The Crisis of the Refugee Crisis

 

 

IT is a refugee crisis unseen in magnitude since World War II. It comes at a time when many Western nations have been or are in the midst of elections. That is to say, there is nothing like political rhetoric to cloud the real issues surrounding this crisis. That sounds cynical, but it is a sad reality, and a dangerous one at that. For this is no ordinary migration…

 

COMPASSION VS. DISCRETION  

The first plane of refugees from Syria landed in Toronto, Canada this week (Decembe5, 2015). Admittedly, as a Canadian, I am troubled. I am deeply concerned for both the Muslims and Christians who are having to flee the terror of ISIS and other Islamic thugs. At the same time, I am concerned for my country, which is among many in the crosshairs of an Islamic Jihad (“holy war” declared against “infidels”) being effectively waged in the Middle East. Christianity there, after 2000 years, risks being wiped out entirely within a decade.^[1]Daily Mail, Nov. 10th, 2015; cf. New York Times, July 22nd, 2015 In Iraq alone, the number of Christians has fallen from one million to less than 275,000 in just 12 years.^[2]Aid to the Church in Need, Catholic charity; Daily Mail, Nov. 10th, 2015 

And now that Jihad appears to be spreading here. An ISIS operative has allegedly admitted that they have been smuggling Jihadists into the West as “refugees.” ^[3]cf. Express, Nov. 18th, 2015 Police in Europe have already caught ISIS attempting to recruit refugees. ^[4]cf. Mirror, Oct. 24th, 2105 In Germany, 580 migrants suddenly “disappeared” without a trace. ^[5]Munchen.tv, Oct. 27th, 2015 In Sweden, people are waking up to notes passed through their doors with threats to ‘unbelievers’ that they will be decapitated in their own homes.'^[6]Express, Dec. 15th, 2015 In Norway, authorities have discovered ‘ISIS flags and severed heads on the cellphones of hundreds of asylum seekers.’ ^[7]Netavissen, Dec. 13th, 2015; cf. infowars.com And ‘In the past year (2016), 31 suspected ISIS terrorists have been arrested by American law enforcement, and three attacks have taken the lives of 63 people and wounded an additional 81 civilians.’ ^[8]Daily Caller, August 6th, 2016 Pope Francis who, while calling the Church to open our hearts to genuine refugees, also warned that this crisis may be exploited:

The truth is that just [250 miles] from Sicily there is an incredibly cruel terrorist group. So there is a danger of infiltration, this is true… Yes, nobody said Rome would be immune to this threat. But you can take precautions. —interview with Radio Renascenca, Sept. 14th, 2015; New York Post

Hence, a certain politician said we need to slow the migration process down. And no, I’m not talking about American presidential candidate Donald Trump, but the Premier of Saskatchewan, Canada, Brad Wall. In a letter to Prime Minster, Justin Trudeau, he said:

I am asking you to suspend your current plan to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by the end of the year and to re-evaluate this goal and the processes in place to achieve it… Surely we do not want to be date-driven or numbers-driven in an endeavour that may affect the safety of our citizens and the security of our country. —Huffington Post, November 16th, 2015

I have no opinion on the virtues of any of the American political candidates, including Trump, but comments calling for a measured implementation of refugees carry a certain prudence, particularly on the heels of the Paris and California Islamic terrorist shootings. That is, the Jihad is not coming—it’s already here.

Of course, it must be repeated that many Muslims desire to live in peace, and are doing so. Growing up, my closest friends were almost always of a different race: Chinese, Native-Indian, Filipino and East Indian. When I worked in radio, I was good friends with a Sikh, Pakistani, and Muslim. This is all to say that there isn’t a bone of “hate”, “intolerance”, or “racism” in my DNA. So when I say that it is not only imprudent but dangerous and irresponsible to rush any kind of immigration process, I have in mind present Muslim residents as well. For the more terror attacks that take place, the more peace-loving Muslims are going to suffer suspicion and, sadly, the hatred of true racists. 

