictions of the saint as a proto-ecumenist are ahistorical distortions. Yet it is that distortion that fuels Pope Francis’s “outreach” style.
Driven by love of the Triune God — even, perhaps, by ambition for a martyr’s crown - Francis left the protection of the crusader camp and crossed battle lines to sway the Egyptian sultan to accept the tenets of Christian belief.
The sultan, for his part, had pressing diplomatic reasons to receive this preacher with courtesy. Anything less would have been impolitic. Under siege at the time, and certain that surrender of Jerusalem was inevitable, the sultan hoped for a settlement with the Europeans.
Despite his admiration for this gutsy, charismatic friar, the sultan was unpersuaded by Christianity. Once Francis recognized the futility of his mission, he returned home. He did not stay for conversation over — to quote John Paul II — the “role of the great monotheistic religions in the service of the human family.”
Omer Englebert’s classic
St. Francis of Assisi: A Biography tells of Francis, on his arrival in Italy, reacting to news of five ardent friars who had been martyred in Morocco. The men had entered a mosque, denouncing Mohammed (“that wicked slave of the devil)” from inside. They paid with their heads.
Did Francis apologize for their insensitivity? No. The saint was jubilant: “Now I can truly say that I have five brothers!”
St. Francis’s open, unabashed fidelity to his belief in the supremacy of Christian mystery is obscured by substituting a modern logo for the ancient papal insignia. The papal crest, like any heraldic device, represents the larger corporate body to which an individual belongs. The papal emblem is a badge of office; it indicates the bearer’s rank within a greater entity. The papacy, after all, is an office, not a brand.
A logo, by contrast, is a marketing device. Addressed to consumers of a brand, the Vatican’s logo markets Pope Francis himself as the avatar of a beloved saint — a commodity for pious consumption.
Tragically, the medieval Francis is better known in caricature and legend than in fact. That the Vatican has chosen a trademark suitable to the caricature bodes ill for the Judeo-Christian West.
NOBILE: SENZA CRISTIANESIMO L’EUROPA PERIRÀ. PER MANO DELL’ISLAM.
23 Gennaio 2019 Pubblicato da
Without Christianity,
Europe will perish -
at the hands of Islam
Translated from
January 23, 2018
Dear friends, Agostino Nobile has sent us his reflections on the creation of a new crime in Europe, Islamophobia. He underscores the paradox of a world where the Islamic countries are the worst persecutors of Christians, yet in Europe it is now forbidden to even civilly underscore the real characteristics of Islam’s sacred texts and traditions. Read on…
Europe without Christianity will perish
by Agostino Nobile
Are millions of Christians being persecuted by Islam? The West comes to the rescue by creating the ideological neologism ‘Islamophobia’ to criminalize freedom of thought, opinion and expression regarding Islam.
As we know, the law on Islamophobia has been imposed by the United Nations and the secular powers-that-be to protect Muslims in the West and muzzle Westerners. Even just reading passages of the Koran – hardly edifying – can now subject Europeans to legal persecution and to guillotine by media.
The paradox worsens when we read the annual data on anti-Christian persecutions in the world. After North Korea, the countries listed are all Muslim. According to the annual report of the World Watch List for 2018, more than 215 million Christians are persecuted around the world. [The Porte Aperte – Open Doors – project places the number at 245 million.]
The top ten persecuting countries are Afghanistan, Eritrea, Libia, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Pakistan and Yemen. Saudi Arabia is not on the list because as far as that country is concerned, Christians and Christian churches simply do not exist.
The WWL report says, “Muslim oppression continues to be the principal cause of Christian persecution, not just being confirmed but even extending its morsa in various regions”. Therefore, it is rising. But even India with its religious nationalism (Hinduism), and in Nepal which is Hindu, Buddhist and communist, Christian persecution is also rising.
According to WWL, between November 2016 and October 2017,
- 3,066 Christians were killed because of their faith, and
- 15,540 buildings belonging to Christians (churches, homes and businesses) were attacked or destroyed.
