Terrorist attacks by militant jihadist Muslims are becoming so frequent that we soon forget them. I use the term “militant jihadist Muslims” because peaceful Muslims profess that jihad is not a violent external struggle, but an interior spiritual struggle. Therefore, I use the word “militant jihadist Muslims” to distinguish the violent terrorists from the peaceful Muslims who do not engage in violent terrorism.
Militant jihadist Muslims include whatever groups they may call themselves such as Taliban, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Boca Horam, etc. Regardless of the name that they call themselves, they are those Muslims who through violent terrorism seek their ultimate goal of world domination and control with an Islamic state (Caliphate) under Muslim Sharia Law. They are driven by their belief that they are following the example of Mohammed and pleasing Allah by pursuing their goal of global union of mosque and state under their law.
On November 17, Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, characterized the so-called Islamic State as a “satanic terrorist organization.” The Cardinal addressed an ecumenical conference and referred to the bloody victims of these militant jihadist Muslims as sharing in an “ecumenism of blood.” He said that the lives of Christians are threatened in 25 nations and that it is an “odd phenomenon” that the media ignore this truth.
The most recent attacks of militant jihadist Muslims seem to obliterate our memory of the past attacks. Can you remember them?
Thousands of Victims, Hundreds of Attacks, and 32 Years Later
There were attacks on United States embassies and consulates in foreign countries; the CIA headquarters; the USS Cole; the first World Trade Center bombing; the second annihilation attack on the World Trade Center and the attack on the Pentagon; the Boston Marathon Massacre; Fort Hood, Chattanooga and, most recently, San Bernardino.
Moreover, there were foreign attacks in Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Madrid, London and Paris and on the parliaments of Canada and India. They have attacked on four continents and claim territory across the Middle East and Africa.
There were attacks in airports, airplanes, military bases, hotels, churches, synagogues, schools, movie theaters, restaurants, trains, buses, automobiles, malls, offices, markets, neighborhoods and oilfields.
Thousands of innocent noncombatant civilians have been killed by militant jihadist Muslim terrorists in hundreds of attacks over the last 32 years. That’s too many victims, too many attacks and too many years! We need terrorism control and not more gun-control.
In case you can’t remember some of these attacks, our country now reminds us of them in Washington DC in what they call a “Newseum.” It contains exhibits of our nation’s recent history, including militant jihadist Muslim terrorist attacks.
On May 2, 2010, the day after a thwarted terrorist attack in Times Square, New York, I was there and spoke to a young mother witness who had watched the apprehension of the terrorists’ SUV on the day before. She told me how frightened that she had been and how thankful that she was being saved from harm.
Today, you can see the actual SUV that was used in the thwarted attack in the “Newseum.” You can also see the propane tanks that they planned to use as explosives. There are also exhibits of actual letters and notes written by the militant jihadist Muslims who were behind both of the World Trade Center attacks; relics of those attacks; and displays regarding the Boston Marathon massacre and the planned attack on Fort Dix.
Militant Jihadist Muslims
Today’s media reports of militant jihadist Muslims terrorizing, raping, killing, beheading and crucifying their victims and burning their homes are showing us how they are located throughout the world. They are not armies of any state. They don’t have any national boundaries. They can strike violently anytime and anywhere. They want to terrorize and destroy in order to create chaos and to achieve their ultimate victory of world domination and the implementation of global Muslim Sharia law.
However, the one true God knows who they are and where they are. He can protect us from them, disable their violent terrorism and convert them through the power of prayer and fasting.
I agree with Islamic scholar Father Zakaria Botros (http://www.fatherzakaria.net/) who wrote:
As a human being, I have a deep concern for the impact of this aggressive doctrine that encourages the murder of the Jews and the Christian. The West cannot comprehend that Islam urges people to fight, kill non-Muslims and consequently be rewarded in paradise. Therefore, I have intellectually and respectfully studied, questioned and preached on the impact of the aggressive ideologies of Islam.
