19th-century illustration, “Charles Martel in the Battle of Poitiers,” after a painting by Plueddemann. Frank Charles Martel fights the Moors at the Battle of Tours, also known as the Battle of Poitiers, in A.D. 732, a significant victory in slowing the Moorish incursion into Gaul.
Charles Martel (c. 688 – 22 October 741) was a Frankish statesman and military leader who, as Duke and Prince of the Franks and Mayor of the Palace, was de facto ruler of Francia from 718 until his death.[3][4][5][6]
The son of the Frankish statesman Pepin of Herstal and a noblewoman named Alpaida, Charles successfully asserted his claims to power as successor to his father as the power behind the throne in Frankish politics. Continuing and building on his father’s work, he restored centralized government in Francia and began the series of military campaigns that re-established the Franks as the undisputed masters of all Gaul.
After work to establish a unity in Gaul, Charles’ attention was called to foreign conflicts, and dealing with the Islamic advance into Western Europe was a foremost concern. Arab and Berber Islamic forces had conquered Spain (711), crossed the Pyrenees (720), seized a major dependency of the Visigoths (721–725),[7] and after intermittent challenges, under Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, the Arab Governor of al-Andalus, advanced toward Gaul and on Tours, “the holy town of Gaul”; in October 732, the army of the Umayyad Caliphate led by Al Ghafiqi met Frankish and Burgundian forces under Charles in an area between the cities of Tours and Poitiers (modern north-central France[8]), leading to a decisive, historically important Frankish victory known as the Battle of Tours (or ma’arakat Balâṭ ash-Shuhadâ, Battle of the Palace of Martyrs), ending the “last of the great Arab invasions of France,” a military victory termed “brilliant” on the part of Charles.[9][10][11][12][13]
Charles further took the offensive after Tours, destroying fortresses at Agde, Béziers and Maguelonne, and engaging Islamic forces at Nimes, though ultimately failing to recover Narbonne (737) or to fully reclaim the Visigoth’s Narbonensis.[9] He thereafter made significant further external gains against fellow Christian realms, establishing Frankish control over Bavaria, Alemannia, and Frisia, and compelling some of the Saxon tribes to offer tribute (738).[9]
Apart from the military endeavours, Charles is considered to be a founding figure of the European Middle Ages.[14] Skilled as an administrator as well as a warrior, he is credited with a seminal role in the emerging responsibilities of the knights of courts, and so in the development of the Frankish system of feudalism.[15] Moreover, Charles—a great patron of Saint Boniface—made the first attempt at reconciliation between the Franks and the Papacy.[citation needed] Pope Gregory III, whose realm was being menaced by the Lombards, wished Charles to become the defender of the Holy See and offered him the Roman consulship, though Charles declined.[9][16][17][18]
Although Charles never assumed the title of king, he divided Francia, like a king, between his sons Carloman and Pepin. The latter became the first of the Carolingians, the family of Charles Martel, to become king. Charles’ grandson, Charlemagne, extended the Frankish realms to include much of the West, and became the first Emperor in the West since the fall of Rome. Therefore, on the basis of his achievements, Charles is seen as laying the groundwork for the Carolingian Empire.[5] In summing up the man, Gibbon wrote that Charles was “the hero of the age,” whereas Guerard describes him as being the “champion of the Cross against the Crescent.”[19][20]
– WIKIPEDIA
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Everyday Life in France, AD 201
Robert de Saint Jacques
THE CATHOLIC THING
Saturday, July 30, 2016
Editor’s Note: I have known Robert de Saint Jacques for over thirty-five years, and know him to be a temperate and truthful man, which is why I asked him to write about what daily life in France is like these days. It was one of my better ideas. – Robert Royal
A year-and-a-half ago, along with a million other people, I spent a cold January afternoon marching in the streets of Paris to show indignation and determination that terrorism would not prevail. That was after the first Islamic attack in Paris, against the staff of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and customers taken hostage in a kosher grocery – sixteen dead in all. For the record I was not “Charlie” as the slogan of the day went, referring to that despicable obscene rag, but simply convinced – as a citizen – that coldblooded killing, even of obnoxious people working at their desks or others buying groceries for their families, was intolerable.
