The Social World

Tag: Christianity

  • Yes, Europe’s civilization is being erased

    Yes, Europe’s civilization is being erased

    Last week the Trump administration expressed its fear that Europe faces “civilizational erasure.” Its concern was articulated in a 33-page National Security Strategy that outlined Donald Trump’s world view and how America will respond economically and militarily.

    The sentence that caused the most reaction on the other side of the pond was the assertion that, if current trends continue, Europe will be “unrecognizable in 20 years or less.” Those trends are mass immigration and what conservative French commentators call the “Islamification” of Europe. If Europe doesn’t address these trends, the Trump administration predicts the continent’s “civilizational erasure.”

    Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul issued a tetchy response to the Security Strategy report, claiming his country does not need “outside advice.” Is he sure about that? Last year the chief of police in Berlin, Barbara Slowik, warned Jews and gays to hide their identity in the city’s “Arab neighborhoods.” In France, Jews have been leaving the country in large numbers: 60,000 between 2000 and 2020, which is more than ten percent of the French Jewish community. Since 2023, acts of anti-Semitism have soared by 300 percent, including the burning of synagogues and the beatings of rabbis.

    The “civilizational erasure” is also to a large extent self-inflicted, and it is particularly noticeable at this time of year. One of the most famous Christmas markets in Paris is in La Défense, which this year is offering Halal meat in its festive delicacies. For the left, this is celebrating diversity. They take a different view, however, about those right-run towns which have the cheek to display a nativity scene in their town hall. In these cases such overt signs of Christianity are a breach of France’s laïcité or secularism.

    Similarly, the left in France support the wearing of Islamic garments, such as the hijab or the full-length abaya, as liberating. Those who object on the grounds of laïcité are labeled “Islamophobic.”

    Arguably, nothing symbolizes the “Islamification” of Europe more than the hijab. In Iran young women risk their lives for the right not to wear one. In western Europe it is almost de rigueur. The hijab is becoming more and more popular among young French Muslims: in 2003, just 16 percent of under-25s wore the Islamic headscarf, a figure that today is 45 percent. Last week one police force in England proudly displayed its new “quick-release” hijab for female officers.

    For the moment, British people can still question the wisdom of allowing its police officers to wear hijabs, but the Labour government is expected to soon introduce new “Islamophobia” laws that will criminalize criticism of Islam.

    In Brussels, a Muslim city councilor recently declared that Belgians who object to women wearing the hijab should go and live somewhere else. The same city last week unveiled its traditional nativity scene in its historic market square. There is a difference this year: the Holy family have no faces and it’s been suggested this is not to offend followers of Islam where it is not permitted to show the faces of the prophets. Fifty-two percent of Brussels’ schoolchildren are Muslim, 15 percent more than in London.

    The two main drivers of Europe’s Islamification are mass immigration and the Muslim Brotherhood, the nebulous Islamist organization that President Trump intends to ban. One of Europe’s leading experts on the Muslim Brotherhood is the French academic Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, who requires police protection as a result of her research. She explained in a 2023 book that “their goal isn’t to adapt Islam to Europe but to adapt Europe to Islam.” To adapt to Islam, Europe must first erase its own civilization. Which it is doing.

  • Nicki Minaj and Mike Waltz team up at the UN

    Nicki Minaj and Mike Waltz team up at the UN

    Before Nicki Minaj spoke at the United Nations today, Ambassador Mike Waltz referred to her as “the greatest female recording artist” and a “principled individual who refuses to remain silent in the face of injustice.” Adele, Beyoncé, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Barbra Streisand and many others would like to have a word with Ambassador Waltz (I hear he’s on Signal). But unlike Minaj, none of them appeared at the UN to speak out against the persecution of Christians in Nigeria.  

    “Ambassador,” Minaj wrote on X, “I am so grateful to be entrusted with an opportunity of this magnitude. I do not take it for granted. It means more than you know. The Barbz & I will never stand down in the face of injustice. We’ve been given our influence by God. There must be a bigger purpose.” 