My ministry has been motivated by a sincere love for all Muslims and a desire to stimulate spiritual, academic and calm discussions. I aim to help Muslims to discover for themselves the truth of their faith, to make informed decisions and to question their unexamined assumptions.
The Chastisement of Militant Jihadist Muslims
Is it not clear what is taking place? Violence and godlessness increase daily. Hatred and a complete disrespect for life grows wantonly. There is no sense of sin or of the Divine throughout the earth! Militant jihadists Muslims have been unleashed upon the world as a chastisement due to the great sinfulness of mankind.
Basically, when we are good, God restrains evil like a wolf on a leash. When we are bad, he unleashes it to punish us and bring us back to goodness and Himself.
He has allowed the jihadists to run amok as a chastisement upon the world for its sinfulness.
God has always used enemy armies to chastise His people. He used the Assyrians against the Jews of the Northern Kingdom, which resulted in its destruction; the Babylonians against the Jews of Judah, resulting in the destruction of the temple and the Babylonian captivity; the Romans against the Jews resulting in the second destruction of the Temple and the dispersion of the Jewish people throughout the world; militant Muslims against Christians resulting in the conquest of their homelands and the deaths of hundreds of thousands in the Middle Ages. It continues today. Pope Francis has referred to the depredations as a “Third World War.”
Barbarians attacked the early Christians everywhere, without warning, terrorizing all who never knew where or when they would strike next. Later the Vikings did the same. Neither the barbarians nor the Vikings could be defeated. They could only be converted, and they were. This applies to the militant jihadist Muslims today. We cannot dialogue with them, they strike everywhere without warning, terrorizing all who never know where or when they will strike next. They can only be converted or totally disabled. We should pray through Our Lady of Guadalupe that they be brought to conversion to the knowledge of the one true merciful God who loves them.
We must remember in this Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy that God is infinitely merciful and accepts a smaller amount than His justice requires. This is the pre-eminence of His Divine Mercy. It is His greatest Divine attribute.
However, chaos shall reign and more blood will be shed around the globe so long as the acknowledgement of His Sovereign Kingship, His Divine rights is denied.
Militant Muslims Wars against Western Civilization
Militant Muslims have been at war against Western civilization for the last 1300 years. They advanced from their beginning in the early seventh century and conquered North Africa, Sicily, Spain, Portugal and parts of France.
In 718, the militant Muslims conquered Spain. Fleeing Spaniards buried for safekeeping a statue of Our Lady reportedly carved by St. Luke. It was a gift from Pope St. Gregory the Great to St. Leander, Bishop of Seville. They buried the statue in the province of Estremadura, in the northern part of Spain.
In 1326, a humble cowherd named Gil Cordero reported that Our Lady had appeared to him and asked him to unearth the statue that had been buried for approximately 600 years. He did so and found it perfectly preserved. It was located near a river that the Muslims had named “Guadalupe”, an Arabic word meaning “Wolf River.” Soon thereafter, the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe was constructed there to house the statue. Both Christopher Columbus and Hernan Cortes made pilgrimages to this shrine before they left Spain for the New World.
In 1453, Mohammed II assaulted Constantinople and the Byzantine capital in the East fell.
In 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella completed the Reconquest of Spain with the Muslim surrender of Granada. Then began the Age of Discovery with the voyages of Christopher Columbus to the West Indies in 1492 and Hernan Cortes to Mexico in 1519. After Cortes’ conquest of Mexico in 1521, Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to St. Juan Diego in 1531 and left her miraculous image on his tilma (cloak).
By 1571, the Muslims ruled the Mediterranean Sea from the Strait of Bosporus to the Strait of Gibraltar and constantly preyed on Christian vessels. They were on the verge of defeating all of Christendom. Pope Pius V called Christendom to pray the Rosary and to form an alliance to defeat the invading Muslims.
The Christian and Muslim fleets met on October 7, 1571, at Lepanto, off the coast of Greece. Before moving to the attack, the 65,000 Christian sailors received Holy Communion and continually prayed the Rosary.