The mood that day was universally shared: we don’t want any part of this violence, we are strong, life will go on. Clear determination appeared on every face, solidarity was a buzzword, “we are not afraid” the prevailing message.
Ten months later came the November attack, teams of Islamic fanatics slaughtering friends having drinks or dinner at sidewalk cafes on an unseasonably mild Friday evening, and fans inside a theater for a rock concert. The public mood this time was numb shock and wide-eyed horror at the sheer numbers of dead (130) and wounded (351). Determination still dominated, but a (not always) silent questioning began. What is really being done since, obviously, it’s not effective?
And then Nice: a 20-ton truck transformed by an Islamic madman into a weapon against a tightly-massed crowd of families out for a summer evening to watch fireworks on the most fundamental French national holiday (84 dead, 286 injured). This time, the mood changed noticeably. Impatience and anger replaced resignation and the usual calls for “national unity.”
People now carried signs that, instead of proclaiming “solidarity together” said “we are fed up.” The new question: “How many more times must we go through this ritual?” When the Prime Minister and several of his other ministers appeared in Nice a few days later, they were greeted with jeers and cries of “murderers” and “resign.” Police, firemen and other security agents present were, by contrast, roundly cheered.
And now, less than two weeks later, a Catholic priest vested at the altar, surrounded by his faithful as he celebrates morning Mass, has his throat slit, accompanied by too familiar jihadist cries. This unspeakably blasphemous act took place not in a well-guarded city, but in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, a small quiet Normandy town.
Mourners in Paris at a makeshift memorial for Father Hamel
Mourners in Paris at an improvised memorial for Father Hamel
The horror has now been taken to a dizzying new level. For Catholics, but not only for them, the circumstances are repellent but also instructive – and prophetic. A revered priest, Père Jacques Hamel, has his own blood literally mingled with the Precious Blood he consecrated on the altar.
The first attacker could be easily identified. He was well known to authorities – police recognized his face – for extremist acts and convicted twice after two unsuccessful attempts to rejoin ISIS in Syria. But he’d been released on probation.
Archbishop Dominique Lebrun of Rouen made a brief statement on television from World Youth Day. His measured calm helped fill the emotional void we were experiencing after the initial shock: “The Catholic Church can take up no other weapons than prayer and brotherhood among men. I am leaving here hundreds of young people who are the future of humanity, true humanity. I ask them not to give up in the face of violence and to become apostles of the civilization of love.” He then left Krakow to return to Rouen.
There had already been an attack planned on a Catholic church in April 2015. It failed only because of the incompetence of the would-be assailant, who shot himself in the leg en route. I’ve thought of the possibility, indeed the likelihood, of a Catholic church as a target for Islamic terrorists. Sometimes when I assist at the noon mass in my unassuming parish church in a tranquil residential neighborhood in Paris, our vulnerability crosses my mind. The church doors are wide open, the altar is visible from the street, mass is at the same hour every day. We too have an elderly pastor, and a congregation during the week of about twenty or thirty. But I try to pray, assuring myself that, if I should die here and now, it’s not the worst way to go.
Now that a church attack has taken place – not in some distant Middle Eastern land but in the heart of France – with Islamic jihadists claiming revenge on an infidel “crusader” during a Eucharistic celebration, ancient buried memories begin to stir. France proudly declares itself officially “laique,” secular, with no preference for any religion, indeed a constitutional indifference to all. In truth, this often is code language for official atheism, and at its worst anti-religion.
But the slaughter of a priest, a man of God, while he is accomplishing the sublime act of his sacerdotal mission, has provoked an involuntary reaction. Deep-rooted sensitivities, perhaps long forgotten, perhaps willfully repressed, have, consciously or unconsciously, sprung to the forefront. Even Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray’s Communist mayor wept for the murdered priest. Barely able to pronounce his words, as he fought back his tears, he barely managed to gurgle out, one painful word at a time. “It is imperative that the unbearable not happen again. Let us stand together to be the last ones to have to grieve and together as the last ones standing firm against barbarity, with respect for all.”
