This article appears at Front Page magazine here
Speaking
Truth to the Pope; Speaking Truth to Muslims
A
Polish Catholic Wrestles with Her Pontiff
On
Wednesday, July 27, Pope Francis arrived in Krakow, Poland, in order to
celebrate World Youth Day. As part of this trip, the pope commented on
controversy surrounding Muslim migration to Europe. Many of these comments
reveal an apparent ignorance of Polish history and current reality, a privileging
of Marxist and culturally relativist worldviews that distort reality, and an
abandonment of true Christian ideals. I write as a devout Catholic. I wish my
pope would read what I write here.
Western
Europe, typified by Angela Merkel's Germany, has encouraged mass, unvetted,
Muslim migration. Germany has openly acknowledged that it is doing this to fill
labor gaps created by its low birth rate. Too, Angela Merkel's "compassion"
is meant to wash away stereotypes nailing Germans to the nation's Nazi past.
England,
France, and other Western European nations also want to refurbish their brands.
They want to escape the image of themselves as arrogant colonizers of Muslim
nations, and be christened as certified tolerant multiculturalists. They want
to escape the image of themselves as Crusaders.
Poland,
the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary have all expressed overt resistance to
mass Muslim immigration. Their resistance is expressed in unambiguous terms
that would render the speaker radioactive in Western Europe.
Western
Europeans, including, sadly, the pope, have addressed Eastern Europeans in
insulting and patronizing ways. They have completely ignored the history and
current conditions that affect Eastern Europeans' approach. Worst of all, they
have not said what needs to be said to Muslim migrants. Western European
arrogant posturing is making the migration crisis worse.
Eastern
Europe, long the poorer half of Europe, sees mass, unvetted Muslim migration
completely differently than Western Europe does. Concrete historical and
contemporary differences with Western Europe condition Eastern European
perspectives and offer a sobering corrective to Western errors.
Germany
has a labor gap it must fill. Poland has a high unemployment rate. Poland,
unlike Germany, was on the right side in World War II, so it does not face the
same need that Germany does to tinker with its image. Unlike England and
France, Poland never colonized any Muslim nation. Poland does not need to prove
it has overcome its colonial past vis-Ã -vis Muslims.
Poland,
aware of its own history, feels no need to certify itself as a tolerant,
multicultural nation. The Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth was, as Eva Hoffman
wrote in her book Shtetl, "a
long experiment in multiculturalism avant
la lettre." That is, Poland was multicultural before the term "multicultural"
was invented.
During
the Wars of the Reformation, Poland was a "state without stakes." For
centuries its population included Lithuanians, one of the last holdouts of
authentic Paganism in Europe, Arians, atheists, Jews, and others. Poland's
current religious and ethnic homogeneity is the result not primarily of Polish
choices, but of German genocide, Churchill and Roosevelt colluding with Stalin
to rejigger borders, and the 1968 Communist scapegoating of Jews. This is why
Poles become uncomfortable when Westerners, including the Pope, lecture them
about their need to be multicultural.
Further,
Poles did not significantly participate in the Crusades. In fact, Polish
Muslims fought side-by-side with Polish Catholics and Lithuanian Pagans against
Crusader knights, the Teutonic knights, at the Battle of Grunwald, one of the
largest battles of medieval Europe and perhaps the largest battle to involve
knights.
Eastern
Europe is the poorer half of Europe for a variety of reasons. One is that Eastern
Europe abuts the landmass of Asia and the Ottoman Empire. For centuries, Poland
has had to fight invaders for its very survival. Often those invaders were
Muslims. The Crimean Khanate and Al-Andalus made use of millions of Polish and
other Slavic slaves. Poles, under Jan Sobieski, famously played a significant
role in the defeat of the Ottoman Empire at Vienna on September 11-12, 1683. Bernard
Lewis cites this battle as the end of jihad's expansion, and the beginning of
Muslim self-doubt, a self-doubt it attempts to correct with its current jihad. As
Lewis
wrote, "This defeat, suffered by what was then the major military
power of the Muslim world, gave rise to a new debate, which in a sense has been
going on ever since. The argument began among the Ottoman military and
political élite as a discussion of two questions: Why had the once victorious
Ottoman armies been vanquished by the despised Christian enemy? And how could they
restore the previous situation?"
