Letters

Scourge of the West

Kevin McManus

Contents - Apr 2007 - Buy a copy now Editorial: Benedict XVI's document on the Eucharist - Michael Gilchrist Book Launch: B.A. Santamaria and Australian Catholicism: Cardinal Pell's tribute - Cardinal George Pell News: The Church Around the World 'Equal opportunity' legislation threatens Christian teachings - Babette Francis Catholicism and secularism in Britain: a test of strength on same-sex adoption - Joanna Bogle History: How much do Catholics know about ecumenical councils? - Frank Mobbs Vocations: New survey of successful US dioceses: lessons for Australia - Michael Gilchrist Rockhampton Lenten program: 'whatever that might mean' - AD2000 Report St Faustina: The Divine Mercy apostolate: a spirituality to transform the world - Eva Kimnes Belief: Christian-Muslim dialogue: major stumbling blocks - Fr Richard Umbers Letters: Liturgy: what next? - Franklin J. Wood Letters: Church leadership - P.W. English Letters: Money talks - Richard Stokes Letters: Saints needed - Arthur N. Ballingall National Church Life Survey clarification - Bob Dixon Letters: Catholic schools Letters: Catholic atmosphere - Stuart Paterson Letters: Free and fair markets and the Church's social doctrine - Chris Hilder Letters: Capital punishment - John Gallagher Letters: Scourge of the West - Kevin McManus Letters: African prisoners seek correspondents - Len Clark Letters: Contraception - Tim Coyle Books: The Way of Love: Reflections on Deus Caritas Est, Livio Melina and Carl Anderson - Tim Cannon (reviewer) Books: Catholic Thought Since the Enlightenment, by Aidan Nichols OP - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: Aspects of Authentic Church Teaching, by Fr Sebastian Camilleri OFM - Michael Gilchrist (reviewer) DOES YOUR PARISH STOCK AD2000? Books: Books available from AD2000 and Freedom Publishing Reflection: Benedict XVI on the transforming power of the Resurrection - Pope Benedict XVI

At an international scientific conference in Perth in 1983 I remember a Middle Eastern delegate asking for ten free souvenirs for his ten children.

This did not have the significance it has today. In 452 AD the hordes of Attila the Hun threatened civilisation with destruction. He was called 'the scourge of God' - a scourge allowed by God to chastise a decadent Europe.

Could there be a more specific scourge of today's immoral West than the massive influx of Muslims?

* To the apostasy of the West, Islam offers a radical theocracy.

* To the West's contraception, it demonstrates massive fertility.

* To its feminism, Islam presents home as seclusion and refuge.

* To the West's alcoholism, it practises total abstinence.

* To the West's liberal tolerance of crime, it offers strict Sharia law.

The late founder of Human Life International, Fr Paul Marx OSB said a generation ago, 'Future generations will wonder why so many Catholic bishops and priests of the West didn't see contraception as a seminal evil, and the chief cause of the Church's swift decline'.

There is a generation of young Catholic adults today who have never heard a sermon against the curse of contraception as the cause of so many social evils. Is it ever condemned in Catholic schools?

The population of Europe is in free fall with the deficit being filled by Islamic fertility. The future doesn't need a prophecy, just a mathematical calculation. In this future, of course, they will ask, 'Why did this happen?'

KEVIN McMANUS
Ashfield, NSW

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 20 No 3 (April 2007), p. 16