The Michael Knowles Show


The Hidden War On Christians ｜ Fr. Kiely & Michael Knowles


Summary

In our modern culture, people like to play a game of victimhood and oppression and persecution. Virtually none of them have ever faced any legitimate persecution or suffering in their lives. There is an objective answer, though: to which groups are more and less persecuted than others, legally, socially, violently? And it is simply a fact borne out by all survey data and all of history that Christians are the most persecuted group in the world. Ironically, this is the group that we are told is the least persecuted of all.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 In our modern culture, people like to play a game of victimhood and oppression and persecution.
00:00:21.000 It seems that everyone has a persecution complex these days.
00:00:25.400 Virtually none of them have ever faced any legitimate persecution or suffering in their lives.
00:00:30.100 There is an objective answer, though, to which groups are more and less persecuted than others, legally, socially, violently.
00:00:39.500 And it is simply a fact borne out by all survey data and all of history that Christians are the most persecuted group in the world.
00:00:48.680 Ironically, this is the group that we are told is the least persecuted of all.
00:00:53.740 I am so pleased to be joined by my friend, Fr. Benedict Keeley, the leader of Nazarean.org.
00:01:00.960 N-A-S-A-R-E-A-N.org.
00:01:05.060 There are some other groups that have different names, I think one of which is led by our friend Glenn Beck.
00:01:08.280 Nazarean.org.
00:01:10.460 Fr. Keeley, you've visited Iraq something like nine times.
00:01:15.140 And you've written and been very focused on and dedicated shrines to persecuted Christians in the Middle East.
00:01:21.700 Last time we spoke, we talked about what was going on in Armenia.
00:01:25.660 We've talked about what was going on in the Levant.
00:01:27.780 Since I last saw you, I'm sorry to say, there was a terrible attack on Christians on Christmas Day in Nigeria.
00:01:36.020 And yet the media have barely talked about it.
00:01:38.700 Strangely, thank you again, Michael, for having me.
00:01:40.980 Strangely, we're told, and rightly so, black lives matter.
00:01:44.460 But apparently black Christian lives, black Nigerian lives don't matter at all.
00:01:48.900 In the year 2021 to 2022, more than 7,000 Nigerian Christians were martyred, men, women, and children.
00:02:00.260 Over Christmas, at least 200 Christians were martyred.
00:02:05.020 Martyred being the operative word.
00:02:06.960 They were murdered because they were Christians.
00:02:08.720 They were murdered in churches, churches burnt down, not covered in the media at all.
00:02:15.220 If covered, I remember when I was on your show before, we spoke about a previous occasion when it's alleged that this happens because of climate change.
00:02:25.420 But it's nothing to do with climate change.
00:02:28.520 The Christians are being attacked by Islamists.
00:02:31.720 But it's not just Nigeria.
00:02:33.500 It's exponential across Africa, the persecution of Christians.
00:02:37.000 It is almost the epicenter now of Christian persecution, not covered by the media at all, except by you.
00:02:43.340 So when, thank you very much, and I'm so pleased we have this opportunity.
00:02:48.260 Because as people might understand from your accent, you're not originally from Tennessee.
00:02:53.540 It's more, was it Kentucky or Alabama?
00:02:56.260 Perhaps people spoke like this maybe 200 or 300 years ago.
00:02:59.380 That's true.
00:02:59.880 It's changed since then.
00:03:01.620 But you go all over the world and call attention to this.
00:03:07.660 When did Africa become the epicenter of persecution of Christians?
00:03:12.460 Well, if we want to be historical, we can go back maybe 1,700 or 1,800 years, we think of the great martyrs of Africa.
00:03:21.200 But no, this has all happened with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism over the last 10, 15 years or so.
00:03:28.020 It's been growing and growing, sponsored in the past by Saudi Arabian, the Wahhabists.
00:03:34.380 And ISIS is very large in Africa, under different names.
00:03:40.140 We've heard before about the death of ISIS, the defeat of ISIS.
00:03:44.700 The caliphate was defeated in Iraq, but not ISIS.
00:03:50.500 ISIS is very large in Africa, different groups.
00:03:53.200 ISIS in sub-Saharan Africa, they have names like that.
00:03:56.400 And they are sweeping across Africa, being armed by different countries.
