Pope Francis tells “no longer fertile” Europe to “ensure the acceptance of immigrants”
Source: theoccidentalobserver.net
Comment: Pope Francis seems to be in line with The Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan
It’s not every day that the Pope addresses the European Parliament (the last time was John Paul II in 1988). So the amiable Pope Francis I’s coming to give speak before the Strasbourg assembly and a to the Council of Europe (a Cold War-era pan-European institution including Russia, not an EU body) was a major event for the full house of MEPs and Eurocrats in attendance (notwithstanding the solemnity such an occasion might warrant, a number of representatives underscored their teenage-girl-like giddiness and puerility with the mandatory “selfies”).
I would argue the event was also a significant one for White Nationalists, European Identitarians and all those concerned about the future of Europeans world-wide. The Pope, as head of the Catholic Church, is a significant figure for all Europeans be they religious or not. With the formation of Christendom, the medieval Church played a critical role in religiously, culturally, legally and indeed civilizationally uniting Europeans to a significant degree (albeit incompletely, notably with the East-West schism). This unity had important practical implications: intermarriage and alliances among European aristocrats of different ethnic groups, a common elite language (Latin), the formalization and spread of the Roman custom of exogamous monogamy (in stark contrast with the Islamic World), and indeed the attempts to organize and unite Christian Europeans against the Islamic invaders (successfully in Spain, temporarily in the Holy Land, and disastrously in the Byzantine Empire).
The Pope speaks for a religious institution which at one time embodied European unity and which sought to reconcile the varying interests of our Christian Kings, just as the European Union claims to represent the European interest, with our Presidents and Prime Ministers meeting in Council. For the Pope to speak before the Union’s elected representatives and functionaries is then charged with symbolism. What will he say of the European interest?
The message was unsurprisingly largely unsatisfying, even alarming in places, although the pontiff was careful to give a “balanced” message with a bit of meat for most every constituency. In particular, Francis said on the subject of immigration:
There needs to be a united response to the question of migration. We cannot allow the Mediterranean to become a vast cemetery! The boats landing daily on the shores of Europe are filled with men and women who need acceptance and assistance. The absence of mutual support within the European Union runs the risk of encouraging particularistic solutions to the problem, solutions which fail to take into account the human dignity of immigrants, and thus contribute to slave labor and continuing social tensions. Europe will be able to confront the problems associated with immigration only if it is capable of clearly asserting its own cultural identity and enacting adequate legislation to protect the rights of European citizens and to ensure the acceptance of immigrants. Only if it is capable of adopting fair, courageous and realistic policies which can assist the countries of origin in their own social and political development and in their efforts to resolve internal conflicts – the principal cause of this phenomenon – rather than adopting policies motivated by self-interest, which increase and feed such conflicts. We need to take action against the causes and not only the effects. [my emphasis]
Francis’s message thus bordered on contradiction: Europeans must be able to “assert their cultural identity” while “ensur[ing] the acceptance of immigrants” who are clearly a threat to it. He also urged tackling economic and political problems (one would be tempted to add Western-stoked wars in Libya and Syria) that are causing immigration, to which I think every good European nationalist would agree.
Francis returned to this theme in the second speech:
Similarly, the contemporary world offers a number of other challenges requiring careful study and a common commitment, beginning with the welcoming of migrants, who immediately require the essentials of subsistence, but more importantly a recognition of their dignity as persons.
He added that “awareness of one’s own identity” is necessary for good dialogue with candidate EU countries in the Balkans or with the Islamic countries of the Mediterranean.
The message was received by the Parliament’s mainstream representatives as a call to soften immigration policy. The Socialists & Democrats (representing center-left socialist and social-democratic parties, e.g. Britain’s Labour Party) interpreted this as meaning that Europeans “must step up their efforts to reinforce the humanitarian element of EU migration policies by ensuring effective legal and safe routes to Europe.” They added words echoing the phraseology of the U.S. debate: “The thousands of deaths every year remind us just how broken Europe’s system of dealing with refugees really is.”
Meanwhile the center-right European People’s Party (the biggest group, representing mainstream conservatives and Christian-Democrats) said it would “make every effort to apply Pope Francis’ advice on EU immigration policy.” They were not very specific however, urging a reduction in poverty and “that Europe must reconcile the rights of European citizens with the dignified reception of immigrants” in line with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Even the French National Front (FN) reacted relatively positively, admittedly in the person of the impeccable bourgeois Catholic Bruno Gollnisch:
On immigration, who could object to the affirmation that we cannot resign ourselves to the Mediterranean becoming a cemetery? But here too the message, firm on the duty to receive, is extremely balanced: more than the effects, he said, one must attack the causes, among which underdevelopment and conflicts in the Mediterranean which have (unfortunately with our participation) destabilized the States of origin.
Gollnisch also welcomed the defense of spirituality, the family and “the devastating effects of a globalized, purely materialist economy.” In any case, old guard of FN leaders, having the Right’s traditional respect for hierarchy and authority, probably don’t believe it is their place to criticize the head of the Catholic Church.
We would have to agree with Francis’ assessment that Europe today is basically a dying continent. He didn’t pronounce the word “senile” although he may as well have:
In many quarters we encounter a general impression of weariness and aging, of a Europe which is now a “grandmother”, no longer fertile and vibrant. As a result, the great ideas which once inspired Europe seem to have lost their attraction, only to be replaced by the bureaucratic technicalities of its institutions. [my emphasis]
One hopes he does not believe immigration would contribute to making Europe more “fertile and vibrant”! It is likely his words will only be interpreted metaphorically. More generally, it is astounding how much the continent’s elites are dedicating their political and cultural energies to “free trade,” climate change or empowering EU institutions — these goals being pursued with the fervor of a moral panic, as though they were panaceas to what ails us. In contrast, there is little effort to mobilize society to fight against low fertility so as to avoid the fundamental, intractable problems associated with it. All the economic and political fiddling in the world is pointless if the biological basis of society is collapsing.
Read the rest at: theoccidentalobserver.net