You may also like: Where Does One Start? by David Warren
Father Jacques Hamel
Father Jacques Hamel, martyr
The ancient Catholic roots of this eldest daughter of Holy Mother Church are mostly desiccated. France will not be miraculously reconverted overnight, but recognition of the country’s long-repressed historical roots in Christianity could turn out to be a pivotal moment. The blood of martyrs penetrates deeply, reawakening a need, a desire, a hope long buried but not totally extinguished. Could it be this drop that indeed makes the cup begin to run over?
The day after the abominable attack, I attended the memorial Mass at Notre Dame. Security was draconian, starting more than two blocks away. All streets were blocked to vehicle traffic and pedestrians were carefully screened, a total of three times, before finally being allowed to enter. The cathedral was packed, and the front rows were reserved for members of government, ambassadors, and assorted dignitaries. Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, crosier in hand, was waiting at the great central portal whose double doors are only opened on exceptional occasions.
At precisely 6:10, the Catholic cardinal welcomed the secular president into his cathedral and personally escorted him the length of the great nave to his seat of honor in the front row. The cardinal then returned to the sacristy to join the grand solemn procession with numerous concelebrants. In his imperturbable manner, he preached a quietly courageous and thoughtful sermon (not lacking political overtones), based on hope as a weapon against hate and the ultimate confidence in the love of a God of life and not death. Unusually, he was warmly applauded when he concluded.
Archbishop Lebrun, during the Eucharistic prayer, asked God’s peace for his martyred priest, and added, his throat constricted but his voice firm, “I dare also to pray for his assailants; Lord, bring them too into your peace.”
Overall, an hour-and-a-half of the moving beauty and solemn majesty of a grand Catholic liturgy. Within that magnificent 850-year-old sacred edifice, I couldn’t help but think of the millions of people who have come there to worship this same God, in as bad or even more troubled times.
Since January 2015, we have become accustomed to armed soldiers patrolling the streets, the metro, train stations, the large square in front of Notre Dame. We now automatically, even gratefully, open bags and coats for inspection at the entrance to big stores and shopping centers, to museums, to theaters. We instinctively know such measures are intended to be reassuring – even if they’re not strategically effective.
It’s not well known abroad that there have been numerous equally blood-chilling Islamic horrors in this country (since 2012, 10 attacks, 5 known foiled attempts). They’ve often been less mediatized because of fewer victims or because the perpetrators failed (e.g., a factory owner decapitated by an employee, the foiled shooting on the high speed Amsterdam-Paris train). After each attack, the familiar rituals are set in motion. Tears flow, flowers and candles pile up, a moment of silence is observed, flags are set at half-mast, official declarations come from all sides.
France’s new normal: security officers in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray after the murder of Father Hamel
France’s new normal: security officers in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray after the murder of Father Hamel
Although terrorist acts are by nature unpredictable – and so, up to a certain extent, unpreventable – common sense, and a growing slice of public opinion, recognizes that merely repeating “everything possible has been done” is not enough. Laying flowers and lighting candles while singing the Marseilleise no longer suffice (and never did), neither to reassure uneasy citizens, nor to counter unbridled hatred growing like a cancer in this society. Increasingly the public is calling for firm and determined action.
But also after every incident (the most recent ones being no exception) we are regularly instructed (actually lectured to) by civic authorities not to lump together a few misguided miscreants with the rest of the Muslim population. “This crime (or attack or atrocity) has nothing to do with Islam,” is the solemn refrain.
However, it’s not the role of the (constitutionally secular) president or his prime minister or any other civil authority to pontificate on what is or is not an integral part of Islam. Islamic leaders have the authority to designate criminal acts as incompatible with their faith, and also have the obligation to police its adherents, filtering out deviant doctrine, closing openly Salafist mosques notoriously financed from abroad, where non-French Imams preach jihad and hatred of European infidels.
I am neither hopeful nor optimistic that there can be a rapid and antiseptic solution to this widespread gangrene. Nor I am alone in my pessimism. We think of it all the time, we are surrounded and immersed in it, we are reminded of it everywhere. People are watchful, vigilant in public. A fellow with a large backpack and a nervous manner gets on the subway, and everyone has an eye on him.
But sidewalk cafes once again have customers enjoying a drink and a chat. Parisians still go to movies, sporting events, concerts – the controls are ratcheted up a notch with each new event. A determined resignation has taken charge. Tourism, a prime element in the national economy, has nosedived since the November attacks. The events of the past two weeks could be fatal to that sector, at least for this year’s vacation cycle.