00:04:03.060 It's very, very, very serious.
00:04:05.820 And it's a threat to actually the stability of Africa, which is why I would imagine Western governments would be interested.
00:04:12.220 But they seem to be pulling out.
00:04:14.140 In fact, France has just pulled out of, I think, Chad and Mali.
00:04:18.820 The Hungarian government, interestingly enough, is actually sending some troops to Chad and Mali.
00:04:25.960 The Hungarian government is, I always do a little plug for the Hungarians, even though they're not very popular in some.
00:04:31.300 The Hungarian government is the only government in the entire world that has a specific government ministry for persecuted Christians.
00:04:40.280 It's actually called the State Secretariat for Persecuted Christians, not the State Secretariat for Diversity or Inclusivity or Various Rights.
00:04:51.660 It's called the State Secretariat for Persecuted Christians.
00:04:55.480 And they've been working since 2016, the only government in the world, to help persecuted Christians.
00:05:02.520 So I always have to give them a little plug because they're doing such good work.
00:05:05.340 Last time when we spoke about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict of the Azerbaijanis attacking the Armenian Christians, oldest Christian nation in the world,
00:05:14.680 I discussed it on the show and I said, I think the United States has some interest here in protecting Armenia from just a pure realpolitik standpoint,
00:05:25.040 but also from a matter of Christian solidarity.
00:05:27.640 If we are the world police, if we are the global empire and the undisputed for now hegemon,
00:05:33.480 then we're a Christian nation and they're a Christian nation and we ought to have a little bit of solidarity.
00:05:37.960 And I was assailed from all sides for suggesting, one, that America is a Christian nation,
00:05:43.900 and two, that we ought to have solidarity with Christians at all, forget in particular, at all whatsoever.
00:05:50.240 This strikes me as very, very strange, and I can't quite tell when it began that we would intentionally neglect our fellow members of the body of Christ,
00:06:03.540 the faith that built the civilization.
00:06:05.280 Christians would believe that, but I fear, unfortunately, I can see why you were assailed perhaps in the first instance,
00:06:13.180 because we know that the present administration, this is not being party political, unfortunately, it's a reality.
00:06:21.420 The previous administration, we won't mention the name, but the previous administration was extremely positive towards persecuted Christians,
00:06:30.800 large amounts of help, literally, I know this as a fact, on the day that the present administration took over,
00:06:37.180 for example, a very large amount of money was due to go to Nigeria, Nigeria itself, to help persecuted Christians,
00:06:44.340 that was stopped immediately, all aid, basically, to persecuted Christians across the world.
00:06:50.620 This was a policy decision.
00:06:52.580 I was in Iraq in 2016-17, right before the election, and one of the, it was almost a joke,
00:07:00.980 we were asking people in the camps, who would you like to be the president of the United States?
00:07:07.760 And everyone, well, Trump, we love Trump.
00:07:10.140 Everyone, we in fact filmed it, and a friend sent it to the president.
00:07:16.000 White House.
00:07:18.100 And they said, because this, the Biden administration had done nothing,
00:07:22.420 but this present administration, sorry, the Obama administration,
00:07:25.720 this present administration, has made a policy decision, apparently.
00:07:31.120 Christians are a non-tolerated group.
00:07:35.520 If there's someone, a poor individual, a transsexual, that had a bad hair day in Kazakhstan,
00:07:43.080 there would have been probably a debate at the United Nations.
00:07:46.720 You'd have a whole delegation?
00:07:48.240 Money, money would flow in.
00:07:50.100 Yeah.
00:07:50.280 But, no, thousands and thousands, but also, sadly, when we are talking about rail politic,
00:07:56.640 you talk about Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan has oil, Nigeria has vast amounts of oil.
00:08:03.060 When you're dealing with trade, trade and aid, I always say we can make a difference
00:08:06.940 if we actually bring up trade and aid in terms of helping people who are being persecuted.
00:08:12.940 If governments had some moral strength, some moral probity, intestinal fortitude, perhaps,
00:08:20.420 Christian intestinal fortitude, they would say,
00:08:23.020 and tell you, if you stop persecuting Christians, then we will trade with you.
00:08:27.240 If not, but that's never part of the deal.
00:08:30.040 If you have nothing, I suppose, then maybe they can do some work with them,
00:08:34.240 but these places have oil.
