Islam is apparently unconvertible. The missionary efforts made by great Catholic orders which have been occupied in trying to turn Mohammedans into Christians for nearly 400 years have everywhere wholly failed. We have in some places driven the Mohammedan master out and freed his Christian subjects from Mohammedan control, but we have had hardly any effect in converting individual Mohammedans[.]
– Hilaire Belloc, The Great Heresies
There is in Islam a paradox which is perhaps a permanent menace. The great creed born in the desert creates a kind of ecstasy out of the very emptiness of its own land, and even, one may say, out of the emptiness of its own theology. It affirms, with no little sublimity, something that is not merely the singleness but rather the solitude of God. There is the same extreme simplification in the solitary figure of the Prophet; and yet this isolation perpetually reacts into its own opposite. A void is made in the heart of Islam which has to be filled up again and again by a mere repetition of the revolution that founded it. There are no sacraments; the only thing that can happen is a sort of apocalypse, as unique as the end of the world; so the apocalypse can only be repeated and the world end again and again. There are no priests; and yet this equality can only breed a multitude of lawless prophets almost as numerous as priests. The very dogma that there is only one Mahomet produces an endless procession of Mahomets. Of these the mightiest in modern times were the man whose name was Ahmed, and whose more famous title was the Mahdi; and his more ferocious successor Abdullahi, who was generally known as the Khalifa. These great fanatics, or great creators of fanaticism, succeeded in making a militarism almost as famous and formidable as that of the Turkish Empire on whose frontiers it hovered, and in spreading a reign of terror such as can seldom be organised except by civilisation
– G.K. Chesterton, Lord Kitchener
For as long as Moslems are an insignificant minority in a Christian country they can live in a friendly way, because they follow the laws and customs of the country which accepts them. But as soon as they are numerous and organized they become aggressive and they seek to impose their laws, which are hostile to European civilization. Examples are abundant. Soon they will take charge of our city councils, and will transform our churches into mosques. We will either have to become Moslem, leave the country or become their captives. This is in the profound nature of Islam. It is not I who am racist in denouncing this very racism.
– Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
November 16, 2015
Hasn’t the Lefebvre statement often been true of Catholicism, and don’t many traditionalists think it should be true of Catholicism? But maybe Lefebvre’s statement is not to be taken as a condemnation, rather a simple diagnosis illustrating why true Catholicism and true Islam must be always at war – they both seek the same exclusive power in the world.
November 16, 2015
…as opposed to what? Eastern Orthodoxy? You almost made me laugh.
November 16, 2015
As opposed to Protestantism. But I’ve more than once heard secularists accuse Catholics of this very thing – integrating and demanding personal liberty when in the minority, then becoming intolerant when they have great enough majority. This maybe right and good, I’m just saying it’s ironic to see an arch conservative Catholic warning the Muslims are, in this way, like us. I will say Catholics have shown an global evangelical and political ambition unrivaled by any Protestant or Orthodox body and mirrored best in Islam.
November 16, 2015
Isn’t that consistent though? If you are in the right and holding to the truth, why shouldn’t you have — as you say — “special rights”? In other words, why shouldn’t the state respect you to the exclusion of everyone else? Error has no rights, as the old saying goes.
November 17, 2015
Zeb. The form of Catholicism that you mention is to be found almost exclusively amongst the Spaniards, which suffered a more than 700 year Muslim occupation (711-1492), they leant much from their oppressors; unfortunately, little of it good.
One can compare Spanish forced conversions in their colonies with the very different attitude towards conversion taken by French Catholics. The difference? The French were able to repel the Muslim incursions and developed a society free of oppressive Muslim concepts.
November 16, 2015
Islam is the institutionalization of might makes right. It is designed for maximizing the rationale for those in power to stay in power. Males dominate females totally, believers dominate non-believers, and the wealthy male believers dominate the less wealthy male believers. It was designed to reward the most powerful with all the fruits of the earth and of the flesh. Rather anti-Christian from the get-go, on purpose.