by Raymond Ibrahim
Today, many Muslims, not just of the ISIS-variety, continue to boast that Islam will conquer Rome
"I appeal not to create walls but to build bridges" has long been Pope Francis's mantra.
Most recently, when asked
last Sunday "a question about migration in general and about U.S.
President Donald Trump's 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 earlier, Pope 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 [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!"
The
grand irony of all this is that Pope Francis lives in the only state to
be surrounded by walls—Vatican City—and most of these bastions were
erected to ward off centuries of Islamic invasions.
Most
notably, in 846, a Muslim fleet from North Africa consisting of 73
ships and 11,000 Muslims, landed in Ostia near Rome. Muslim merchants
who frequently visited Italy had provided them with precise intelligence
that made the raid a success. Although they were unable to breach the
preexisting walls of the Eternal City, they sacked and despoiled the
surrounding countryside, including—to the consternation of
Christendom—the venerated and centuries-old basilicas of St. Peter and
St. Paul. The Muslim invaders desecrated the tombs of the revered
apostles and stripped them of all their treasures.
Pope
Leo IV (847-855) responded by building many more walls, including
fifteen bastions along the right bank of the Tiber River, the mouth of
which was forthwith closed with a chain to protect the sacred sites from
further Muslim raids and desecrations. Completed by 852, the walls were
in places 40 feet high and 12 feet thick.
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.
Today, many Muslims, not just of the ISIS-variety, continue to boast that Islam will conquer
Rome, the only of five apostolic sees never to have been subjugated by
jihad (unlike Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Constantinople).
Similarly, Muslims all throughout Europe continue exhibiting the same
hostility and contempt for all things and persons non-Islamic, whether
by vandalizing churchesand breaking crosses, or by raping "infidel" women as theirs by right. As for Italy, click here, here, and/or here for an idea of how Muslim migrants behave.
And that is the point Pope Francis misses: walls should only go down and bridges should only be extended when both
parties are willing to live in amicable peace—as opposed to making the
destructive work of those who have been trying to subjugate Europe in
the name of Islam that much easier.
Source: https://www.meforum.org/58124/lesson-pope-francis-walls-muslims
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