00:08:36.100 That's one of the big things.
00:08:36.960 I have no problem, in principle, with the United States being involved around the world.
00:08:43.520 In fact, it seems to me that great nations always are involved around the world,
00:08:46.500 and even mid-size and not-so-great nations are involved around the world
00:08:49.560 because man is a social creature.
00:08:52.200 But there are a lot of conservatives who say,
00:08:54.520 enough, we're funding the whole world, we're rich Uncle Pennybags here,
00:08:59.020 and we don't really know what our interests are, and it's ridiculous,
00:09:02.020 and we want to just focus on the home front.
00:09:03.880 And I wonder how much of that is because foreign aid and even wars of intervention
00:09:10.840 today are focused on raising a pride flag in Kandahar,
00:09:14.980 which I have no interest in doing.
00:09:16.600 I don't want my tax dollars to do it.
00:09:18.040 I don't want a single U.S. soldier to be put in harm's way for that dubious goal.
00:09:22.260 If, however, we're discussing real questions of American interest,
00:09:27.120 Western interest, and solidarity with our fellow Christians around the world,
00:09:31.940 that would seem like the sort of involvement that would interest many,
00:09:39.460 many more Americans who are skeptical of American intervention.
00:09:43.300 We're looking at what the great Cardinal Serra from Africa called a new form of colonialism,
00:09:49.260 that the Western ideology, the LGBTQ multiple letters ideology,
00:09:55.660 is being pushed on Africa.
00:09:58.040 Aid will only come if they...
00:09:58.940 And they say, we don't want this.
00:10:00.720 This is a new form of colonialism.
00:10:03.040 Again, it's also not necessarily about putting troops...
00:10:05.960 I can understand that.
00:10:07.260 Putting troops on the ground caused half this problem back in 2003,
00:10:11.960 certainly for the Middle East and in other places.
00:10:14.420 But it is...
00:10:15.800 Well, either...
00:10:16.640 Back to your earlier question,
00:10:18.360 either America is a Christian nation or not,
00:10:20.560 if, though, sadly, it appears that more and more people,
00:10:24.580 especially younger people in the West,
00:10:26.320 are beginning to hate their own heritage,
00:10:28.740 then they're not going to be supporting this.
00:10:32.200 And let's be honest, Michael,
00:10:33.840 a lot of people see the church as the enemy, ultimately,
00:10:38.300 because of issues like human sexuality.
00:10:40.780 We are bigots.
00:10:42.160 So why support bigots in another country?
00:10:44.420 Why help them?
00:10:45.300 They probably deserve it.
00:10:46.280 I was actually told, I was told by a journalist
00:10:49.780 from a very senior organization
00:10:53.100 that Christians deserved what they were getting in these countries.
00:10:58.500 It was quite an extraordinary moment to be told that.
00:11:01.740 That's what we're dealing with.
00:11:03.040 We're dealing with that kind of ideology
00:11:04.920 that's not just in the media,
00:11:06.400 but as we know is in academia and in government.
00:11:10.740 You mentioned Cardinal Sarah,
00:11:12.340 who many American and Western conservative Catholics just adore.
00:11:18.400 And he is certainly more conservative
00:11:20.820 than other bishops and cardinals these days
00:11:23.580 and a wonderful defender of the faith.
00:11:25.940 He wrote a book with the late Pope Benedict XVI.
00:11:29.360 And anyway, he's just a great guy.
00:11:31.640 I can't help but notice that even as the European
00:11:34.660 and many American bishops seem to embrace
00:11:38.300 or accidentally embrace or just all sorts of crazy things,
00:11:42.660 modern sexuality and the global warming stuff
00:11:45.900 and mass migration and things that really have no place
00:11:47.960 in the Catholic tradition.
00:11:49.780 It is the African bishops and the African cardinals
00:11:52.520 who are standing up against that.
00:11:55.600 How did we come to that situation?
00:11:56.800 Well, the family is still intact in Africa.
00:12:00.540 I think this is where,
00:12:01.700 if you want to get down to the essentials,
00:12:03.240 we know in the West the attack on the family has been,
00:12:08.740 that's almost the epicenter of the ideology.
00:12:12.300 And as the family has been destroyed
00:12:13.940 and alternative visions of the family have been created.