The first Missionary Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was present in the Christian fleet’s flagship under the command of Admiral Andrea Doria. The Archbishop of Mexico City had sent the image to King Philip II of Spain 40 years after Our Lady left her miraculous image on St. Juan Diego’s tilma.
The King directed the placement of the image in the Admiral’s cabin. In the midst of the battle, the Admiral reportedly knelt before the image and begged Mary’s help. This was the largest naval engagement in the world since the Battle of Actium in 30 B.C. The wind, which had been in the favor of the Muslims, suddenly and mysteriously changed to the advantage of the Christian fleet.
Through the prayers of the Rosary, the Christians won the battle and freed over 10,000 Christian galley slaves from the Muslim ships. The Muslim fleet and its threat to Christendom were defeated.
The Venetian Senate wrote to the other States which had taken part in the battle, “It was not generals nor battalions nor arms that brought us victory, but it was Our Lady of the Rosary.” October 7, the date of the Battle of Lepanto, is now the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.
In 1683, 200,000 militant Muslims invaded Europe and were defeated at the gates of Vienna in a battle that began on September 11 and ended on September 12. They did not forget this defeat for 318 years, when Osama bin Laden retaliated on September 11, 2001 with his attack on America.
On November 1, 1922, after its defeat in World War I, Ottoman Turkey, the last Muslim Caliphate, was dissolved. Since then, there has been no Caliphate. A Caliphate is an Islamic state. It is led by a Caliph, who is a political and religious leader with absolute power and authority. One of the goals of militant jihadist Muslims is to re-establish the Caliphate. That is why some militant jihadist Muslims give themselves the name of a state, such as the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS).
Militant Muslims Wars against the United States
In the late 18th century, Americans pushed for direct governmental action to stop militant Muslims’ piracy against American ships in the Mediterranean Sea.
In March 1786, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, our future presidents, negotiated with Tripoli’s Ambassador regarding their piracy against American vessels. They reported:
We [Adams & Jefferson] took the liberty to make some enquiries concerning the ground of their pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury, and observed that we considered all mankind as our friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation.
The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the laws of their prophet [Mohammed]; that it was written in their Koran; that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners; that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners; and that every Mussulman [Muslim] who was slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise. (Letter from the Commissioners [Adams and Jefferson] to John Jay, March 28, 1786).
We defeated these militant Muslims, as the United States Marines sing, in the Battle Hymn of the Republic, on “the shores of Tripoli.”
Over 200 years later, on February 23, 1998, Osama bin Laden used words similar to those of the Tripoli Ambassador and Issued a Declaration of War against the United States. He instructed Muslims everywhere to kill Americans, including innocent civilian non-combatants. He wrote:
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it…. [E]very Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God’s order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it.
Know Your Enemy
Terrorism is an effect from human enemies. Our war is not against terrorism, it is against militant jihadist Muslims. Their goal is to rule the world under Muslim Sharia law, which violates most universally recognized human rights. This enemy will not dialogue, negotiate nor surrender unless and until they are converted to the worship of the one true God and live according to His law as He revealed it to us in the Ten Commandments, or they are totally disabled. Otherwise, they will continue to come at us to kill and terrorize us, as they have declared, and we must stop them! They must be totally disabled from waging war and terrorism wherever and whenever they present a clear and present danger to the safety of American people.
Climate change is not the greatest threat of our time, as President Obama has unfortunately said, it is militant jihadist Muslim terrorism. And the means to end it are not, as President Obama said, gun-control. Reasonable gun control is necessary, but not enough and won’t stop them. We need terrorism control!
Militant jihadist Muslims will not be deterred by more United States gun-control laws. They can easily obtain guns throughout the world. Moreover, they can use all kinds of weapons such as bazookas, mortars, improvised explosive devices, rocket propelled grenades, bombs, explosive suicide vehicles and explosive suicide airplanes, knives, hatchets etc.
In his Christmas message, Pope Francis said, “May the attention of the international community be unanimously directed to ending the atrocities in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and sub-Saharan Africa, which reap numerous victims, cause immense suffering and do not even spare the historical and cultural patrimony of entire peoples.”
