Vatican Apologizes to the ‘Infidel Enemies of the Christian Name’ –

 "That 'dialogue' only resumed, after al-Tayeb broke it off during the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI, when Francis agreed not to criticize Islam or speak out against Muslim persecution of Christians. Al-Tayeb, meanwhile, made no similar concessions. The 'dialogue' is entirely one-sided," Spencer noted.    Christians Slam Pope Francis' "Abomination of Desolation"

 Raymond Ibrahim; PJ Media . . .While the above sounds open-minded and “progressive,” the all-important context is, as usual, missing. The above-referenced bulls, or edicts, were primarily focused on neutralizing Muslim powers that were otherwise terrorizing virtually every corner of Christendom.

"For example, Dum Diversas was issued the same year (1452) that Sultan Muhammad II laid siege to Constantinople, leading to that ancient Christian city’s brutal fall in 1453.  At the same time, Muslims from North Africa were terrorizing Spain and the broader Mediterranean through constant and devastating slave raids. Whether in Christendom’s furthest east (Constantinople), then, or furthest west (Spain), Muslims were massacring and enslaving countless Christians.

"As such, these bulls, like so many before them, were designed to inspire Europeans to rise up and defend Christendom against Muslims — to “restrain the savage excesses of the Saracens and of other infidels, enemies of the Christian name,” to quote from the Romanus Pontifex.

"Because some of these bulls deal with Christians invading and seeking to conquer North Africa, modern-day “enemies of the Christian name” have sought to spin these as unprovoked wars of conquest and colonization.  For example, the Romanus Pontifex authorized King Alfonso V of Portugal (1432–1481) to “invade [North Africa], conquer, defeat and subjugate all Saracens and pagans and other enemies of Christ,” and to “enslave their persons perpetually” and seize their possessions for profit.". . .

Again, such ruthless language must not be read in a vacuum.  The atrocities Muslims were committing against nearby Christians, especially against the subjects of Spain and Portugal, make Islamic State (“ISIS”) atrocities seem like child’s play. It was all-out war to the death.

Moreover, while expeditions into North Africa were very similar to the Crusades, in that they featured Christians traveling to and seeking to conquer Muslim lands, often left out is that all of these “Muslim lands” — all of North Africa and the Middle East — were Christian first, centuries before Islam invaded and conquered them in the seventh century.

Raymond Ibrahim, an expert in Islamic history and doctrine, is the author of Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam (2022); Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West (2018); Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians (2013); and The Al Qaeda Reader . . .