All
nations have their favorite targets for ethnic slurs. When Poles indulge in
ethnic slurs, their targets have most often been Jews, Germans, Russians, and
Ukrainians – that is, their most significant immediate neighbors. Hatred and
stereotyping of Muslims has not traditionally been a big part of Polish
cultural baggage. In fact, Poles proudly mention that Muslims have lived and
practiced their faith in Poland since the 14th century. The Lipka
Tatars were invited into Poland and given the status of nobility. They served
in the military. Polish Muslims were granted autonomy, had the right to
practice their religion and to intermarry with Polish Catholics. They had
representation in the Polish Sejm, or parliament. These Muslims largely
Polonized, adopting Polish language and culture. Except in the 17th
century, during the Ottoman Empire's attacks, there were few reports of
conflict between these Muslims and Polish Catholics. Rather, Polish Catholics
tended to speak of these Muslims as an interesting part of the country's
history and evidence of the country's multiculturalism and tolerance.
Too,
during WW II and Stalinist population transfers, many Poles found themselves in
Muslim Central Asia. Typical Polish refugee survivor stories do not include
anti-Muslim stereotyping. One such Polish memoirist, Edward
Herzbaum, wrote a picturesque account of his time spent in Muslim Central
Asia:
"There
is a bright moon and some wind. As we stop for a few moments, the exotic
landscape is striking, like an intoxicating scent. The tall poplars wave and
rustle; the clay walls of the hovels are lit up brilliantly by the moon and the
small windows look completely black. Under some trees somebody is laughing or
talking in a gentle voice and then there is silence again, but it is full of
life. Everything which is dead in the heat of the day is now awake, a life so
lush and vibrant that it is difficult to describe. There is also the wind,
hungry and restless like a young animal, coming down from the mountains and
blowing above the fertile, fragrant valley. It runs amok and then it's silent
again."
It is
true that anti-Muslim sentiment is strong and often expressed in Poland today. Current
anti-Muslim feeling in Poland is a new development. Younger Poles are most
likely to resist Muslim migration, according to the Christian Science Monitor. This new hostility to Muslims and Islam references
current jihad actions and Western Europe's apparent inability to address them. In
spite of their history of being the targets of Crusader knights' aggression,
Poles have sometimes chosen the image of the Crusader knight to express their
current disagreement with Western Europe's migration policies, as did soccer
fans in Wroclaw, Poland, in 2015, when they displayed a huge
banner depicting Poland as a knight defending Christendom from invading
Muslims.
In
short, Eastern Europe is very different from Western Europe when it comes to
historical interactions with Muslims, and when it comes to the contemporary
economic and cultural forces affecting decisions about Muslim immigration.
If
only Pope Francis showed awareness of these realities. Instead Pope Francis
ignored both Polish reality and Catholic truth in his public statements. He told
Poles that they must "overcome fear and to achieve the greater good."
"Needed," the pope said, "is a spirit of readiness to welcome
those fleeing from wars and hunger, and solidarity with those deprived of their
fundamental rights, including the right to profess one's faith in freedom and
safety."
The
day before the pope traveled to Poland, Father Jacques Hamel, a French priest
in his eighties, was saying mass in his church in the French town of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray,
France. Jihadis invaded his church, forced the priest to his knees, and cut his
throat, in accord with Koranic teachings (Koran 47:4, 8:12, 9:5). The jihadis
then used nuns as human shields in their escape attempt. The martyrdom of
Father Jacques was, of course, merely the most recent in a series of deadly jihad
attacks in Western European nations eagerly inviting Muslim migrants, attacks
that are steadily eating away at what one had thought of as normal life in
Western Civilization.
Under
such conditions, there is much that Catholics and others yearn to hear from a
leader of the stature of the pope. While traveling to Poland, the pope
acknowledged to journalists that a war is being waged.
"But
it's a real war, not a religious war. It's a war of interests, a war for money.
A war for natural resources and for the dominion of the peoples. Some might say
it's a religious war. Every religion wants peace. The war is wanted by the
others. Understood?"
This
Catholic shudders.
The
pope's statement that the current jihad is "a war for money" is a Marxist
analysis. The idea that wars are fought over markets and resources is entirely
Marxist.
The
pope said "Every religion wants peace." This is a statement of
cultural relativism. In fact, religions are significantly different, and not
all religions do have the same approach to peace. In Islam, peace comes after
submission to Allah, a submission that is achieved through violence. Violence
to spread Islam is the highest good. Paradise lies under the shade of swords,
says one hadith; another locates paradise in the space between an archer's
targets. To learn to shoot and to abandon shooting is a sin. Compare this
hadith to Isaiah's call for a day when we beat swords into ploughshares and
spears into pruning hooks. Koran 3:157 guarantees paradise for jihadis. There
are no parallels to any of these verses in Christianity.
