Martin Sellner, Brittany Pettibone, England, Catholicism, and Islam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4glysfmgOC0&t=640s

A few days ago, Austrian Identitarian activist Martin Sellner and his girlfriend, American science fiction author and journalist Brittany Pettibone were released from custody in a British detention facility.  Sellner and Pettibone were both attempting to enter the UK for different reasons.  Sellner wanted to give a speech at Speakers Corner in London.  Surely he would have been challenged by Islamic apologists.  Brittany Pettibone wanted to interview EDL founder Tommy Robinson.  This was good enough to deny them entry into their nation state and illegally detain them for three days.

Sellner and Pettibone are both extremely anti-Islam.  They’re also both Catholic, but neither of them criticize Islam from a Catholic perspective unfortunately.  They do so from an Identitarian perspective.  While I’m not an Identitarian, I am a Catholic and found a delicious irony from this situation.

King Henry VIII was a Catholic who broke from the Papacy and declared himself the head of the Church in England.  However, the Church remained Catholic in about 95% of it’s ways.  All of the sacramental rites and traditions were kept firmly Catholic.  When Edward VI took the throne in 1547, he was simply a kid.  His family however was Protestant and began changing the traditions that Henry VIII had preserved, including the liturgy.  Queen Mary took the throne in 1553 and restored Catholicism to England.  After that, her half sister Elizabeth ascended to the thrown and reigned from 1558 to 1603.  Throughout her reign, she sought to undo the reforms of her sister and impose Protestantism throughout the land.

I’ve been reading a book called The Sultan and the Queen: The Untold Story of Elizabeth and Islam.  In this book, we see the attempts of Elizabeth to work with Muslim powers to crush Catholicism.  Protestants at the time, identified with Muslims more than Catholics.  They both accused Catholics of idolatry.  In fact, the first known Muslim who converted to Protestantism was a Turkish man named Chinano.  This conversion happened in London in 1580, right under the nose of Queen Elizabeth.

Throughout the book, the theme of the Protestants wanting Islam over Catholicism is very apparent.  There were plans of the English to help the Moroccan Sultanate recapture Spain since they had only recently been driven out.  We also see the alliance between the English Crown and the Ottomans.  We need to remember that the Ottoman Empire was huge at the time and England was just an Island in the northern Pacific Ocean.  Over the next 200 years, England would grow and the Ottomans would diminish but they would remain close allies.  We tend to think of England as the huge empire and the Ottomans as that wavering empire that was on the losing side of World War I.  That wasn’t true in the 16th century.

On page 94 of the book, we read:

With the queen’s sanction, Protestant English merchants were removing metal from ecclesiastical buildings – including lead roofing and bell metal – and shipping it to Constantinople to arm Muslims against the Catholics.

Obviously Pettibone and Sellner were denied entry into the UK because of fear that the Muslim community might get upset.  This same country has welcomed ISIS fighters and terrorists into their country without a problem.  Two law abiding Catholics were turned away, yet they let Islamic terrorists in with ease.  From the book that I’ve been reading it seems that this isn’t new.  England has preferred Islam over Catholicism since the days of Elizabeth I.

England was once a great Catholic nation.  To this day Catholics read the writings and biographies of great English saints.  The country was once a land of thriving monasticism until the antics of Cromwell in the 16th century.

England has a large Muslim population.  This is not unlike most countries of Western Europe but in England the community is very zealous and organized.  They have well funded and organized groups that are promoting Islam and Sharia; far more than any other European country.  France and Sweden have large Muslim populations but they have nothing near the organization and education that the English Muslims have.

I feel bad for Sellner and Pettibone that they were denied entry and illegally detained for three days.  I also feel bad for the English people.  Since they’ve become Protestant, they’ve preferred Islam over Catholicism.  They have their wish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnQ3pmDjfkc