    The event included a panel discussion, which didn’t include Minaj, moderated by Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner. Waltz appeared as part of that panel, and he also gave some opening remarks, which invoked a Nigeria torn apart by violence against Christians. “This is not random violence,” he said. “This is genocide wearing the mask of chaos.” 

    Waltz invoked the kidnapping of little girls from school, church burnings, the beheadings of pastors “for preaching the sermon on the Mount.” “We have an entire faith that’s being erased, one bullet at a time, one torched Bible at a time,” he said, which is why President Trump has declared Nigeria a country of extreme concern for violation of religious freedom. “He has reminded the world that protecting Christians is not about politics. It’s a moral duty.” 

    But Waltz knew why thousands of people were streaming a UN panel on a Tuesday afternoon, and it wasn’t to listen to him. “We’re going to hear from an especially powerful voice, a fearless advocate whose passion for justice transcends borders, and she uses her voice to defend the voiceless… She steps onto this world stage not as a celebrity, but as a witness. She uses, and has used, her influence to spotlight Nigeria’s persecuted Christian church, reaching out to her 28 million followers. Her ‘Barbz,’ as I’ve now learned.” 

    That was, of course, Nicki Minaj.  

    “Nicki,” Waltz said, “I can’t tell you how much I admire you. You’re stepping up. You’re leaning into this issue. You’ve enjoyed amazing success. And you could be sitting back just enjoying it. You could be just living the good life. But you’re coming here today, rolling up your sleeves, and let’s try to save these people. So everyone, please join me in welcoming a daughter of the Caribbean, a champion of the oppressed and a sister in Christ.”  

    Minaj wore a tasteful black pantsuit and stood at a conference-room lectern far stage right, humbly, out of the spotlight. She wasn’t there to sing “Starships” or her verse on the remix of “WAP.” “I must say,” she said, “I am very nervous.” 

    Minaj came before the United Nations, she said, “to combat extremism and to stop violence against people who want to exercise their natural right for freedom of religion or belief… we’re way beyond thinking or expecting or assuming that the person sitting next to you to needs have the exact same beliefs. We’re beyond that. That’s ridiculous.”  

    Music, she said, has taken her around the world. “I have seen how people no matter their language, culture or religion, come alive when they hear a song that touches their soul. Religious freedom means we can all can sing our faith regardless of who we are, where we live and what we believe. But today faith is under attack in way too many places. In Nigeria, way too many Christians are being targeted, driven from their homes and killed. Churches have been burned. Families have been torn apart, and entire communities live in fear constantly, simply because of how they pray.” 

    This problem, she said, demands urgent action. “Protecting Christians in Nigeria is not about taking sides or dividing people. It is about uniting humanity.”  

    Minaj looked at the audience as if to say I am serious here, people. “Nigeria is a beautiful nation with a deep faith tradition and lots of beautiful Barbz that I can’t wait to see. When one church is destroyed, everyone’s heart should break just a little bit. And the foundation of the United Nations with its core mandate to ensure peace and security should shake… 

    “Barbz, I know you’re somewhere listening. I love you so very much. You have been the ultimate light in my life and career for so long. I appreciate you, and I want to make it very clear once again that this isn’t about taking sides. This is about standing up in the face of injustice. It’s about what I’ve always stood for my entire career. And I will continue to stand for that for the rest of my life. I will care if anyone, anywhere is being persecuted for their beliefs. Thank you.” 

    The panel discussion followed. It was long, detailed and serious, and included testimony from a Christian pastor in Nigeria. But most of the online audience clicked away after Minaj finished her five minutes. The headliner had spoken, and she made her point strongly and loudly. Waltz chose his ally wisely. Nicki Minaj has a broad reach. And all true Barbz know that she doesn’t quit until she gets what she wants. 

  • Pope Leo is following in Francis’s footsteps

    Pope Leo is following in Francis’s footsteps

    Since Pope Leo XIV’s election in May, Catholics have wondered whether he would continue Pope Francis’s radical agenda or ignite a more conservative reaction. After five months, the verdict appears clear. Leo will not only promote the principal policies in Francis’s agenda, but work to solidify them. This includes suppressing traditionalist theology and liturgy while bolstering activism on the environment, migration and same-sex relationships.