He condemned recent “brutal acts of terrorism,” including the November 13 attacks by militant jihadist Muslims that killed 130 people in Paris, and the downing of a Russian plane over Egypt’s Sinai peninsula that killed 224 people on October 31.
Know Your Weapons
Our weapons are to employ the strategy and tactics of our military and intelligence forces, the best in the entire world, and our spiritual weapons of prayer, fasting and self-sacrifice. We know that we are not merely fighting evil human beings, but rather evil spirits. As St. Paul wrote, “For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens. Therefore, put on the armor of God that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground.” (Ephesians 6:12-13). St. John Paul II said that prayer and fasting are our most powerful weapons in the fight against evil.
The militant jihadist Muslim terrorists are not robots who are mysteriously “radicalized”, as if this lessens their personal responsibility. They know what they are doing and they freely choose barbaric violence to terrorize us. We need to show them that they have made evil choices for which they are personally responsible and that they will suffer the consequences.
Let us pray that our military and intelligence forces will plan strategy and tactics to protect and defend us against militant jihadist terrorists so that we will feel safe and be safe and be hopeful and confident in our leaders. Let us pray that President Obama and our Congress will follow the advice of our military and intelligence forces, supported by our prayers and encouragement. Let us also pray and fast for the conversions of the militant jihadist Muslims.
Pray for Your Enemies
Father Dankha Issa is a Chaldean monk in Alqosh. Last summer, hundreds of Christian refugees found refuge in the city after their villages were seized by militant jihadist Muslims.
He said, “We are very thankful to Our Holy Father that he has proclaimed a Holy Year of Mercy. It is a time of grace for us.”
He himself was forced to flee Mosul in June of 2014 after it fell to ISIS, or Daesh, as the militant jihadist Muslims are known in Arabic. Father Issa continued, “This Jubilee gives us new hope. Let us hope that this year will extinguish the fires of hate and bring peace.”
“In this year our attention is particularly drawn to how merciful God is with us sinners. God forgives us. But, this also means that we have to forgive each other. Even the people of Daesh, who have done so many evil things to us. After all, as a Christian you also have to love your enemies. This is almost humanly impossible. But, it is easier through faith. God is capable of everything.”
“Of course we hope that God will open and soften the hearts of the people of Daesh so that they cease their murderous doings. Let us pray that he will dispel the hate and violence in their hearts and let love take hold.”
Pray for the Conversions of Muslims
In his Christmas message, Pope Francis said, with reference to the atrocities of militant jihadist Muslims, “Only God’s mercy can free humanity from the many forms of evil, at times monstrous evil, which selfishness spawns in our midst. The grace of God can convert hearts and offer mankind a way out of humanly insoluble situations.”
In the 16th century, conquering Ottoman Muslims forced the Balkan’s population to convert to Islam. Today, in Kosovo, a growing number of Muslims, especially young people, are discovering their Christian roots and are being baptized. The Church expects these young people to spread their faith in their personal networks and within their families. One man said that “before the Ottomans Islamicized the region of today’s Balkans, we were Christians.”
Father Marjan Uka is a Kosovo priest charged with looking after the newly baptized. A recently baptized man told him, “Compared to Islam, Christianity has a depth that is filled with God’s light.”
Muslim Pilgrims Come to Mary’s House, Hope for Peace for All Humanity
I made a pilgrimage to Ephesus in Turkey in the first year of the third millennium. It was in September, 2001, just after the September 11 terrorist attacks on America by militant jihadist Muslims. I flew to Muslim Turkey on an almost empty airplane. Everyone was afraid to fly for fear of more airplanes being hijacked.
I went there to pray for reconciliation and peace with Muslims at Mary’s House. Popes Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI all made pilgrimages to Mary’s House. In the year 42, St. John the Evangelist and the Blessed Virgin Mary fled from a persecution in Jerusalem and came to Ephesus where he built a house for her. The remains of this house still exist. It is called Mary’s House and many Muslims and Christians come there to pray together.
