In Sweden great commotion

In fact it is one city – Vaxjo, where in the local Catholic church of St. Michael, it has been forbidden by the authorities for many years to ring bells. Probably they are too loud and disturb inhabitants. Recently the bells, silent by law, have aroused emotions again, due to the Muslim society. For it gained a consent to call Islam followers for prayer through a loudspeaker. To make it more astonishing, there is a fact that the ‘lucky’ minaret is near the afore-mentioned church. What is peculiar, the Muslims compared the call from the minaret for permission to use the loudspeaker to a prayer of church bells. They would get the permission, but the Catholics – not. It is happening in Europe, the membership country of the EU. One would feel like asking the question: Where is the European Commission? Where is the Commission of Civilian Freedoms, Justice and Inner Matters of our euro-parliament? Silence. Mr. Juncker, Mr. Timmermans, Mr. Verhofstadt do not see the problem. More or less at the same time the chief of the European Commission was celebrating the full anniversary of Karol Marx’s birth in Trewir. As we know, religion for the creator of ‘communist Manifest’ was ‘the opium for people’, and for its heir Włodzimierz Lenin – ‘spiritual oppression’. Both of them wanted to free people from this ‘addiction’ and ‘oppression’. After the outbreak of the revolution in 1917, the communists began to fight Church drastically, particularly the Orthodox Church. Teaching religion was forbidden, Orthodox holidays were removed from the Gregorian calendar, some churches were blown up, others were changed into museums or cinemas. Those in which people were still praying, underwent various restrictions, for example, in 1930 the prohibition of ringing bells was introduced, justified as follows: ‘not to wake up working people’. Dozens of years passed and it turns out that like in Soviet Russia, also now churches are being changed into concert halls and museums, some of them are being pulled down (for example, Holland, Germany), and in still functioning ones ringing bells are still disturbing. And not only them. A few years ago the European Commission edited a calendar assigned for the youth in the whole European Union, in which a lot of holidays were marked, among the others, the Day of Light of the Sikhs and Indians, the Jewish New Year and Halloween. What is peculiar – neither Christmas nor Easter was marked in it, or the All Saints’ Day or any other Christian holiday. In important EU documents there is no place for a reference to God, respecting Christian values, whereas communist and neo-communist trends are promoted in them. So, isn’t it the last bell ring for ringing bells that we must return to normality, that Europe was and is still Christian? Briefly speaking – ‘Europa Christi’.

Translated by Aneta Amrozik

Niedziela 22/2018 (3 VI 2018)

Editor: Tygodnik Katolicki "Niedziela", ul. 3 Maja 12, 42-200 Czestochowa, Polska
Editor-in-chief: Fr Jaroslaw Grabowski • E-mail: redakcja@niedziela.pl