00:12:18.380 But in Africa, the family and the wider family
00:12:20.780 is still very strong.
00:12:22.440 And so a seeming attack blessed by the church
00:12:27.720 on the family and the institution of the family
00:12:29.780 is being resisted.
00:12:30.780 And we have to say God bless them
00:12:32.900 because maybe they will be the saviors
00:12:35.980 of Western Christianity in the end.
00:12:38.960 We know in America and in Europe,
00:12:41.580 we have many priests now from Africa.
00:12:45.340 And they were so,
00:12:45.920 it's because we brought the gospel to them,
00:12:47.840 so they brought the gospel back to us.
00:12:49.560 But no, actually they're,
00:12:50.540 obviously they're coming
00:12:51.080 because we haven't got enough priests,
00:12:52.420 but they usually preach with some force
00:12:55.660 and some vigor.
00:12:56.640 And usually they can't be attacked
00:13:00.760 because of their skin color,
00:13:02.160 which is rather helpful.
00:13:04.380 So no, God bless the Africans.
00:13:06.260 I'm very encouraged by what's been happening.
00:13:09.540 I read some really depressing statistics the other day
00:13:12.460 on not just how modern people think about the family
00:13:15.740 and sexuality and everything you just mentioned,
00:13:17.980 but how Catholics view it.
00:13:19.400 Most American Catholics support contraception.
00:13:25.160 Most American Catholics support so-called same-sex marriage.
00:13:28.860 Most American Catholics reject
00:13:30.700 the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church
00:13:33.800 on matters that get to the very core
00:13:36.880 of the human person
00:13:37.580 and the fundamental political institution.
00:13:41.760 And not even small numbers.
00:13:43.000 We're talking like 69%,
00:13:44.640 89% in some cases support these things.
00:13:49.000 One, how do you reconcile
00:13:51.500 that apparent contradiction?
00:13:52.840 And two, is there any hope to do anything about it?
00:13:56.540 Most American Catholics are not well catechized,
00:14:00.300 as are most English Catholics,
00:14:02.100 as are most European.
00:14:03.460 I'm 60 years old.
00:14:04.980 My generation, before me,
00:14:07.540 down now, three generations,
00:14:09.440 Pope Benedict himself said,
00:14:11.180 we're not catechized.
00:14:12.560 So it's no surprise.
00:14:15.840 Is there hope?
00:14:17.680 Yes, I think there's great hope
00:14:18.740 because the younger generation,
00:14:20.200 certainly, especially in the United States,
00:14:22.220 coming out of some of these great Catholic colleges,
00:14:24.720 Steubenville, Christendom, Ivermurria,
00:14:28.000 are producing really wonderful young people
00:14:30.580 who love the church for all its faults,
00:14:34.200 who want to have marriages,
00:14:36.380 want to have lots of children.
00:14:37.880 It's a great hope.
00:14:39.220 We just have to go through the winter of discontent,
00:14:43.200 as we might say,
00:14:44.340 and a rather aging clergy
00:14:46.400 who still think that flared trousers
00:14:49.740 are the latest rage.
00:14:51.480 Once they depart,
00:14:53.200 then we, younger priests,
00:14:55.580 are tending to be more,
00:14:57.380 I don't like the use of the word
00:14:58.740 conservative or political.
00:15:00.880 I use heterodox or orthodox.
00:15:02.960 Orthodox priests who believe
00:15:04.840 in the teaching of the church,
00:15:06.060 and happy, being happy Catholics,
00:15:09.380 not happy, clappy Catholics,
00:15:11.700 but happy Catholics who love the faith.
00:15:14.600 We're in a very hard time.
00:15:16.700 And you know as a layman,
00:15:17.920 I know as a priest,
00:15:19.180 it's an extremely hard time
00:15:20.880 when the leadership of the church,
00:15:24.280 I'm reminded of Belloc's quote
00:15:26.760 about imbecilic knaves,
00:15:29.380 but no merely human institution
00:15:33.360 conducted with such knavish imbecility
00:15:35.540 would have lasted a fortnight.
00:15:36.440 Exactly.
00:15:37.080 And there are a few of them around at the moment.
00:15:39.380 And we have to get through this,
00:15:41.200 but we have to hold on
00:15:42.160 and be happy and love our faith
00:15:44.300 and be joyful.
