On June 11, 2004 Zenit.org reported on the publication of an open letter by Archbishop Fouad Twal of Tunis, who laments the fact that "Islam is going through a crisis" and urges Christians to "respond with love and hope, not war."

        Now isn’t that just typical of the thinking of thoroughly modern post-conciliar prelates? Islam, the poor thing, is having a rough time at the moment, and we Catholics should nurse it back to health — like a poor, ‘wittle, wounded bird. Good grief.

        The Archbishop says "We are all wounded and we too live terrorism with pain, like you in the West…" And the remedy for this pain, caused entirely by Islamic terrorist fanatics? Why, what else? — dialogue. Yes, says the Archbishop, "time is necessary to do good and to continue with a dialogue which, on the part of the Christian community, has never been interrupted." Yes indeed, the "dialogue" has never been interrupted. As a result, neither has the advance of militant Islam throughout former Christendom, as stupefied modern prelates cheer on their own destruction by proclaiming dialogue and pluralism to the very end, while Muslims outbreed Catholics by ten-to-one and set up mosques in every major city in the West.

        But the Archbishop just doesn’t get it. "Islam is a world in crisis," he writes, "which at times believes that it finds strength and security in fanaticism." At times? Try the entire history of this inherently war-like religion, founded by a murderer and a thief as the extension of his own megalomania. Unable to make converts with the truth, which he did not possess, Muhammad made them at the point of a sword.

        But the Archbishop thinks all you need is love to turn Islam into something nicey-nice: "We do not have to cure it with war, but with love and hope, within a world situation that is not helpful." This is the spirituality of John Lennon, not a Roman Catholic prelate whose Church is faced with the threat of Islam.

       Oblivious to reality, the Archbishop even thinks the continued massive immigration of Muslims into once-Christian nations is a good thing: "The immigration of Muslims to the West ‘might be a richness,’" Zenit reports him as saying. A richness? In Southern California parlance, kindly gag me with a spoon.

        The Archbishop opines that to dialogue with Islam — there is no intention of converting Muslims to the one true religion, of course — "one needs first of all a solid knowledge of the Catholic Christian faith, and a determined adherence to the magisterium of the Church, which is the guarantee in the following of Christ."

        But this is nonsense. If one truly wishes to adhere to the "Catholic Christian faith" (notice how post-conciliar prelates cannot even bear to speak of the Catholic faith as such) respecting the proper approach to Islam, the one must pray for the conversion of Muslims to the one true religion in order to save their souls. Here a Catholic need look no further than this line from the solemn consecration of the world to Christ the King that Pope Pius XI mandated be performed by every Catholic parish in the world, less than 40 years before Vatican II: "Be Thou King of all those who are still involved in the darkness of idolatry or of Islamism, and refuse not to draw them all into the light and kingdom of God."

        If the Archbishop is really interested in curing Islam with love, he should direct every parish in his charge to pray the prayer composed by Pius XI, imploring Heaven to rescue all the captives of Islam from their darkness with the saving truth of the Gospel. But the thoroughly modern post-conciliar prelate no longer seeks to save Muslims from their darkness, or indeed to convert anyone else for the salvation of his soul. That is why the Church and the West are in crisis.