National Review — 10/25/2013
Re what Benjamin below refers to as the “fight for faith” by persecuted Christians in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, one reason why it’s not getting much play in the western media is that in the heart of what we used to call Christendom they’ve pretty much given up the fight.
The great Giulio Meotti reports on France:
In Quai Malakoff, Nantes, the old Church of St. Christopher became the Mosque of Forqane… The National Federation of the Great Mosque of Paris, the Council of Democratic Muslims of France and the Collectif Banlieues asked the Catholic Church, in a spirit of “inter-religious solidarity”, to rent the empty churches to the Muslims for their Friday prayers.
And Germany:
According to a report in the weekly magazine Spirit, in the next two years 15,000 of the 45,000 existing churches in Germany, a third of the total, will be demolished or sold…
The church of the Holy Family in Barmstedt has been demolished… In Hamburg, a Lutheran church was purchased by the Muslim community… In Spandau, the church of St. Raphael is now a grocery store, while in Karl Marx’s town the churches are turned into gyms. In Cologne, a church has been transformed into a luxurious residence with a private pool.
And the Netherlands:
In Helmond, a town south of Bilthoven, a supermarket has moved in a former church. A library was opened in a Dominican church in Maastricht, while two churches in Utrecht and Amsterdam have recently been converted into mosques.
And the United Kingdom:
A Catholic church in the UK has been sold to the Muslim community. St Peter’s Catholic church in Cobridge will become the Madina Mosque.
It is hard not to admire those brave Christians in Egypt, Nigeria, Pakistan, their churches firebombed, their congregants attacked, but their hearts full and their faith strong. Post-Christian Europe has a hole at its heart – and a hole will eventually be filled by something.