00:15:46.560 And I think there's great hope.
00:15:48.780 But at the moment,
00:15:49.400 the ship is,
00:15:50.060 I think of a friend of mine
00:15:51.580 who was received into the church last year,
00:15:54.220 and I preached at her reception,
00:15:56.560 quoting Cardinal Newman,
00:15:57.700 St. John Henry Newman,
00:15:58.560 who said when he became a Catholic
00:16:00.440 that he felt like he was a ship
00:16:03.000 coming into port after a heavy storm.
00:16:06.060 And I said to her,
00:16:07.400 you're going out of the port
00:16:09.760 into the storm now,
00:16:11.040 becoming a Catholic.
00:16:12.260 So it's rather exciting, actually,
00:16:14.100 that people are still becoming Catholic
00:16:15.500 when you think,
00:16:16.400 what on earth are you doing that for?
00:16:18.040 You know, I see it,
00:16:19.580 especially among young people,
00:16:21.220 a lot of people returning to religion
00:16:23.660 in any form,
00:16:26.160 and specifically to Christianity
00:16:27.680 and specifically to Catholicism.
00:16:29.600 And you're seeing
00:16:30.740 a vibrant intellectual movement.
00:16:32.840 It's wonderful.
00:16:35.760 And yet,
00:16:36.300 the people who run the society
00:16:37.560 seem to be moving
00:16:40.200 in the other direction.
00:16:41.080 You're seeing a big push
00:16:42.040 to persecute Christians,
00:16:45.120 violently in some cases,
00:16:46.180 just legally,
00:16:46.940 you know,
00:16:47.200 in the United States and Canada,
00:16:48.600 America's evil top hat.
00:16:49.480 And you're seeing a push
00:16:52.160 to break up the family
00:16:54.980 and to question
00:16:56.120 what a human person is
00:16:57.100 and to meld us with robots
00:16:58.240 and to live forever.
00:16:59.340 And this is what's so strange about it,
00:17:01.380 is the way that they speak,
00:17:04.340 they sound like they're seeking
00:17:05.700 religious goals.
00:17:06.500 When they say,
00:17:07.460 man is going to cease
00:17:09.120 to be homo sapiens,
00:17:09.980 he's going to be homo deus.
00:17:11.360 We are going to cure death.
00:17:13.060 We're going to live forever.
00:17:14.700 We're going to be immortal.
00:17:17.080 We're going to have fame.
00:17:18.020 Our legacy will live on.
00:17:19.640 And these are people who
00:17:20.640 don't get married,
00:17:22.740 don't have children.
00:17:24.120 They have dogs, though.
00:17:25.060 They do have dogs.
00:17:26.340 They do have dogs.
00:17:26.900 Two of them, even.
00:17:27.720 That's right.
00:17:28.200 Sometimes in a stroller,
00:17:29.320 in a little carrier.
00:17:30.240 They love that.
00:17:31.400 But I think,
00:17:32.300 well, the easiest way
00:17:33.000 for you to have a legacy
00:17:33.900 and to have immortality,
00:17:35.500 the easiest way
00:17:36.080 to have immortality
00:17:36.840 is to know God
00:17:37.920 and love Him.
00:17:39.720 God sent His only begotten Son
00:17:41.000 so that whoever believes in Him
00:17:41.820 might not perish
00:17:42.220 but have everlasting life.
00:17:43.140 That's a good way to do it.
00:17:44.580 And the easiest way
00:17:45.560 to have a legacy
00:17:45.960 is to have children
00:17:46.600 and have a lot of them.
00:17:47.380 And then you have
00:17:47.980 a living legacy
00:17:48.640 and the very thing
00:17:49.760 that would give them
00:17:50.220 what they seek,
00:17:51.360 they do the opposite of.
00:17:52.820 I remember reading
00:17:53.920 an interview with the,
00:17:55.440 I'm pushing Hungary again,
00:17:56.600 but the president of Hungary,
00:17:58.200 Katalin Novak,
00:17:58.920 is a wonderful woman.
00:18:00.060 Hungary has a great policy
00:18:01.360 of helping families now.
00:18:03.820 No income tax
00:18:04.960 after three children.
00:18:06.220 Imagine if a politician
00:18:07.240 here ran with that.
