The Savage Wars of Peace: After 11.13.15

To my brothers & sisters in Christ who insist that no refugees from the horrific violence & societal collapse in Syria should be given sanctuary in the United States due to I.S.I.L.'s boast that it would infiltrate jihadist terrorists among the refugees from Syria admitted into the nations of the European Union, allow me to pose a few interlocking question:

When St. Joseph took Mary, the Mother of God, & the infant Jesus out of Judea & fled to Egypt to avoid King Herod's massacre of all boys aged two & under in Bethlehem & its vicinity (Mathew, 2:13-18), should the Egyptians have refused to grant Jesus, Mary, & Joseph sanctuary? After all, Jesus, Mary, & Joseph were Jews just as Herod & his murderous minions were Jews. Thus, just you say all refugees from Syria should be refused sanctuary because some of the Paris jihadists had spent time in Syria, could not the Egyptians have reasonably used the very violence the Holy Family were fleeing as evidence that Jews should not be admitted, lest the violence they were fleeing be exported to Egypt? Could not the Egyptians have pointed to the poor of Egypt & claimed a moral responsibility to care for them first, turning away the Holy Family, who after all were aliens & sojourners?



The Paris murderers were E.U. citizens, not refugees fleeing Syria; the cowardly killers were terrorism suspects known to E.U. domestic intelligence & police agencies, not innocents escaping the Syrian struggle 'twixt I.S.I.L.'s jihadist barbarism & the Assad regime's Ba'athist oppression. The outrage in Paris demands a revamp of internal security procedures (especially the identification & tracking of known suspects) & a renewed war to destroy I.S.I.L.'s base of operations within Iraq & Syria. Refusing sanctuary to refugees of the horrors of Syria is no cure to the radicalization of E.U. & American citizens. There are times & situations that are too violent to be survived in place; flight is then the only option to preserve life. Even Jesus the Christ, the King of the Universe whom we worshiped this past Sunday, was once a refugee. We cannot defend ourselves against I.S.I.L., al-Qaeda, & the broader radical Islamist jihadi movement by hardening our hearts against those who are fleeing the very violence the terrorists wish to wreak in our nation & our Western allies.

Commentary: The image accompanying this post comes from Amazon.com. I hope they don't mind my using it.