- 1,922 Christians are detained without due process,
- 1,252 have been abducted, 1000 raped, 1,240 forced into marriage, and
- 33,255 ‘physically or mentally abused’.
Cristian Nani, director of Porte Aperte, points out that “these figures are to be considered merely as starting points because the submerged reality of crimes against Christians that are not denounced or reported in many countries is potentially enormous”.
Christians persecuted in Africa number 81.14 million (38% of the total persecuted); in Asia and the Middle East, 13.31 million (53%); by the communist regimes in Latin America, 20.05 million (9%), while the rest of the world accounts for 11,800 (0.01%).
Looking at the list, one thinks of all those ‘stars’ of the media in our country who denounce Italians who oppose illegal immigration which mainly has to do with persons from the Christian-persecuting countries.
And whereas in the West, racism and Islamophobia (even if only in words) are legally persecuted, there is no law against racism nor Christianophobia in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Western radical chic circles who spout poison against anyone who opposes illegal immigration, should ask themselves if this lack of ‘reciprocity’ is casual or planned.
Regardless, anyone with a modicum of common sense who reads the figures reported here would agree that something is completely wrong.
If the European democracies in the first half of the 20th century had opened their frontiers to millions of declared Nazis and Soviet Communists, probably, democracy would now be extinct. But it seems that this obviousness is not applied to Islam which, like Nazism and Communism, is genetically anti-democratic. Moreover, it is clearly written in the Koran that Islam should dominate all the peoples of the world. So who in their right mind would let in people who intend to subjugate them by divine right?
In this paradoxical situation, how can we not look at the pope, who has been the most dogged supporter of Muslim immigration into Italy and Europe? A pope so much subject to Islam that the logo of his coming trip to Morocco is a Cross contrived out of two scimitar blades, and engulfed by the Islamic crescent; the logo also describes the pope as the Servant of Hope. Not the Servant of Christ, but the Servant of Hope, whatever that means.
- His irrepressible desire – I would dare to call it obsession – of this pope to open the frontiers wide to Muslims;
- his continuous arrow slings against Catholics he demeans as ‘funeral faced’, ‘rosary counters’ and ‘coprophagic [shit-eating] addicts’;
- his silence on the daily persecution of millions of Christians mostly in Muslim countries;
- his comments absolving all Muslim crimes against Christians by saying that “it is foolish to equate Islam with terrorism” –
From all this, it would seem that Bergoglio does not consider himself the head of the Catholic Church. [Oh yes, he does - even if the church he leads is increasingly unrecognizable as Catholic - because otherwise, he would have absolutely no power or authority to impose his will!]
Why then must Catholics think he is? [Because, like it or not, he was elected validly.] Putting together the enormous rate of anti-Christian persecution in the world, the number of Muslim immigrants to Europe, a pope who is the ‘servant of hope’ rather than the servant of Christ, and one who is clearly ‘submissive’ to Islam, we have what Hillaire Belloc had predicted: “Europe shall return to the faith or it will perish. Because the faith is Europe and Europe is the faith”.
Shall we think then that the Bergoglians are not aware of that?
Because he is a prominent name in US journalism today, it is not surprising that Sohrab Ahmari's account of his conversion to Catholicism has been the basis for a number of interviews with him in high-profile media outlets. The latest from CATHOLIC WORLD REPORT is notable for me in that he specifically identifies Benedict XVI as the one who was most helpful in his conversion. And you will excuse me if I quote it ahead:
CWR: Were there any people who were particularly helpful to you along the way?
Ahmari: Pope Benedict XVI. I read his book JESUS OF NAZARETH. I didn’t understand all of it, but it did demonstrate that you can be intelligent and use reason and still accept the claims of faith and Biblical religion.
In Benedict’s telling, the story of Christ is really just one narrative spanning the Old and the New Testaments, with God drawing ever nearer to His creation.