    Traditionalists initially viewed Leo with hope. They noted his ability to recite the Latin Mass, his choice of papal livery favored by Pope Benedict XVI and his meeting with Cardinal Raymond Burke, who supports maintaining the Latin Mass.

    But the new pope refuses to discipline bishops who move against traditionalists. On May 23, just two weeks after Leo’s election, Bishop Michael Martin announced he would end the Latin Mass at four traditionalist parishes in his Charlotte, North Carolina, diocese. The diocese would build a centrally located chapel for the Latin Mass, a lonely new location that would create a two-hour trek for many communicants. More importantly, Catholics would not receive six of the church’s seven sacraments there.

    In Knoxville, Tennessee, Bishop James Mark Beckman went further. On October 7, he said Latin Masses would be discontinued by the end of the year.

    In July, Detroit Archbishop Edward Weisenburger made the most arbitrary move, dismissing three theologians from the archdiocese’s seminary for criticizing Pope Francis. One, Edward Peters, a renowned canon lawyer, said on X he had “retained counsel.”

    When Ralph Martin, another of the three, asked Weisenburger for an explanation, “he said he didn’t think it would be helpful to give any specifics but mentioned something about having concerns about my theological perspectives.”

    Martin, Peters and Eduardo Echeverria questioned Francis’s commitment to orthodoxy, his tendency to stir theological confusion and his refusal to confront clerical sex abuse. Weisenburger, appointed by Francis in February, supports the late pope’s stances on traditionalist worship and migration.

    Detroit’s new archbishop limited the Latin Mass to four chapels in his archdiocese and suggested “canonical penalties” – including excommunication – for Catholics who work for Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the Border Patrol, or even support harsh immigration policies.

    Leo provided the velvet glove for Weisenburger’s and Martin’s iron fists in a homily during an October 12 Mass: “Some forms of worship do not foster communion with others and can numb our hearts. In these cases, we fail to encounter the people God has placed in our lives. We fail to contribute, as Mary did, to changing the world…”

    “Changing the world” to reflect Pope Francis’s image describes Leo’s political agenda. The new pope reinforced the commitment to environmental activism while commemorating Francis’s environmentalist encyclical, Laudato si’. He also quoted Francis’s apostolic exhortation, Laudate Deum, to disparage opponents. That entreaty, said Leo, “noted that ‘some have chosen to deride’ the increasingly evident signs of climate change, to ‘ridicule those who speak of global warming’ and even to blame the poor for the very thing that affects them the most.” As part of the festivities, Leo blessed a block of ice.

    On migration, the new pope imitates Francis’s position down to the melodramatic rhetoric. In his October 5 sermon, Leo decried “the coldness of indifference” and “the stigma of discrimination” awaiting migrants with “eyes filled with anguish and hope.”

    Francis denounced “the globalization of indifference” toward migrants during a pastoral visit in 2013 to the Italian island of Lampedusa, where thousands fleeing Libya’s civil war were detained. Ten years later in Marseille, he criticized the “fanaticism of indifference” shown by European governments restricting migration. When it comes to his native land, the Chicago-born pope slammed Donald Trump’s “inhuman treatment of immigrants” being deported in an interview on September 30 and told immigration advocates visiting him on October 8 that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops must become involved: “The church cannot be silent.”

    Leo’s embrace of same-sex relationships appears similar to his predecessor’s, as he showed in late summer. On August 28, Leo met with Sister Lucía Caram, a backer of homosexual marriage. “I would be in favor of homosexuals getting married in the church because God always blesses love,” she said back in 2023.

    Three days later, Leo received the Revd James Martin, the editor-at-large of the Jesuit magazine America, founder of the Catholic LGBTQ ministry Outreach and a papal communications advisor. Martin promotes LGBTQ ideology, endorses transgender medical procedures for children and opposes biblical teaching against homosexuality.