Each year millions of Muslims come on pilgrimage to Marian shrines throughout the world such as Fatima in Portugal and Harissa in Lebanon, but also to Egypt, Syria and Iran. Many of them come to Mary’s House. They have a great devotion to Mary who is mentioned several times in the Koran. Chapter 3 verse 40 says, “Mary, God gives the good tidings of a word from him whose name is Messiah, Jesus, Son of Mary, high honored shall she be in this world and the next, near stationed to God.
Pope Pius XII said, “The holy House should be a Marian center which is unique throughout the world, a place where Christians and Muslims of all rites and denominations and of all nationalities can meet each other to venerate the Mother of Jesus, and make true the prophecy, ‘All Generations will call me blessed’.” (L’Osservatore Romano, April 24, 1954).
Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass there on November 29, 2006 on the open air altar before a large crowd of pilgrims, just five years after the 9/11 Attack on America. In his Papal Homily he preached peace:
Christ “came to proclaim peace” (Ephesians 2:17), not only between Jews and non-Jews, but between all nations, since all have their origin in the same God, the one Creator and Lord of the universe. Strengthened by God’s word, from here in Ephesus, a city blessed by the presence of Mary Most Holy – who we know is loved and venerated also by Muslims – let us lift up to the Lord a special prayer for peace between peoples. From this edge of the Anatolian peninsula, a natural bridge between continents, let us implore peace and reconciliation, above all for those dwelling in the Land called “Holy” and considered as such by Christians, Jews and Muslims alike: it is the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, destined to be the home of a people that would become a blessing for all the nations (see Genesis 12:1-3). Peace for all of humanity! May Isaiah’s prophecy soon be fulfilled: “They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:4). We all need this universal peace; and the Church is called to be not only the prophetic herald, but even more, the “sign and instrument” of this peace.
A New Spiritual Rosary Crusade for Peace
In December 2014, Nigerian Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme was in a chapel praying before the Blessed Sacrament.
He asked Jesus how to stop the militant jihadist Muslims in his diocese who called themselves Boko Haram. Suddenly, Jesus appeared to the Bishop with a sword in his hand. According to Bishop Dashe, the moment he took the sword from Jesus’ hands, it transformed into Rosary beads. He then heard Christ repeat three times, “Boko Haram is gone.”
The Bishop recalls, “I didn’t need any prophet to give me the explanation. It was clear that with the Rosary we would be able to expel Boko Haram.” Clearly, Jesus hopes that we take up the weapon of the Rosary as a sword to totally disable and convert militant jihadist Muslims.
Bishop Doeme said that he has seen the size of his diocese cut in half, since Boko Haram began terrorizing them in 2009. Most of them had to flee for safer grounds.
“Boko Haram is evil, demonic, and can only be removed through prayer,” Bishop Dashe says. Citing Jesus’ words in the apparition, he insists that no matter how long it takes, with faith in the Most Holy Rosary, “Boko Haram is gone.”
Father Jacques Mourad, the Syrian priest kidnapped by ISIS who later escaped said, “The jihadists frequently insulted us, but what was most difficult is when they tried to intimidate us, saying, ‘Either you convert to Islam or we cut off your head.’ ”
During his long months of imprisonment, Father Jacques found comfort in reciting the Rosary and in the prayers of abandonment composed by Father Charles de Foucauld, who was murdered by a Muslim after devoting his life to Christian-Islamic dialogue.
Let us follow the good examples of Bishop Doeme and Father Mourad and implore God’s mercy during this Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy by praying the Rosary to deliver us from evil militant jihadist Muslims and, through the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, to bring the peace for all humanity for which Pope Benedict XVI prayed.
Please click here to join A New Spiritual Rosary Crusade for Peace.
Dan Lynch is the Director of Dan Lynch Apostolates promoting devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, Jesus King of All Nations, Our Lady of America and St. John Paul II. He is an author, public speaker and a former judge and lawyer in Vermont. He has appeared many times on radio and television and has spoken at conferences throughout the world. You may learn more about Dan here.