He also makes a persuasive case that the witness of the four Evangelists is very credible, even though they didn’t use tape recorders or journalist’s notes.
From atheism and Marxism to Catholicism:
The conversion of Sohrab Ahmari
Becoming a Catholic, says Ahmari, 'has brought tremendous order and
metaphysical direction to my life. Life was harder before I had faith'
Interview by Jim Graves
January 23, 2019
Sohrab Ahmari, 33, is a New York City journalist and Catholic convert. He grew up in a nominally Muslim home in Iran under an oppressive Islamic regime and had renounced all religion by his teen years. In 1998, at age 13, he immigrated with his mother to the United States and lived with an uncle in rural Utah.
He taught special education and later attended law school as a young adult, but decided on a career in journalism. He began as an intern for The Wall Street Journal and subsequently worked five years for the Journal as a writer and editor. He is now the op-ed editor of the New York Post.
On July 26, 2016, after the killing of Fr. Jacques Hamel, 85, in his church in France by Muslim terrorists, Ahmari announced on social media that he was converting to Roman Catholicism. Some mistakenly thought his conversion was due to the priest’s murder, so he wrote a memoir,
From Fire, by Water: My Journey to the Catholic Faith (Ignatius Press, 2019), to give a full account of his conversion.
He spoke recently with CWR about his book and his journey into the Catholic Church.
What was it like growing up in Iran?
My father was an architect, and my mother an abstract expressionist painter. So, I grew up in an artistic milieu in post-revolutionary Iran. There was a clash between my worldview and lifestyle at home and what occurred outside the home, where Islamic justice was enforced by flogging and prison. This tension had a profound impact on my faith journey.
What was life like as a Muslim there?
I wouldn’t describe myself as growing up Muslim. I was thoroughly secular. The only exposure I had to Islam was in school, where instruction in Islam was mandatory. My maternal grandparents practiced Islam somewhat, but even they broke the rules sometimes; they were okay with an occasional glass of wine [forbidden in the Koran].
So, ours was a humanistic, liberal Islam, which clashed with the spirit of the 1979 revolution. I was, however, moved by some aspects of Shiite Islam, which has many stories of martyrdom. The idea of sacrifice was seared into my mind powerfully. It stayed with me. But by 13, I decided that I was an atheist and renounced all faith.
Were your friends at school serious about the practice of Islam?
It varied. We tend to self-select the groups we want to be with, so when I invited friends over to my house to play, they tended to be those with secular liberal backgrounds. We would only pretend to be observant Muslims in public.
Why did you leave Iran?
The environment in Iran was miserable. It is an oppressive theocracy, with messianic ideas about its place in the world. Iran had unwisely gone to war with Iraq, and the economy was in a shambles. We were paranoid about the secret police. My parents drank, and we watched Western movies, which are against the rules.
You always have a fear about the morality police, or morality committee, coming after you.
So since age 7, I had always had this idea that one day we’d immigrate to the U.S. Anyone who has the means to get out will get out.
I had an uncle who settled in the U.S. in the late 1970s. He arrived as a student, the revolution came, and he stayed. So, about a month before my 14th birthday, my mother and I received green cards and we left to live with him in rural Utah. My parents had divorced, so my father stayed behind.
Do you want to return to Iran to visit?
No. There are many problems with me going. I converted to Christianity. Apostasy is punishable by death in Iran. Now converts aren’t usually charged with apostasy, as the regime is sensitive to PR. However, they would likely be charged on trumped up national security charges and wind up in jail.
Keep in mind that evangelism is illegal in Iran. Possessing a Persian-language Bible — Persian is the language of the majority — is illegal.
I’ve also worked in the Western media, including at the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal. I’ve criticized the Iranian regime. That could put me in jail. I an American citizen, but if I were to go to Iran, that wouldn’t matter. I wouldn’t be treated as an American.
Robert George has said that you “made a series of bad choices” in Utah. What were those?