 

INTEGRATION

Furthermore, there is also the question of acclimation. There has been virtually no discussion of how Muslim immigrants are going to be integrated into the West—or if they want to be. As Parisians and Londoners already know, devout Muslims tend to stick to their own communities. It is a fact that there are “no-go” zones in these cities where even local police and fire departments are prevented from entering. They are essentially Muslim cities within a city. ^[9]Express, Dec. 12th, 2015 As I wrote in Our Lady of the Cab Ride, I spoke with a British couple who confirmed this first hand. Sharia Law is the rule, which as we know, often carries brutal punishments and restricts the freedom of women. I was privileged to help a priest from Nigeria escape from his town where Muslims burned down his church and rectory, killing some of his parishioners, as they enforced Sharia Law on everyone.^[10]cf. The Nigerian Gift

These men were ultimately following the passages in the Quran and Hadith (sayings of Muhammad) that give permission to tax, plunder, rape, and kill “infidels.” What few Westerners realize, however, is anoth er Islamic teaching called Hijrah.^[11]see this recent example news story: infowars.com  As writer Y.K. Cherson points out in a scholarly article, Immigration was considered by Muhammad to be a fundamental means by which to spread Islam, particularly when force cannot be initially used. 

…the concept of Hijrah—Immigration—as a means of supplanting the native population and reaching the position of power became a well-developed doctrine in Islam… The main principle for a Muslim community in a non-Muslim country is that it must be separate and distinct. Already in the Charter of Medina, Muhammad outlined the basic rule for Muslims who emigrate to non-Muslim land, i.e., they must form a separate body, keeping their own laws and making the host country comply with them. — “The Goal of Muslim Immigration According to Muhammad’s Teachings”, Oct. 2nd, 2014; chersonandmolschky.com

Not every Muslim, of course, follows these more radical precepts, but evidently many do. So while Westerner’s race to slap the title “extremists” onto those who live by Sharia Law and Muhammad’s teachings, this adjective was considered offensive to Muslims attending a peace conference in Norway in 2013. This short video clip is not the hysteria of angry mobs we’re used to seeing on television, but is a cool, detached reality check:

Are we as North Americans prepared to allow Sharia Law to have a place in our cities and villages? Are we prepared for the sudden arrival of foreigners who at times disdain our culture? Have we figured out how to handle the demands of Islam that are often incompatible with Western standards? Do we have government agencies in place to translate, transition and aid refugees, already traumatized by having to leave their homes in a trail of war and bloodshed, with the mental and physical health issues that this will consequently bring? And of these refugees, how many of them are antagonists to the West, if not members of ISIS? And can we even screen them out? Those are questions that no one seems able to answer in the strange rush to bring tens of thousands into our countries in an uncharacteristic hurry. Furthermore, any Muslim who is against “radical” Islam would, I’m certain, agree with me since the very reason Muslims are fleeing Syria and elsewhere is because of the brutality of Boko Haram, ISIS, and other Islamic sects. It would be a sick irony for refugees to migrate to the West only to find ISIS waiting for them again. In Western leader’s haste to be saviours rather than good stewards, this is a grossly underestimated paradox. 

This does not mean that we should not open our doors, but perhaps, that we should open them carefully—as any single one of us always does when a stranger knocks at the door in the middle of the night.

 

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CRISIS: HYPOCRISY

The problem is that far too many politicians are governed by political correctness. Moral relativism is their code, and so, whatever appeals to the “feelings” of the electorate at the time, nowadays, becomes the rule of law. But feelings cannot rule the day—not when the blood of innocent Parisians, Californians, and Syrians is still wet upon the ground. Not when the blood of Canadians may soon join them. This is not hyperbole, but the promise of the Jihadists.