And we know all too well these are not the last. What form will the next one take, for jihadist imagination seems boundless in sowing death and terror? We watch horrified (but also mesmerized) as madness explodes not just in Paris or in Nice, but in Brussels and Istanbul, German cities and elsewhere. It erupts not just in large metropolises but in quietly peaceful little towns. Two months ago two police officers, a married couple, had their throats slit by Islamic jihadists, at home in front of their three-year-old son, in a tranquil suburb forty miles from the capital.
You just keep hoping that when the next one does happen, you can manage, by the luck of things, not to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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© 2016 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved.
About the Author: Robert de Saint Jacques
Robert de Saint Jacques left his native Kentucky some forty years ago to accompany his newly-wedded Parisienne bride to France. He has lived and worked there since then and presently is retired with his wife in Paris.
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COMMENTS:
Bobo Fett • 2 hours ago
Vive Saint Jacques! One of the most poignant articles I’ve seen on here, maybe ever. A window into the future and extremely sobering hopefully for some who have learned nothing from this dawn of evil. (or have listened to the politicians and have thus unlearned what they once knew). Vive Saint Jacques! Vive la France!
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Evangeline1031 • 3 hours ago
This article demonstrates the lesson is still not learned. It is still full of reticence to say what is slowly dawning as the difficult truth, Islam ITSELF, is incompatible with Western culture. Despite all the hopeful rhetoric from church and secular leaders, we are no longer going to be able to pretend things are what they are not, and until secular AND church leaders understand this and begin the challenging task of speaking out courageously, we are going to see the same scenario played over and over and over, with only the actors changing.
ISLAM IS THE PROBLEM.
History has proven Islam is about conquest, violence, murder, and barbarism. It has always been so, and the church and secular leaders are playing a big game of Let’s Pretend. It will fail. Islam has also turned a corner, and become a movement of “small” attacks. France has nothing but living in fear to look forward to as long as they continue to pretend there is no God, all cultures are equal, and secular political correctness will win the day. Your people will be picked off by savagery, as well as others in other countries who fail to learn this lesson. God help us, people are more obsessed with political correctness than reality.
I have no doubt France and every other nation will have to face the truth about Islam and start taking measures. Those measures will be common sense ones to those who comprehend the real threat, but will seem drastic to the foot draggers who want at all costs not to take this on. But the longer it takes the more innocent lives will be lost.
God help the church and the state to wake up soon. It is already late.
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Stephen Adams Evangeline1031 • 2 hours ago
Eloquent
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Dennis_Moore • 3 hours ago
I agree a sober analysis, and it is unclear that the self-hate of the contemporary Catholic continues (the “I was raised Catholic” and “ex-Catholic” population) thus resulting in an inability to stand up to radical Islam or any other dysfunctional movement continues to tragic results, or a re-conversion saves France.
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Fr. Peter Morello, Ph.D. • 3 hours ago
France the eldest daughter of the Church has become as author Saint Jacques says secularized. Catholicism helped make France a great nation. As much as I love the French and their culture they are suffering their secularist fate and liberal views of permitting a totally alien, hostile religion to its shores. In droves. This I believe is a divine clarion call for a return to the faith and the beginning of reclaiming France for Church and God. The slaughter of Fr Hamel at the altar of God is the sacrifice being offered like Christ to the Father for France and the world.
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colombo Fr. Peter Morello, Ph.D. • 28 minutes ago
The Church in France will come alive again for Christ through the blood of her martyrs. Frenchmen in the mold of Mauritain, Claudel and many others will spring up to bring the French back to Christ and the Catholic Church. VIVE LA FRANCE
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JourneyForTruth • 4 hours ago
Archbishop Dominique Lebrun of Rouen made a brief statement
“The Catholic Church can take up no other weapons than prayer and brotherhood among men…”
I sister at the church said Father was trying to defend himself and that started the tragedy. Would the church allow concealed weapons in the church someday? Armed guards outside the church? (although they would not get in quickly) Could a priest carry mace?
Soft targets are what the cowardly Islam terrorist look for.