I rebelled against the society into which I was born, and then I came to the U.S., and I shifted my oppositional posture to my new society. I had idealized America from afar, but I was shocked to discover when I arrived that parts of it are deeply religious. People talked about God, and the political order was underpinned by ideas about God.
I took up intellectual arms against it. I embraced the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche, who proclaimed the death of God. I became a nihilist. I later became a Marxist, and joined a Trotskyite group in college. I explain this in detail in
From Fire, by Water.
The worldview I’d adopted conveniently provided me with an alibi for my personal failings. I believed that there was no such thing as human nature or objective morality, and that good and evil are social constructs. I was intellectually and morally confused.
How did you come to Catholicism?
I was dismissive of all faiths, as I recount in my book. In the memoir, I recount how, starting from the atheism I adopted at age 13, I came to believe in God, and then a personal God, and then the God of the Bible. The hardest part was believing in a personal God. Once I believed this, my journey to Catholicism became much easier.
Were there any people who were particularly helpful to you along the way?
Pope Benedict XVI. I read his book Jesus of Nazareth. I didn’t understand all of it, but it did demonstrate that you can be intelligent and use reason and still accept the claims of faith and Biblical religion. In Benedict’s telling, the story of Christ is really just one narrative spanning the Old and the New Testaments, with God drawing ever nearer to His creation.
He also makes a persuasive case that the witness of the four Evangelists is very credible, even though they didn’t use tape recorders or journalist’s notes.
What would you like Americans to understand about Islam?
My ideas about Islam are now linked to my Roman Catholicism, so I can’t relate as a neutral observer. But I would say that I care about it as a political issue: how do Western societies come to terms with Islam, both as a world religion, and for Muslims living within the boundaries of Western countries?
The relationship between the West and Islam would be easier and make more sense if the West was clear about its own identity and Judeo-Christian roots. As French philosopher Pierre Manent has said, the West bears the mark of the Cross.
The Muslim who looks to the West sees the Cross.
Our two cultures could encounter one another on clearer terms if the West were not secular, standing for nothing. That imbalance causes a lot of friction. Having the West return to Christendom sounds like a restaging of the Crusades, but in reality it would make everyone more comfortable.
Why did you want to write From Fire, by Water?
When I was first studying to convert to the Catholic faith, I didn’t plan to announce my conversion to anyone until I was baptized. On July 26, 2016, two months into my instruction, Fr. Jacques Hamel was killed by two Islamist militants.
I felt like I had to react, so I took to my Twitter account. I denounced this atrocity and mentioned that, by the way, I’m converting to Roman Catholicism. The tweet went viral. Many people contacted me with mostly positive comments.
However, there was some misunderstanding. Headlines appeared in Christian publications that I was converting because of Fr. Hamel’s murder, even though I was already receiving instruction when that happened. I was overwhelmed by the reaction.
So, when Fr. Fessio contacted me and asked me to write a book about my conversion, I thought it was a good opportunity to set the record straight. My conversion was not an emotional reaction to the murder but a well-considered decision. I think I have an interesting life story, exotic because of my background, but it’s ultimately reflective of the universal search for truth.
Who should read it?
It is for everyone. However, I would especially love to see it in the hands of some version of me, age 22 or 23, when I was drunk on Marx and Nietzsche. Had I had such a book, it would have saved me a lot of trouble, heartache, and pain.
It would be ideal for the young reader curious about ideas, and I hope it will inspire him to first give the Bible and the catechism a chance before ruling them out.
Has it been hard to adjust to life as a Christian?
No. It has brought tremendous order and metaphysical direction to my life. Life was harder before I had faith.
What have your friends and co-workers said about your conversion?
Some were surprised, especially since for such a long time I publicly proclaimed I was an atheist. But some Catholic friends are now recommending good spiritual books, and I’ve been introduced to a new scene of young Catholic writers and intellectuals. We share the same foundation, and react to the world together.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/01/2019 12:32]