But in political correctness, someone else is usually sacrificed at the altar of hypocrisy. In Canada, at least, it is the Christians. I mean, I am shocked that no one has noticed the irony of what is taking place. While Canadian politicians slammed Donald Trump for calling for a temporary ban on Muslim immigrants as being religious discrimination, the Prime Minister of Canada, at the same time, is banning every practicing Catholic from his ruling party. ^[12]cf. “In Justin Trudeau’s World, Christians Need Not Apply, National Post, June 21, 2014 As leader of the Liberals, he has refused to allow anyone holding a pro-life view from holding a position in the party. The irony is that, when asked about Trump’s call for a ban, Trudeau responded saying that Canadians simply aren’t into “the politics of fear and division”. ^[13]cf. CBC.ca, Dec. 8th, 2015 And yet, Trudeau has essentially waged a little jihad of his own against Christians and freedom of religion, but also anyone willing to confront the moral horror that abortion is. I can’t help but recall the words of radical feminist Camille Paglia who said,

I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful. Liberals for the most part have shrunk from facing the ethical consequences of their embrace of abortion, which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue. The state in my view has no authority whatever to intervene in the biological processes of any woman’s body, which nature has implanted there before birth and hence before that woman’s entrance into society and citizenship. —Salon, Sept. 10th, 2008

So while calling abortion for what it is, she goes on to argue the same position of the current Canadian government: infanticide has a place in public policy. So then, let’s be honest: what we do in abortion clinics with pumps and forceps, ISIS does with knives and machine guns—it is the cleansing of a certain unwanted portion of society. Indeed, ISIS judges have gone even further, issuing a fatwa^[14]Ruling based on Islamic law that children with Down syndrome and other disabilities can be exterminated. If it is true that ISIS is entering our countries on the back of this refugee crisis, they should find our abortion laws (or lack thereof) compatible.

There are, of course, no refugee centers for the unborn.

And yet, when refugees arrive in Toronto, they will find that the government has provided everything they need, including a tax-payer funded mosque for them to pray in—one for men, and one for women.  So, while practicing Catholics have no voice in Parliament (at least in the Liberal Party), prayer in public is often forbidden, and Catholic schools are forced to provide “gay-straight alliances”,^[15]cf. The National Post, March 11th, 2015 at the same time, Western leaders are falling all over themselves to educate children against “Isla mophobia” and accommodate Muslim prayer, culture, and law into every facet of life. Forgive me if I pause to scratch my head.

While I am pointing out the hypocrisy in all this, I am certainly not denouncing in any way the hospitable response toward refugees. Perhaps some of those who hold a prejudice toward Western nations will be disarmed when they encounter genuine kindness here. It’s often Christian agencies who are pulling refugees out of boats or standing at airports. The first face they see is often the face of Love, and that should be our guiding response too. In fact, could we not say, especially in this Year of Mercy, that this crisis also presents a moment of evangelization, which ultimately, is serving Christ in the least?

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me. (Matt 25:35-36)

We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation. To respond in a way which is always humane, just and fraternal. We need to avoid a common temptation nowadays: to discard whatever proves troublesome. Let us remember the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Mt 7:12). —POPE FRANCIS, Address to U.S. Congress, September 24th, 2015 (italics my emphasis); Zenit.org

Give to everyone who asks of you… Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality… (Luke 6:30; 12:13)

 Jesus goes a step further, though. And that is to even lay down one’s life for his enemies. 

I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you… (Matt 5:44)

This is not an imperative that suggests we stand by idly while others are abused and killed when it is in our power to defend the powerless. As the Catechism states, 

Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility. —Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2265

When it comes to ISIS, there is a legitimate case for military intervention. Still, the Church tempers this last resort to violence: “Because of the evils and injustices that all war brings with it, we must do everything reasonably possible to avoid it.”^[16]cf. CCC, n. 2327

What Christ calls His followers to first and foremost is the witness of a “jihad against the self”—self-denial, even to the point of laying down of one’s life for one’s enemies^[17]cf. 1 John 3:16—the opposite of Islamic martyrdom, which takes the life of another in order to advance the religion.^[18]cf. The Christian Martyr-Witness In that regard, the refugee crisis is a call to Christian heroism, perhaps in more ways than we realize at this time. 

