Another Conversation from the Birthday Party

View from the balcony where the discussion took place.

The discussion about ex-Muslims was good but earlier in the evening another discussion took place.  The birthday was at a downtown condo.  I had a good discussion on the balcony with a lady from my Church.  The topic of discussion was the presence of Islam in the West and the Identitarian movement, specifically a YouTube video including Martin Sellner.

In my discussions I had to stress something.  This is something very important that if my readers get nothing else from this blog, I want them to get this.  I explained to her that no matter who we are critiquing, we have to do it from a Catholic perspective.

I listed off a bunch of ideologies for her:

• Identitarianism
• Islam
• Protestantism
• Communism
• Democracy
• Zionism

When you look at these ideologies and movements we see something interesting.  We see that all of these are anti-Catholic which is no mystery.  We also know that many of these movements oppose each other.  Identitarianism opposes Islam, Islam opposes communism, communism opposes democracy, etc.  Just because an ideology opposes an evil ideology, doesn’t make the first one okay.

We discussed how young Christians were being wooed into the Identitarian movement by cheap logic and sophistry.  There was a particular discussion the the “European Elite” and how they have a true hatred for the Christian faith.  While Identitarianism opposes Islam, it supports lots of evil and therefore as a Catholic I cannot endorse it.  I stressed this point to her very firmly, whatever ideology is presented to us, it has to be vetted by the Catholic lens.

Apologists against Islam have a fun time pointing out how defenders of Islam use two different standards when it comes to examining religious texts or the historical Jesus.  At the same time these apologists will have no problem endorsing democracy, Zionism, Identitarianism or other anti-Christian movements.

We discussed the hypothetical situation of a Muslim girl wearing a hijab playing in a soccer league if Canada were an official Christian Confessional State under the Kingship of Christ.  Would this be permitted?  I told her that it would be since the Muslim wearing a hijab wasn’t anti-Catholic and it wasn’t making society worse.  On the other hand, in a Christian State, one cannot publicly promote depravity such as lying, cheating, stealing, adultery, sodomy, etc.  The girl wearing her hijab wasn’t doing any of that.

Our discussion continued and some progress was made.  I think that I helped her out with this conversation.  This conversation drew me to the slogan that I have on the top of this blog: Truth Without Compromise.  At surface value, that would seem to say the truth, and always say the truth no matter what happens.  While that is true, that’s only one small part of the phrase.  The larger part is to use the truth in evaluating every ideology or idea presented to us.

The Identitarian movement is somewhat new so we have to apply what I call the Catholic Lens to this movement.  We need to look to Scripture and Tradition.  Yes, this movement opposes Islam but what does it promote?  It promotes much evil, therefore it must be opposed.  It’s just another anti-Catholic ideology and it must be opposed.

The next time an ideology comes up, we shouldn’t focus on what it opposes.  We should focus on what it promotes.