00:18:08.360 You won't pay income tax
00:18:09.680 if you have more
00:18:10.160 than three children.
00:18:10.820 Sign me up.
00:18:11.260 But President Novak
00:18:12.340 said at one point last year,
00:18:14.460 because people are saying,
00:18:15.980 oh, don't have children
00:18:16.780 for the environment.
00:18:18.480 And she said,
00:18:18.900 well, who's it for then?
00:18:20.820 In a hundred years,
00:18:21.720 is it for the apes
00:18:22.720 or the ants or something?
00:18:23.940 It's for our children.
00:18:25.500 But actually,
00:18:26.160 you hit,
00:18:26.720 to be more serious though,
00:18:27.980 you hit something essential.
00:18:30.580 We are,
00:18:31.080 and I think we have
00:18:31.660 to use the word,
00:18:32.420 I read a marvelous article
00:18:33.440 recently by a man
00:18:34.620 called Mark Dooley,
00:18:35.780 who is a philosopher.
00:18:37.020 He actually is the great expert
00:18:39.820 on Sir Roger Scruton.
00:18:41.420 And he wrote a piece
00:18:42.940 in the European Conservative
00:18:44.460 last fall,
00:18:46.120 basically saying,
00:18:47.340 we talk about a culture war.
00:18:50.420 He said,
00:18:50.660 that implies there are two cultures.
00:18:52.940 He said,
00:18:53.740 and I think it's really profound.
00:18:55.200 He said,
00:18:55.960 no,
00:18:56.480 there are not two cultures.
00:18:57.440 There's one culture,
00:18:58.940 the culture of the West,
00:19:00.260 a culture from a cultus,
00:19:02.160 worship.
00:19:03.560 He said,
00:19:03.940 it's about good and evil.
00:19:05.580 And we've got to actually
00:19:06.480 draw this conclusion
00:19:07.800 and speak the truth in love.
00:19:09.380 It's about good and evil.
00:19:10.740 It's not calling
00:19:11.700 the people themselves evil,
00:19:13.660 but the philosophy
00:19:14.640 that's being promoted,
00:19:15.640 you were talking about
00:19:16.400 melding humans and machines,
00:19:18.500 the attack on the personhood,
00:19:20.120 the attack on children,
00:19:22.080 that you can be
00:19:22.800 whatever you want to be.
00:19:24.040 No,
00:19:24.220 you can't be.
00:19:25.180 He actually said,
00:19:25.920 it's sort of reverse
00:19:26.980 of being all things in Christ.
00:19:30.020 You can create yourself,
00:19:32.100 the attack on children,
00:19:33.540 the sexualization of children,
00:19:35.500 the attack on the family.
00:19:36.960 He said,
00:19:37.320 we must call it what it is.
00:19:38.320 This is evil.
00:19:39.620 And I know people will respond
00:19:40.820 sometimes with horror.
00:19:42.360 How can you Christians say that?
00:19:44.240 But no,
00:19:44.560 it's a fight now.
00:19:45.500 It's really,
00:19:46.580 we spoke before
00:19:47.660 about picking a side.
00:19:49.120 Actually,
00:19:49.380 we've really got to be on
00:19:50.220 one side or the other.
00:19:52.040 And it's a battle.
00:19:54.060 St. Paul spoke about it.
00:19:55.140 It's about spiritual realities,
00:19:57.640 powers and principalities.
00:19:59.620 And evil is very active
00:20:01.320 in the world today.
00:20:02.560 So we better be armed with,
00:20:04.080 as scripture says,
00:20:04.820 all the weapons of faith.
00:20:07.060 I love the idea
00:20:08.900 of picking a side
00:20:09.600 because if you stand
00:20:10.640 in the middle of the road,
00:20:12.020 you will be hit by a truck.
00:20:14.020 Well,
00:20:14.180 the sitting on the fence
00:20:15.200 is also rather uncomfortable.
00:20:17.800 It is.
00:20:18.800 You're right.
00:20:19.820 Father Keeley,
00:20:20.880 thank you so much,
00:20:22.200 as always,
00:20:22.520 for coming in.
00:20:23.400 And I look forward
00:20:24.260 to the next time
00:20:24.920 that we can drag you back
00:20:26.260 from that island over there
00:20:27.440 to Tennessee.
00:20:29.400 Thank you, Michael.