From BCC News:
” A nun, who identified herself as Sister Danielle, said she was in the church at the time.
“They forced [Fr Hamel] to his knees. He wanted to defend himself, and that’s when the tragedy happened,” she told French media.”
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Bobo Fett JourneyForTruth • 2 hours ago
I hate it when people like this sweet nun use the word “happened.” The tragedy didn’t just “happen.” It was caused by blood thirsty evil dirtbags. The tragedy “happened” because a suicidal policy and no discretion allowed a known perp to walk the streets. The tragedy “happened” because no one in France is allowed to carry a weapon and couldn’t or didn’t fight back.
I’m glad the priest defended himself. Good for him. It was worth it to defend the honor of God.
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Michael DeLorme • 4 hours ago
A very sobering analysis.
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winslow • 4 hours ago
There are many faithful Catholics in France. They need to come out of the shadows and demand their faith, if not restored (it may be too late for that), at the very least be given the room to teach and preach the Faith to the society at large.
French politicians are to blame for the horrors they have foisted on their people by their blind secular mindset, their welcoming of murderous infidels into their country and their rejection of Christianity, which has set their young people on the road to hell and their society to a life of fear and tension. They’ve been doing it since the comically misnamed ‘enlightenment,’ a satanic movement which has destroyed their country and ours as well.
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S E Delenda • 5 hours ago
When the French official told the French people that terrorism was the new normal, my initial reaction was that this this pronouncement was the declaration of an effete and feckless bureaucrat managing expectations, but upon further reflection, one wonders whether such incidents serve the ambition of the proponents of the metastatic superstate. Violence allows them to decry all religion and increase the surveillance and power of the constabulary.
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Charles Adams • 5 hours ago
This the first article demonizing “Charlie” thank you. After the horrific Charlie incident the murderers came martyrs and Charlie made more money ironic. Do not blame any government blame ourselves. We put these people in power in the suppose free EU and US
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JourneyForTruth Charles Adams • 5 hours ago
A recent headline: “Charlie Hebdo Throws in the Towel, Not Publishing Muhammad Cartoons ”
For the editor of Charlie Hebdo to dishonor the deaths of his former employees is itself tragic. They were murdered not by Hindus or Buddhists, or Catholics or Protestants. Whatever faults such religious groups presently embody, calling for the death of those who insult their leaders, is not one of them. When it comes to terrorism, not all religions are the same. That the editor of Charlie Hebdo doesn’t get the difference shows why his cartoonists had to die. They died because left wing intellectuals like this editor can’t perceive that the danger of insulting Muhammad is qualitatively different than insulting Buddha, Krishna and Jesus. His journalists didn’t die because of some abstract religious violence; they died because particular terrorists, motivated by a particular religion showed that their religion, Islam, is intolerant of criticism, barbaric in its penalties and presently incompatible with a society that treasures ordered liberty. The editor of Charle Hebdo by saying he will no longer mock Muhammad’s brutal career essentially gives the terrorists a victory. ”
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Alicia123 JourneyForTruth • 3 hours ago
This applys to other newspapers. The New York Times said that out of respect for religions they would not publish the cartoons mocking Islam.
Respect ? No , cowards
After that, they had no problem putting on their front page the portrait of Pope Bebedict XVI done with 17,000 condoms.
I guess they only respect Islam and worry about staying alive.
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S E Delenda Alicia123 • 2 hours ago
They can call it respect all they want, but the motivating emotion is fear.
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Stephen Adams JourneyForTruth • 3 hours ago
I hope Charlie hebdo et al do not think they are now safe. Oh no. They are less safe than they ever were. Has anyone here ever tried to compromise with Satan and come out ahead? If not, go ahead and try it and see where it gets you.
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Jerry Bresser JourneyForTruth • 3 hours ago
Journey, your comment hits the nail on the head: “His journalists didn’t die because of some abstract religious violence; they died because particular terrorists, motivated by a particular religion showed that their religion, Islam, is intolerant of criticism, barbaric in its penalties and presently incompatible with a society that treasures ordered liberty.” Fact is everyone murdered by a Jihadist died because ‘particular terrorists, motivated by a particular religion showed that their religion, Islam, is intolerant of criticism, barbaric in its penalties and presently incompatible with a society that treasures ordered liberty’. When anyone, including Obama. says Islam is a religion of peace, we need to quote your comment in rebuttal.