The
pope also said, " The war is wanted by the others. Understood?" This
cryptic statement will be jumped upon by conspiracy theorists, all too many of
whom live in the Muslim world and use conspiracy theories to avoid
confrontation with Islam's failures. The "others", the "unseen
hands" who "want war" have all too often been identified by conspiracy
theorists as Jews. No, I am not saying that Pope Francis is implicating Jews
here. He is not. I am saying that conspiracy theorists eat statements like this
up.
One
must ask, though, who are "the others" the pope is claiming are
behind jihad terror? I don't know. I do know that such escape routes to honest
thought do nothing to help Muslims confront what they must confront.
Austen
Ivereigh, a biographer of Pope Francis, writing in Politico,
indicts Poland. Poles are "disrespectful" of Pope Francis. Poles had
built "walls" that they wanted to see maintained. Poles inexplicably
see Christendom as "beleaguered." This is a mere hangover from the
Communist Era. Poles are "nervous of contamination." There is a
"darker side" to Poles' worldview. "Polish Catholics suffer from
a superiority complex." But Ivereigh attempts to sound tolerant. "Polish
Catholics can be forgiven for thinking that their church has done something
right." But this attitude is "dangerous." Poland is "unsparingly
anti-immigrant." For some reason, Poles "harbor strong anti-Arab and
anti-Muslim sentiment and see a link between immigration and terrorism."
"Pope Francis, on the other hand, has called Europe’s willingness to take
refugees a test of its principles. God’s mercy – the theme of this week’s World
Youth Day in Poland, and the cornerstone of Francis’s teaching – is most
evident, he believes, in our willingness to embrace strangers."
Ivereigh's
themes of paranoid Poles still reeling from Communism who must be condescended
to by superior Westerners is all too typical of journalistic coverage of the
pope's visit to Krakow.
Most
grievously, the pope's and the journalists' Marxist and cultural relativist
approaches abandon the truths of the Bible. It doesn't take a theologian to point
out that the Muslim world is in deep trouble. Muslim nations dominate lists of
the worst nations on earth to be a woman, or a political prisoner, or a
Christian, or a homosexual. The UN Arab Human Development Report is an index of
the failure of the larger Muslim
world. Numbers on literacy, health care, research and innovation are all the opposite
of what anyone wants to see. Just one statistic: "in the 1,000 years since
the reign of the Caliph Mamoun, the Arabs have translated as many books as
Spain translates in one year." As Samuel P. Huntington wrote, "Islam
has bloody borders." Jihad-inspired armed conflict occurs throughout the
Muslim world, from Africa to East Asia.
The
pope, and journalists like Austen Ivereigh, prescribe Marxist analysis and
cultural relativism as the answer to these Islam-induced, or certainly at least
Islam-associated agonies.
Their
answer can be reduced to, "If sexually assaulting, imprisoning, and honor
killing women, murdering priests, suppressing freedom of speech and of
conscience, and committing suicide bombings is not working for you in your own country,
please bring them to ours, and we will welcome you with open arms."
They
are calling this approach "compassionate" and "Christian."
It is
neither.
True
Christian compassion calls for truth. Old Testament Biblical prophets never
spared the Israelites the harshest of truths about themselves, about their
mistakes and what they needed to do to mend their ways.
Jesus,
too, was not one to mince words. He told miscreants to their face, without offering
any verbal hiding places, what they were doing wrong and what they needed to do
to get things right. "Go and sell all your possessions and give your money
to the poor," he said to a rich man. "You have had five husbands, and
the man you are living with now is not your husband," Jesus said to the
Samaritan woman. Jesus fearlessly said to Pontius Pilate, the man about to
sentence him to a torturous death, "The reason I was born and came into
the world is to testify to truth."
It's
time for the pope and Catholic journalists and others to speak to Muslims – not
to Polish Catholics, an easy target but to Muslims – the way that Isaiah and
Jeremiah spoke to Israel, the way that Jesus spoke to everyone from a woman at
a well to Pontius Pilate himself.
Counter-jihad
is about truth,
not hate. We Catholics mourn the martyrdom of Father Jacques, but we know
he is in Heaven now. We have reason to assume that his murderers are in Hell.
We Catholics have a responsibility to speak the truths that will help our
Muslim brothers and sisters escape not just the earthly hells their beliefs and
customs have created, but also eternal damnation. It is time for the pope to stop
falling back on Marxist and culturally relativist interpretations. It is time
for him to stop patronizing devout Polish Catholics. It is time for him to join
the counter-jihad, and to speak the truth to Muslims out of love.
