Cardinal Acquits Islam, Migrants of Terror

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VIENNA (ChurchMilitant.com) - Europe's top cardinal has rejected claims blaming Islam or immigration for jihadi terrorism, even as police revealed that the 14 suspects arrested for Monday's Vienna massacre are all Muslim migrants.

In a Wednesday interview with SIR Agency, Cdl. Jean-Claude Hollerich, president of the Commission of the Episcopates of the European Union, asserted that incriminating Islam and immigration for French schoolteacher Samuel Paty's murder and recent jihadi attacks in Nice and Vienna "does not reflect the truth."

"Prophet Muhammad would have been ashamed of the attack in Nice," Hollerich said quoting the imam of Bordeaux, "recalling that Muhammad had been criticized many times during his lifetime, but he never took these criticisms seriously and was never upset."

Defending Islam's Blasphemy Law

The cardinal also backed Islam's blasphemy law prohibiting cartoons of Muhammad.

"I think there cannot be absolute freedom," he stressed, "freedom of expression must take into account other people's views, their feelings, religious beliefs in particular."

The attacks were intended to "divide Europe, strengthen the far-right and populist movements which foment division, and alienate Europe from its founding values," suggested Hollerich, the archbishop of Luxembourg.

Hollerich said there was hate against Europe because it "shows the world that extremism is meaningless; because Europe is a continent where very diverse peoples succeeded in living together, sharing common values; because we pledged to work for a European citizenship and succeeded in bringing it to completion, tearing down those national walls that divided peoples."

All Vienna Jihadis Are Migrants

However, on Friday, Austrian authorities raided and shut down two mosques in Vienna. Kujtim Fejzulai, the jihadi who shot four people, was linked to both mosques.

The Melit Ibrahim Karl Nehammer Mosque in Ottakring is said to have contributed directly to the jihadi's radicalization, while the Tewhid Mosque in Meidling under the jurisdiction of Austria's largest Islamic community organization (IGGiÖ) has been criticized for links to Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Austrian police said the Vienna attack was motivated by Muslim extremism, and Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer confirmed that all 14 individuals arrested in connection with the jihadi attacks are migrants or foreign nationals.

Academics: Migration Fuels Jihad

Academics have pointed out the egregious errors in false claims made by Abp. Hollerich regarding Muslim migrants as well as Muhammad's alleged non-violent response to those who mocked him.

The U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest in June 2016 identified 72 jihadi terrorists who had come to the United States from Muslim countries listed in President Donald Trump's immigration ban.

The Jihad Watch website has provided a detailed listing of Muslim migrants who committed terrorist acts. All the jihadis who murdered 130 people in Paris in November 2015 had recently entered Europe as refugees.

In February 2015, Islamic State (ISIS) boasted it would flood Europe with as many as 500,000 migrants. In September 2015, ISIS said that 4,000 jihadis had already entered Europe as refugees.

Islamic scholar Robert Spencer, in his latest book Mass Migration in Europe: A Model for the US?, explains how Hijrah, or migration for the purpose of Islamization, has its primary model in the migration or journey of Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina.

According to a 2017 report by the George Washington University Program on Extremism, "Austria unquestionably represents one of the European countries where, according to [Muslim] Brotherhood members themselves, the brothers felt they found a particularly favorable environment." The radical Muslim Brotherhood members are mainly Egyptian and Syrian migrants.

A Church Militant report cited Islamic texts establishing how "Muhammad retaliates with the most brutal violence against at least nine women and men who mock or insult him." Those "who were not killed repented and submitted to Islam, making Muhammad's forgiveness highly conditional."

Islam prescribes the death penalty for those who insult or mock the religion's founder following Ibn Taymiyyah's landmark legal treatise Kitāb al-ṣārim al-maslūl ʿalā shātim al-Rasūl, stipulating that anyone "who curses (sabba) the Prophet Muhammad must be killed without further recourse."

Myth: the 'Peaceful' Muslim Majority

Ruud Koopmans, professor of sociology and migration research at the Humboldt University of Berlin, also debunks Hollerich's claim of the peaceful Muslim majority. Of the 1.5 billion adult Muslims in the world, more than 50 million Muslims are willing to sanction violence, his research reveals.

Putting together vast amounts of data, Prof Koopmans concludes: "I am very conservative with my estimate of 50 million violent Muslims."

"We should therefore be much more careful about letting everyone come to Europe. This is especially true for people who come here without identification," he warns.

Meanwhile, in response to the recent jihadi attack on Nice's Notre-Dame Basilica that killed three Catholics, France's bishops cited Pope Francis' encyclical, Fratelli Tutti (All Brothers), claiming that "religions never incite war and do not encourage feelings of hatred, hostility, extremism, nor do they invite violence or bloodshed."

In 2019, Hollerich attacked "populist policies" for turning "migrants, Islam, Jews, etc." into "enemies" and playing "an infamous game with our anxieties."

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