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S E Delenda Charles Adams • 5 hours ago
Increasingly, we do not put “these people”in power. The great growth in government comes from the judiciary arrogating the power to make new law by vacating those enacted by the legislature (See Lawrence v Texas, et al) and the alienation of legislative power (see Obamacare) to a myriad of specialized bureaucracies whose complicated rules are guided by internal soliloquys, rather than any any reasonable contact with the people and industries that they rule over, rather than govern.
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JourneyForTruth Charles Adams • 5 hours ago
Sounds like you support Clinton’s movie as causal for Benghazi. Movies and cartoons do not cause violence. If that were the case it will become any word that could be skewed as hurtful, uncaring, damaging to ones ego. Words like stupid, moron, worm-head etc….
In America we were built on Freedom of speech, why we even allow the burning of the American flag at our conventions.
Charlie incident was not horrific but the attackers were the one horrific, we need to teach our millennials that fact!
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Benedict Augustine • 5 hours ago
Saint Jacques’s points about secularism essentially translating into atheism or anti-religion get at the heart of the crisis in Europe. Culturally speaking, so many Europeans, particularly the young, lack the capacity to even confront the problem of radical Islam, so no amount of mourning or “resolve” (whatever that means) will change the situation.
It seems clear that the only true way forward would be to assimilate Muslims into the Western culture. As it stands, the great majority of them reside in closed-off ghettos in the suburbs of the large cities where they attend mosques that fuel their collective lust for jihad. Couple this with the fact that many young Muslims hardly bother with finding a job and often live on welfare, allowing the devil to create work for their idle hands. in this way, France and many other European countries have fostered whole communities of angry heretics who make it their business to nurse a fanatical resentment against the West and its institutions, and they plan to eventually take it all over through higher birthrates and regular terrorist attacks.
It’s important to note that assimilating a people ultimately means converting them to a better way of life and a truer way of thinking, something immigrants usually desire. However, because France and other European countries have renounced their religious heritage and espouse the emptiness of secularism, they lack the means of converting Muslims who would have to face threats of death and complete ostracism for leaving their faith anyway. Prohibiting the burka and officially ignoring Sharia is as far as the French can go, which is a far cry from the necessary work of pulling these people out of their backwardness and error.
Where there is faith, there is hope. We can only pray that the tensions and strife caused by Muslim communities in Europe will help Europeans see the futility of their politics and philosophies and return to the faith of their fathers. Despite the doleful pessimism of Saint Jacques, Catholics are armed with a secret weapon, the truth, which is the only thing that can enable people to finally identify the problem clearly and treat it at its root.
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Stephen Adams Benedict Augustine • 2 hours ago
If truth is the only weapon, it’s usefulness is nil if the trigger is never pulled.
It’s the problem with our moribund Catholic church: we possess the fullness of the truth yet our weapon remains in the gun cabinet for everyone to admire but few get to see it in action.
It’s the same as the archbishop’s homily proposing that our only weapon against hate is hope. If that’s the case, call off all the armed guards.
The Holy Father speaks in the same vein but armed police guard the Vatican.
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James Benedict Augustine • 2 hours ago
Yours is a very thoughtful comment and you offer valid points, but they are for a moment in history which now does not exist. You say rightly that “It seems clear that the only true way forward would be to assimilate Muslims into the Western culture.” Honestly, holding Islam in not repute all, do I really want to rob them of their notion of the deity to replace it with secular hedonistic materialism? Rabid mendacious atheism? No, actually I don’t.
It is one thing to rob a human being of their life, it is quite another to slay their spirit – and that is what we would be doing at this point in history to “assimilate” them. I think the most productive and humane act at this time is to expel them to their own cultural hegemony and let them work this out within their own ideological constructs and geographic habitat (all be it vastly “conquered territory”). Moslems alone can bring this catastrophe the corrective.
Western “culture” in its current aberrance need take up the same task I ask of Moslems – and it will be no less difficult. At the heart of this examination is the clergy class, among whom the most visible and vocal are in a liplock with the zeitgeist. That embrace abandoned, perhaps they will have time to address the sheep faithful and tend to them in their legitimate needs for which the clergy are responsible.
