An early ecumenical movement
drew leading Catholic theologians together in the 12th Century for a meeting to decide the best theological approach to converting the Moslems to Christianity. While The Church’s leading intellect, St. Thomas Aquinas, was on his way to the meeting, he died in 1274, in circumstances so sudden and mysterious that Dante suggests that St. Thomas was murdered by Charles of Anjou.
St. Thomas Aquinas taught:
“He (Mohammed) seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh urges us. His teaching also contained precepts that were in conformity with his promises, and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure. In all this, as is not unexpected; he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proofs of the truth of his doctrine, he brought forward only such as could be grasped by the natural ability of anyone with a very modest wisdom. Indeed, the truths that he taught he mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity.
He did not bring forth any signs produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly gives witness to divine inspiration; for a visible action that can be only divine reveals an invisibly inspired teacher of truth. On the Contrary, Mohammed said that he was sent in the power of his arms – which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants. What is more, no wise men, men trained in things divine and human, believed in him from the beginning (1). Those who believed in him were brutal men and desert wanderers, utterly ignorant of all divine teaching, through whose numbers Mohammed forced others to become his follower’s by the violence of his arms. Nor do divine pronouncements on part of preceding prophets offer him any witness. On the contrary, he perverts almost all the testimony of the Old and the New Testaments by making them into a fabrication of his own, as can be seen by anyone who examines his law. It was, therefore, a shrewd decision on his part to forbid his followers to read the Old and New Testaments, lest these books convict him of falsity. It is thus clear that those who place faith in his words believe foolishly.” – Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 1, Chapter 16, Art. 4. Footnote: 1. Sura 21:5, Sura 44:14; Sura 16:103, Sura 37:36
Simply saying this did not change any noticeable number of Moslem hearts, and repeating it today will have the same negligible effect. Few Christians and Jews, whose co-religionists have been largely exterminated in many areas of the world, begin with seeing the areas where Moslems are right.
There is, in the formerly Catholic countries, a long-term upsurge in idolatry. Abortion, birth-control, and various pseudo-intellectual fads like Global Warming, Trans-fat, Obesity, Global Freezing, Salt & Sugar Excesses, Organic Foods, and dozens of other Imaginary Problems take their turns on the altars provided by the state and the media under it’s near-direct control. Sex, materialism, regulation and vicious taxation of neighbors are rampant in the West. The Moslems are against many of the sins that have afflicted their European neighbors.
They do not see that freedom has a God-given purpose: It exists to separate sheep from goats. The West has evolved a society that lets all who want to sin have endless opportunities to do so. No one is kept from most sins by any law or regulation that can keep them from the sin that attracts them. We approach God as we battle sin within ourselves, while the Moslems try to impose His will from without.
By denying all but the richest Moslems (whose immoral behaviors are legendary in the casinos, bars, and even less reputable places they are in the habit of frequenting in the West) the opportunity to sin, they must gravitate toward ever-stricter moral controls, a more powerful regulatory state, and more stifling.
Moslems attempt to control sin the way leftists want to control other sorts of behavior, top-down power exercised by a police state. Attacking freedom is attacking the God Who wants us to be free, and sure to draw His wrath, after the sinful have done what they want to themselves.
When the left sees that the Moslems want to destroy them and the sins they have chosen, the two groups will fight. For now, Moslems are able to bribe key leftists to allow them to take over the formerly Christian countries even as their armed gangs are beginning to attack, even kill, those participating in the sins they hate most. Soon, those bribes will have no effect, and the war will take more open form.
