Oriana and the Pope

In the past day or so an interesting confluence of events happened that occasionally occurs and makes one want to keep trying. First, we honor the life of Oriana Fallaci, that famous and courageous Italian writer, who devoted most of her last years to warning Europeans against the threat to European culture and freedom from the Islamic invasion that is taking place there. Many of her pleas were directed at Pope John Paul II, who was so instrumental in bringing down the Soviet empire, but who gave few outward signs that Islamic fascism greatly concerned him. Oriana died today of cancer in her home town of Florence, Italy.

At almost the same time as her death, the new pope, Pope Benedict XVI, has caused an uproar in the Muslim world by quoting from a book recounting a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and a Persian scholar on the truths of Christianity and Islam.

"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war," the pope said.
"He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached,' " he quoted the emperor as saying. He did not explicitly agree with them nor repudiate them.

Oriana may yet have succeeded in her quest to wake up her fellow Europeans to the threat the free world faces. I present here a few lines from one of her last works, which was in response to the London bombings of 7/7:

"The Enemy We Treat Like A Friend"

“Now, I ask myself: “What do you say, what do you have to say, about what happened in London?” They ask me face-to-face, via fax and email; often scolding me because up until now I have remained silent. Almost as if my silence were a betrayal. And each time I shake my head and murmur to myself: what else should I say?!? I’ve been saying it for four years–that I fight against the Monster that has decided to eliminate us physically and, along with our bodies, to destroy our principles and values. Our civilization. For four years I’ve been talking about Islamic Nazism; about the war against the West; about the death cult; about European suicide. About a Europe that is no longer Europe, but Eurabia, and that with its feebleness, its inertia, its blindness, its servitude to the enemy is digging its own grave. For four years, like another Cassandra, I’ve been shouting until I’m hoarse “Troy is burning! Troy is burning!” and I despair of the Danaids for whom, like Virgil in the Aeneid I weep for a city entombed in its torpor. [A city] that, through its wide-open doors receives fresh troops and joins complicit parties [inside]. For four years I’ve been repeating to the wind the truth about the Monster and its accomplices; that is, the accomplices of the Monster who, in good or bad faith, open wide the doors–who, like [those] in the Apocalypse of John the Evangelist, throw themselves at his feet and allow themselves to be stamped with the mark of shame…”