That accomplished, we can once again preach the Gospel to a world up to its neck in its own waste.
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winslow Benedict Augustine • 5 hours ago
Your notion of assimilating Muslims into a foreign (for them) culture is laudable, but unrealistic. Muslims are not interested in assimilation. In every western society where we find them, they are invaders whose objective is to conquer that society and impose sharia law on it. Do not be fooled. They are our enemy and no amount of left-wing, bleeding heart pieties will change that fact.
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Jerry Bresser winslow • 3 hours ago
Which is why we MUST make the entire USA a Sharia Free Zone. And don’t tell me it can’t be done. Sharia espouses the overthrow of our form of Government and our Constitution. Congress could pass the necessary legislation in a heartbeat if they had to coconuts.
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S E Delenda Benedict Augustine • 5 hours ago
I think we need to understand that most atheism is merely a veil over the ugly face of state idolatry and misotheism.
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JourneyForTruth • 5 hours ago
Trump would not agree with this….it is the role of the government to know who is a terrorist not the Imams! Mosques need to open up for inspections and broadcast their sermons. Black masks and darkness hides terror.
“it’s not the role of the (constitutionally secular) president or his prime minister or any other civil authority to pontificate on what is or is not an integral part of Islam. Islamic leaders have the authority to designate criminal acts as incompatible with their faith, and also have the obligation to police its adherents, filtering out deviant doctrine, closing openly Salafist mosques notoriously financed from abroad, where non-French Imams preach jihad and hatred of European infidels.”
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Truthtold JourneyForTruth • 5 hours ago
The public cannot be left unarmed and defenseless. They need to be armed and ready to respond. There is a lot of talk, talk, talk. What is needed is action, action, action.
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Alicia123 • 6 hours ago
FBI Director,James Comey, said that hundreds of terrorists will infiltrate Europe and the US, that the global terror campaign will intensify, and that there will be attacks of a greater magnitude on a wider scale.
He also said that it will be more and more difficult for law enforcement to prevent these attacks, one of the reasons being the restrictions on monitoring suspects on social media on internet. etc., etc., etc.
These were the conclusions reached after a study of the war on ISIS, the MO of Islamic terrorists, and the situation and events in Europe.
This is very scary, but I don’t think it really comes as a surprise to anybody, except to those living in a cloud with their open borders and all-embracing, welcoming , naive policies.
I’m getting tired of accusing Muslims going on TV and complaining about being our victims, and lecturing me on how to think and behave.
I can’t stop thinking of my children and grandchildren’s future.
Let’s all pray that God helps and guides us.
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Fr. Peter Morello, Ph.D. • 6 hours ago
For years I’ve been preaching that young men need to see an heroic challenge in becoming a priest. Attacks against Catholics and particularly clergy are increasing. Nigerian priests have been decapitated by Muslims on return from their missions in Am and Europe. It’s difficult to fathom why God permits this evil. It may be that in His own incomprehensible way He is providing young men with that needed challenge of becoming priests. In a day when error, doubt, apathy abound, terror is at the doorstep, the real chance of heroically shedding their blood, like Jesus, for the salvation of many.
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Bobo Fett Fr. Peter Morello, Ph.D. • 4 hours ago
Imagination and power is everything with young men. The image of the priest needs to change if young men are ever going to be interested in the priesthood in any meaningful measure. If I may make my point—the image needs to change from what young men see in the priest: the abortion and sodomy excusing, progressive-agenda driving, anti-American/anti-Western limp-wristed wimp. The priest instead needs to become the Man with Powers. The superpower to bind and loose and bring the sinner back to the fullness of God’s grace. The superpower to minister to the sick and dying. The power to be a real and present threat to evil. We need priests who are simply heroic in the face of evil. Who have discretion, can call a spade a spade, can handle themselves in a fight, and can protect their flock. The scattered will flock when the shepherds return.
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S E Delenda Bobo Fett • 2 hours ago
If the Priesthood, but especially the episcopacy was emptied of the liberal social workers who are so fond of vainglorious letters filled with vacant sentiments written by committees and instead were filled with irrefutably masculine men who understand that they are called to be medics on a battlefield, I think that the seminaries would be filled with young men tired of being ignored and discarded by the contemporary culture.
