ITALIAN BISHOP WARNS THAT EUROPE MUST AVOID “FEAR & XENOPHOBIA” & WELCOME MUSLIM MIGRANTS~OR ELSE?
ITALIAN BISHOP WARNS THAT EUROPE MUST AVOID “FEAR & XENOPHOBIA” &
WELCOME MUSLIM MIGRANTS
BY ROBERT SPENCER
SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/07/italian-bishop-warns-that-europe-must-avoid-fear-and-xenophobia-and-welcome-muslim-migrants; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
Like the U.S. Catholic bishops, the Italian bishops appear not feel any obligation to support measures that would protect their people from jihad attacks. The message that the Italian bishops are sending to Catholics and other citizens of Italy is simple: drop dead. They are apparently unconcerned about the jihad attacks and spiraling crime rates that have come to Italy with the mass Muslim migrant influx.
Some reminders: all of the jihadis who murdered 130 people in Paris in November 2015 had just entered Europe as refugees. In February 2015, the Islamic State boasted it would soon flood Europe with as many as 500,000 refugees. The Lebanese Education Minister said in September 2015 that there were 20,000 jihadis among the refugees in camps in his country. On May 10, 2016, Patrick Calvar, the head of France’s DGSI internal intelligence agency, said that the Islamic State was using migrant routes through the Balkans to get jihadis into Europe.
The Italian bishops have never expressed any concern about any of this. They are completely in line with Pope Francis, who has claimed risibly that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.” This has become a super-dogma in the Catholic Church: if you don’t believe that Islam is a Religion of Peace, you will be ruthlessly harassed and silenced by the hierarchy. The bishops of the Catholic Church are much more concerned that you believe that Islam is a religion of peace than that you believe in, say, the Nicene Creed. And so what possible reason could there be to be concerned about these “refugees”? It’s a religion of peace!
“Leave them; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:14)
“Italian bishops champion ‘voiceless’ migrants,” by Isabella Haberstock de Carvalho, The Tablet, July 20, 2018:
The leadership of the Italian bishops’ conference has pledged its support for migrants arriving in the country while warning against a growing culture of xenophobia across Europe.“We feel responsible for this army of the poor, victims of war and hunger, of deserts and of tortures,” they wrote in a statement released on Wednesday. “It is the story of suffering, of men, women and children – [a story] which prevents the closing of borders and the erection of barriers – which asks us to show solidarity, justice and peace.”The letter, written by the Presidency of the Episcopal Conference of Italy, admits that the bishops and the Church “know the solutions are not simple” but “enlightened by the Gospel of Jesus Christ we [want to] continue to lend our voice to those who do not have one.”The President of the Conference, Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, explained in a separate interview with Vatican newspaper “L’Osservatore Romano” that Europe must avoid “fear and xenophobia” and build societies based on “reunion and solidarity.”The statement by the bishops’ leadership – which includes the president of the conference, the three vice-presidents and the secretary-general – comes days after almost 1,000 priests, theologians and charity workers signed a letter to the bishops complaining that too few church leaders were speaking out against a growing climate of racism and anti-migrant attitudes in Italy and Europe.The letter stressed that Christianity is incompatible with hostility to migrants and that there was “an exploitation of the Christian faith, with use of religious symbols such as the crucifix, the rosary or verses from the scriptures, in a sometimes blasphemous and offensive way.”This was a thinly veiled criticism of Matteo Salvini, Italy’s new interior minister who earlier this year held up his rosary while swearing to implement the Italian constitution “according to the teachings of the sacred gospels”, but has become renowned for his hardline stance against migrants.One of the initiators of the letter, Fr Rocco D’Ambrosio, political philosophy professor at the Gregorian University, stressed that the authors were not trying to condemn Italian churches for not making an effort to welcome migrants but rather were asking bishops to address “a growing racism in churches and people’s attitudes”….In their statement the leadership of the conference stressed they would “walk with our Christian communities, getting involved in a widespread hospitality that is able to increase fraternity.”…Finally, they say that the way to save humanity from “vulgarity and barbarism” is a commitment to “preserve life” starting with “the most exposed, humiliated and trampled.”