Catholic Church Punishing US Priests For Speaking Out Against Islam - Jihad Watch

The Catholic Church is punishing U.S. priests for speaking the truth about Islam and jihad

BY ROBERT SPENCER of Jihad Watch

Many bishops protected priests who were child molesters for years, transferring them from parish to parish and allowing them to prey upon new children rather than turning them over to police. In the Catholic Church today, protecting the image of Islam appears to be job one: you can be a cleric who speaks out against the Church’s official positions (such as those on contraception and female priests) and in many quarters of the Church you’ll be hailed as a hero. But the highly dubious proposition that Islam is a religion of peace has become a kind of superdogma that the U.S. bishops enforce with a stringency (and even ruthlessness) that they never display regarding actual Church teaching. You can reject every element of the Nicene Creed and everything the Church teaches, and still the U.S. Catholic Bishops will consider you a Catholic in good standing. But if you believe that Islam is not a religion of peace, you have no place in the U.S. Catholic Church.

I myself have been canceled from speaking engagements by Catholic bishops Robert McManus, Kevin Farrell, and Jaime Soto, and blocked by the Melkite Greek Catholic bishop in the U.S., Nicholas Samra, from accepting several other invitations to speak. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops moves actively and swiftly to silence and demonize voices that tell the truth about the Muslim persecution of Christians. On August 13, 2015, I was the keynote speaker at the annual convocation of the North American Lutheran Church in Dallas, Texas (Kevin Farrell’s diocese; Farrell had previously prevented me from speaking at a parish there that had invited me to come). I spoke about the global Muslim persecution of Christians. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, I was told, sent a representative to that North American Lutheran Church convocation every year. However, that year, when the USCCB found out I was the keynote speaker, they pulled their rep from the Lutheran convocation, lest anyone get the idea that the Catholic Church endorsed a truthful and accurate analysis of the plight of Middle Eastern Christians.

No worries, reverend fathers: no one will ever mistake you for people who are interested in telling uncomfortable truths. Watch the video of my talk here, and consider that this talk was too hot for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Cowards, time-servers, trimmers and self-deluded wishful thinkers dominate the Church hierarchy today, among both bishops and priests, and all too many Catholics believe that to say so makes one disloyal to the Church. Nonsense. Calling these people to account for the damage they have done and are doing is the highest form of loyalty to the Church. But they are completely in control, and don’t even deign to engage those who oppose what they are doing. Well, they have the Church they want now, and as the years go by, it will become clear to everyone what they have done, and what unimaginable damage and destruction they have enabled, both to the Catholic Church and to the world at large.

“Leave them; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:14)

“Another Day, Another Apology to Muslims,” by Susan D. Harris, American Thinker, May 2, 2017 (thanks to Creeping Sharia):

“Don’t listen to liberals, because the Muslims will cut your heads off.” That’s the comment that warranted the KRQE headline, “Parents accuse Belen priest of making discriminatory comments against Muslims.” Apparently no one had a problem with the “don’t listen to liberals” part. Instead, being well trained in political correctness, it was the moment Fr. Jonas Romea, a priest in Belen, New Mexico, told a group of pre-K to eighth grade Catholic kids that there were Muslims terrorists that caused the problem. Specifically mentioning Muslims cutting “heads off” was when parents became terribly offended on behalf of Islam. The next thing you know, a reporter at KOAT Action News was asking Fr. Romea if he didn’t think his remarks were “Islamophobia?” Fr. Romea said that he denied that label, and strengthened his point by saying: “Recent reports out of the Middle East show that Catholics around the world are under attack. The news pieces that we get… from there tell us that actually, Christians are being slaughtered.”

KRQE reported that after receiving complaints about Fr. Romea’s remarks (made during a homily to students at Our Lady of Belen Church,) the “Archdiocese of Santa Fe sent out a letter to parents saying the homily didn’t fully embrace the message of Jesus Christ.”

Later, Fr. Romea sparred with KOAT reporter David Carl asking, “Are all people burglars? No, not all people are burglars. But my next question is, do you lock your doors at night?”

Carl responds, “I do. I do. So are you lumping in Muslims as burglars? Are you making an equivalency there?” Carl knows better, but with progressively tweaked critical thinking techniques designed to disarm traditional reasoning, Fr. Romea is easily mocked, then easily silenced with a craftily edited interview. By this time, he has been so intimidated — by someone or some governing body — that he will not even name “that religion that he mentioned” — Islam.

The original story aired March 30th. By April 12th, Fr. Romea issued what some local people told me they believed to be a “coerced apology” which can be read here; and by April 28th he found himself terminated from the diocese. (This fact was told me by someone who had spoken directly with Fr. Romea himself, and was also present during the April 30th mass where Fr. Romea’s departure was discussed. There has been no official statement from the diocese.)

Romea’s apology contained the sentence: “I have come to realize that the Islamic Faith is not to be equated with terrorism and vice-versa.”

Sadly, 84-year-old French priest Jacques Hamel didn’t get a chance to concur with that statement, having had his throat slit by ISIS militants less than a year ago during a quiet morning Mass. One has to wonder what kind of internal spiritual struggles these Catholic Christian leaders are suffering as the world keeps forcing them to the ground — symbolically or literally — to grovel toward Mecca.

In New Mexico, the incident took on an overtly political tone when former senator Michael Sanchez reportedly shone a spotlight on it by Tweeting what happened “wasn’t right” and that he “stands with Muslims.”

Stories of priests being silenced as they try to speak against Islam aren’t new, but aren’t abating either. Earlier this month, the diocese of Orlando, Florida reprimanded a priest for teaching his students about Muhammed from the writings of Catholic Saint John Bosco. The story, not surprisingly unearthed by the Huffington Post’s Documenting Hate Project, ended with the Orlando diocese stating “the information provided in the sixth grade class is not consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church.”

This past February, the Rev. Peter West, pastor of St. John’s Catholic Church in Orange, NJ made news calling moderate Islam “a myth” and openly supported President Trump’s travel ban, (though its characteristics changed over time.) A spokesman for that diocese said, “…we are concerned about Father West’s comments and actions, and will be addressing them according to the protocols of the Church.”

Journalist Mark Mueller, writing for NJ.com, told his readers:

(Father West’s) attacks, while popular with many of his 7,300 Facebook followers from around the country, run counter to the statements and philosophies of his own leader, Newark Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, and his ultimate boss, Pope Francis.

What is really happening in small Catholic dioceses across the country, one can only guess; but you can be sure the politically-correct thought police are on duty everywhere….

It is the greatest irony that while there is no known Catholic priest, nor adherent of Catholicism, that has been charged with beheading a Muslim in modern times, that those who warn against Islam are the targets of censure and ridicule by their own societies.