 

A BIGGER PICTURE?

Still, there is a bigger picture unfolding, and one that is mysteriously and deliberately entwined in this refugee crisis. That is, the deliberate deconstruction of national sovereignty in order to implement a “new world order.” As I’ve said time and again, those who relegate this to “conspiracy theory” simply refuse to examine the public record as well as warnings of the popes of the past century. 

As I wrote recently, world leaders and influential philanthropists have not been shy in revealing that “global warming” is the tool of choice to restructure the global economy—the groundwork of which was laid in Paris this past December.^[19]cf. Climate Change and the Great Delusion The basis of their ideology is Marxism, using in these post-modern times the tools of democracy and capitalism to restructure the world. As St. John Paul II said, it is essentially a struggle against the Holy Spirit, a…

…rebellion taking place in the human heart [that] finds in every period of history and especially in the modern era its external dimension, which takes concrete form as the content of culture and civilization, as a philosophical system, an ideology, a program for action and for the shaping of human behavior... The system which has developed most and carried to its extreme practical consequences this form of thought, ideology and praxis is dialectical and historical materialism, which is still recognized as the essential core of Marxism. —POPE JOHN PAUL II, Dominum et Vivificantem, n. 56

Pope Pius XI foresaw the danger that this Revolution would present that first manifested in a Communism that has really not disappeared, but only morphed into its present forms: 

This modern revolution, it may be said, has actually broken out or threatens everywhere, and it exceeds in amplitude and violence anything yet experienced in the preceding persecutions launched against the Church. —POPE PIUS XI, Divini Redemptoris, Encyclical on Atheistic Communism, n. 2; March 19th, 1937; www.vatican.va

With the global economy teetering on the verge of both collapse and restructuring, all that’s left is a “jihad” against national sovereignty that can likely only be achieved through chaos, and thus fear. 

We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order. —David Rockefeller, a prominent member of secret societies including the Illuminati, the Skull and Bones, and The Bilderberg Group; speaking at the UN, Sept. 14, 1994

How does one explain that the U.S. has been actively training and supplying ISIS militants in its war to destabilize Syria?^[20]cf. globalresearch.ca and wnd.com Or that in the U.K., Twitter accounts linked to ISIS have been traced to the British government? ^[21]cf. Mirror, Dec. 14th. 2015

What has been omitted from mainstream circles though is the intimate relationship between US intelligence agencies and ISIS, as they have trained, armed and funded the group for years. —Steve MacMillan, August 19th, 2014; global research.ca

We likely cannot fully understand the diabolical relationships that have been formed without being dragged into fear and confusion—precisely what Satan wants. Thus, as I wrote in Going to the Extremes, we need to avoid the extremes in this crisis: shutting the doors completely to those in need or, on the other hand, pretending that there are no imminent dangers either. We are ultimately dealing with human lives here—both those who are escaping terrorism, and those who wish to bring it to our own soil. The middle ground is paved with wisdom. As St. John Paul II said,

…the future of the world stands in peril unless wiser people are forthcoming. —Familiaris Consortio, n. 8

And given the “eclipse of reason”^[22]POPE BENEDICT XVI, cf. On the Eve overshadowing the world at this hour, it is likely why John Paul II, before passing away, concluded:

The grave challenges confronting the world at the start of the new Millennium lead us to think that only an intervention from on high, capable of guiding the hearts of those living in situations of conflict and those governing the destinies of nations, can give reason to hope for a brighter future. The Rosary by its nature is a prayer for peace.—ST. JOHN PAUL II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, n. 40

 

First published December 15th, 2015. 

 

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