Pope Francis: ‘Tear Down the Walls’ against Islam!

Earlier, in March 2019, when asked  “a question about migration in general and about U.S. President Donald Trump’s then threat to shut down the southern border with Mexico,” the pope pontificated in platitudes: “Builders of walls,” he said, “be they made of razor wire or bricks, will end up becoming prisoners of the walls they build….  With fear, we will not move forward, with walls, we will remain closed within these walls.”

Less than a week before that, Francis lectured the mayor of Rome about the need to be more welcoming to Muslim migrants. “Rome,” he declared, “a hospitable city, is called to face this epochal challenge [floods of Muslim migrants demanding entry] in the wake of its noble history; to use its energies to welcome and integrate, to transform tensions and problems into opportunities for meeting and growth.”

“Rome,” he exulted, “city of bridges, never walls!”

Further anticipating the crusades against Islam by over two centuries-and thus showing how they were a long time coming-Pope Leo (and after him Pope John VIII) offered the remission of sins for those Christians who died fighting Islamic invaders.  Such was the existential and ongoing danger Muslims referred to in contemporary sources as “Sons of Satan,” caused for Europe-more than two centuries before the First Crusade was launched in 1095.

Indeed, just three years after the initial Muslim invasion of Rome, “in 849 the Muslims attempted a new landing at Ostia; then, every year from around 857 on, they threatened the Roman seaboard,” explains French medieval historian C. E. Dufourcq:

In order to get rid of them, Pope John VIII  decided in 878 to promise them an annual payment [or jizya] of several thousand gold pieces; but this tribute of the Holy See to Islam seems to have been paid for only two years; and from time to time until the beginning of the tenth century, the Muslims reappeared at the mouth of the Tiber or along the coast nearby.

And that is the point that Pope Francis-whose own ancient city would never have lasted to the present if not for walls-misses: walls should only go down and bridges should only be extended when both parties are willing to live in amicable peace. Otherwise, they serve only to make the destructive work of those who have for centuries been trying to conquer and destroy in the name of Islam that much easier.