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Joyfully • 6 hours ago
First and foremost, the French people are in my prayers; I hope you all continue to grow closer to Christ through your faith, hope and love.
The Eldest Daughter of the Church is not an elected or appointed title, it is because she is; just as every family has an eldest who had no say in their birth order. This title signifies a truth about Catholicism that should not be underappreciated but is often misunderstood by everyone who is not Catholic: the Church is Family. It is structured like a family. Everyone who comes to this page knows this; God the Father, Holy Mother Church, and Our Brother and Sisters in the Faith. We cannot take this lightly.
What are some of the inclinations of an eldest daughter in any family? As a family ages how does it support one another as they grow into adulthood/self-sufficiency? How does it handle conflict? How can a family welcome a sibling that has become somewhat estranged? In what way can siblings persuade the rebellious sibling who disobeyed Mom and broke Dad’s heart that they are still loved?
I come from a huge family. My eldest sister put distance between herself and my parents decades ago. So very many people I know have similar situations with their eldest sisters. There has to be something in that birth order that makes them especially susceptible to breaking away but also, because God designed this family relationship, there must exist a “means and way” of welcoming that member back.
Methinks it may include humility on parties part and forgiveness on the others.
Big sister come Home! We miss you and we are incomplete without you. We might even let you sit in the front seat…
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Kaye Nesbyth • 4 hours ago
Because AD stands for Anno Domini – in the year of the Lord – the one Muslims relegate to the status of a third-rate prophet, not the divine Savior.Recall that a pair of Muslims matriculating from an American university (I forget which one) objected to the date on their diplomas being expressed as AD.
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mtcbones • 6 hours ago
as eldest daughter of the Church perhaps Our Good Heavenly Father has chosen her to be an example to the rest of us.
she has been so privileged with many miracles and apparitions and saints and still she rejects her Father.
She was asked to put the Sacred Heart on her flag and cravenly refused. Mass attendance has been very poor and immodesty your name is france.
these may be some of the reasons france has been so severely targeted but none of us can feel “it can’t happen here” .
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samton909 • 6 hours ago
People do not realize that Islam has always made war on a stronger, superior enemy by “raiding”. Lots of small, quick attacks, not designed to immediately topple and take over, but to annoy, confuse, dishearten and threaten. This has worked in the past for them. They make these many small attacks. The people demand that the government provide for security. It can’t do it, because no one can protect every place all at once. The government falls, a new one replaces it. That government is also unable to stop the flow of raids/terrorist attacks and it falls. People become disillusioned by their government, revenues start falling, good people move where there is no violence, Societal stability is destroyed. Only when the country has been weakened internally did Muslims send in their armies.
So we must realize, this is the way Islam makes war. We are in a war, a real war, and they have the initiative.
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Michael DeLorme samton909 • 4 hours ago
Shortly after 9-11, it was rumored that George W made it known to Arab leaders, through back channels, that if an attack like that ever occurred again, Mecca and Medina would be bombed to smithereens and that the Dome of the Rock would be incinerated as well.
Obama-like empty threat? More likely just a rumor after all. But, as a last resort, such a response would certainly disorient, throw into disarray and possibly bring that religion to an end.
Once Hirohito surrendered, the kamikaze pilots stopped their suicide runs
SOMETHING decisive needs to be done about ‘radical’ Islam.
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Nesbyth samton909 • 6 hours ago
This is most interesting and ties in with how Islam seems to have worked since the days of Mohammed. And recently in the Sudan and in Nigeria – particularly with Boko Haram tactics. As you say it is now doing it in Europe as it has done in Middle East with Al Quaeda and now ISIS so-called.
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grump • 6 hours ago
Instead of strict gun control, France should have adopted strict Muslim control.
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Truthtold grump • 5 hours ago
Now that the Muslims are in there are two clear choices: either get them out, or arm the public to deal with their terrorists. The third alternative is to sit and passively wait for the next massacre.
ABYSSUS ABYSSUM INVOCAT / DEEP CALLS TO DEEP 
The request must be made from Rome.