The Tenth And Last Crusade - Donald Trump, Leo XIV, And The Final Days Of The Muslim Infidel

There have been nine crusades, the first sent by Pope Urban II in 1095 to Jerusalem to rid the Holy Land of the Muslim infidel and the last by Lord Edward in 1271.  None these forays worked and certainly didn't finish the job.  Muslims have been a royal pain in the ass ever since 638 when they conquered and occupied Jerusalem; and not content with that victory, in 778 stormed Europe from North Africa, the next step to realizing their dream of a world caliphate.

 

They were stopped by Charlemagne at Roncesvalles and thanks to his conclusive victory preserved Christian Europe.  From that day onward France has considered itself la fille ainee de l'Eglise, the eldest daughter of the Catholic Church.  Now overrun with Muslims from the Middle East, the Levant, and sub-Saharan Africa, they are sorry they never really got rid of them in the first place. 

Thanks to European colonization, the Muslim populations to the east and south were well contained, neutralized and obedient to Christian rule.  The Algerian war for independence from France in 1954 was the beginning of the end of colonial African rule, the beginning of waves of Muslim immigration to France, and the current Islamic saturation of the country today. 

Ever since Muhammed, Islam has been an aggressive, territorial, hegemonic religion - a divinely inspired political, military, and social movement that has never been shy about extending its influence and authority.  The number of Muslims in the world expands geometrically every year and soon will be the world's most practiced religion.  Its simple message of obedience, absolute faith, and political power has been a powerful evangelizing one, a lesson in militancy, salvation, and brotherhood. 

Europe is finally waking up to the reality of Islam within its borders - a restive, self-contained population defiant of Christianity and Western values and determined to create a Muslim state within traditional geopolitical borders, extending its influence throughout the continent.  Europe only now, too late, is demanding closed borders, obedience to liberal democracy and Christian values.  It is trapped by its own democratic liberalism, and as much as new conservative leaders would like to cleanse European territory of the infidel, it cannot. 

The Vatican, the earliest militant defender of Christianity, is especially concerned with the spread of what it has called this pagan idolatry. While the ferocity of its opposition to the malignant expansion of Islam has varied over time - some popes have been far more accommodating than others - it remains stalwart in its 1500 year struggle against it. 

 

The ascension of Pope Leo XIV and the election of Donald Trump have enabled an important American and Catholic moment.  The two men, American to the core, unabashed about their roots, their legacy, and their acknowledgement of their formative roots, have already formed a surprising friendship.  Although the new pope has intimated a dissatisfaction with America and has picked up where his predecessor left off with thinly veiled criticism of its xenophobia and arch-conservatism, he is allied in solidarity with the Trump Administration's adamant defiance of radical Islam.  

Ridding the world of ISIS, Boko Haram, al-Qaeda, al-Shabab, the Houthis, the Ayatollahs, and the Palestinians and returning Europe to its Christian roots is an overdue but welcome objective; and a strong secular-religious partnership is the key to success. 

The two world leaders have spoken fondly and informally about baseball, the White Sox, cornfields, and the dynamism and strong-willed individualism of their fellow citizens; and such cultural ease has led to a simpler understanding of common geopolitical aspirations.  The Church would like to see the world Catholic and part of a Vatican hegemony, and the American President would like to see his brand of muscular democracy extend to all parts of the world. 

'What about those Muslims?', asked Trump according to the written transcript leaked by either a Vatican or White House insider. 

'A problem, Mr. President, as they always have been'. 

'So', replied Trump, 'what are we going to do about them?' and there in that first moment of collective concern, the collusion - or rather international partnership - began, just as it did over a thousand years ago when Pope Urban rallied secular military support for his crusade to retake the Holy Land. It felt good, Leo, reflected, to once again flex the Vatican's muscles and to reestablish its long dormant geopolitical power.  

When once asked about the opposition of the Catholic Church to atheistic communism, Josef Stalin famously replied, 'How many divisions does the Pope have?', reminding the Vatican that its days of crusading militancy were long over; and so it was with Pope Leo who well understood that the might of the Church was no longer what it used to be, and in fact had been reduced to a kind of hopeful communitarianism which was feeling pressure not only from Islam but from evangelical Christianity. 

Pope John Paul II had been the most outspoken about the rise of Protestant fundamentalism - a facile, hysterical, faux religion based on errant ideas of personal salvation devoid of intellectual roots, logic, or the inspiration of the early Christian fathers - but no dice.  Taking Jesus as your personal savior with a few whoops and hollers was far easier than poring through Aquinas' Summa Theologica. 

And so it was with Islam - pray five times a day on a prayer mat facing Mecca and the kingdom of heaven is yours.  How could the complexity of the trinity, the duality of Christ, and scholarly Biblical exegesis compete with that?  So stopping its infectious spread was the only alternative.  Assist the Israelis to eliminate Hamas and Hezbollah, make life uncomfortable for non-compliant Muslim cultural separatists in Europe, close all Southern borders to Muslim illegal immigration, and reduce armed encampments of Iranian-supported terrorist groups to rubble. 

'What do you say, Rob...may I call you Rob?', asked the President. 'Is it a deal?', and with that an unofficial Vatican-American pact was concluded.  The Pope would toss ecumenism to the winds, admit the corrosive, pernicious nature of Islam, speak out against Muslim fundamentalism, and join political alliances with the conservative governments of Europe - just like the old days of divine and secular collaboration to advance Christianity. 

The American president would keep the pressure on Iran, denying its expanding influence in the Middle East, attacking and destroying any and all Islamic terrorism, and backing Israel in its Jewish nationalism and defiant sovereignty. 

Along with Leo's early statements in support of traditional marriage, his denial of the gender spectrum, affirmation of male-female sexuality, and reiteration of the Church's denial of homosexuality as a perversion of God's creative intention - all of which were as unequivocally stated by the American president - the Pope added a defiant No! to Islamization. 

It was the Middle Ages all over again and Catholics rejoiced in the arming of the new crusade against the Muslim invader.  Europe would once again be uniformly, proudly, and faithfully Christian and the infidel invader would be chased back to his mud and wattle Third World havens.  

Leo XIV, barely comfortable on the pontifical throne had been as revolutionary as his American secular counterpart who in his first hundred days had remade the very image of governance.  The gloves were off, Pope Urban II replaced John XXIII and Francis in the Vatican pantheon, and the new age of the Church was beginning.