    On X, Martin wrote he was “moved to hear the same message I heard from Pope Francis on LGBTQ Catholics, which is one of openness and welcome. For me, it was a deeply consoling meeting.”

    Then on September 6, Leo opened St. Peter’s Basilica to LGBTQ pilgrims for a Mass marking the Holy Year Jubilee. More than 1,000 pilgrims participated, with rainbow regalia everywhere. By contrast, the Vatican prohibited another Catholic organization supporting homosexuality, Dignity-USA, from the 2000 Holy Year Jubilee.

    Leo’s most important divergence concerns finances. Unlike Francis, Leo will permit outside agencies to manage the Vatican’s investments to reduce an annual deficit of between €50 million and €90 million. But that divergence generates minimal passion.

    Leo’s papal name offers insight into his agenda. When the College of Cardinals elected Jorge Bergoglio in 2013, the archbishop of Buenos Aires named himself “Francis” to honor St. Francis of Assisi. Leo was that Italian saint’s most devoted acolyte.

    This article was originally published in The Spectator’s November 10, 2025 World edition.

  • Are black-metal bands going Christian?

    Are black-metal bands going Christian?

    In his youth, Emil Lundin became obsessed with the idea of recording the world’s “most evil album.” The lanky, long-haired Swede formed a black-metal band and set to work.

    He faced an immediate obstacle. In making history’s most nefarious musical creation, he could hardly use Swedish, with its singsong tones. English was also out of the question: he didn’t want to sound like ABBA. That left Latin, the native tongue of the occult and, it is said, of demons.

    In a quest for suitably devilish lyrics, he pored over arcane texts. That led him to Latin editions of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers – badass early Christian monks – and St. Augustine’s Confessions. Before he knew it, he was sleeping on a concrete floor, rising in the night to pray and fasting until his cheekbones jutted out. Following his baptism by a Jesuit priest, he proclaimed the birth of a new musical form: Roman Catholic black metal (yet to be embraced by the Sistine Chapel choir).

    Lundin’s conversion took place before the rise of artificial intelligence. If he was trying to create an infernal album today, you could imagine him turning to AI, with its god-like powers, in search of lyrical inspiration. Researchers tell us that seekers are engaging in AI-powered explorations of the occult, using specialized assistants such as Mistral Trismegistus-7B, which can churn out instructions on palm readings, rune casting and even flying a broomstick. Others are using AI tools to discover more about Christianity, asking platforms such as ChatGPT to interpret opaque Bible verses, write tailor-made prayers and offer guidance on moral dilemmas.

    Amid this internet-enhanced spiritual ferment, with its “digital witches” and “tech Christians,” pews across the western world are filling with unexpected occupants: enthusiastic young people. According to a recent Bible Society study, they are portents of a “quiet revival” driven by Gen Z men and seen even in supposedly secular countries such as France and Finland.

    Was Lundin’s conversion a precursor of this spiritual resurgence? Did it mark a shift within the black-metal scene – the start, perhaps, of an unquiet revival?

    Dark and anarchic forms of music have long been a breeding ground for Christian converts. In heavy metal, there’s Iron Maiden drummer Nicko McBrain, who became a born-again Christian after a spiritual experience at a Florida church. Megadeth’s founder Dave Mustaine converted after stints in rehab. W.A.S.P. frontman Blackie Lawless used to wear a codpiece that shot out pyrotechnic sparks – and once malfunctioned on stage after cabin pressure had compressed the gunpowder on a transatlantic flight. Long after the burns had healed, he rediscovered his childhood faith.

    Heavy metal gave way to extreme metal, which is similar but faster, angrier and more prone to growling than singing. Its many subgenres include thrash metal, death metal, doom metal and, of course, black metal.

    Historians trace black metal back to a 1982 album of that name by Venom, who embraced satanic imagery with a theatrical flourish. The dark, aggressive sound caught on in the Nordic countries and, mysteriously, Switzerland. By the late 1980s, black metal had established its defining characteristics: anti-religious lyrics, shrieking vocals, fast guitars, relentless drumming, creepy atmospherics and lo-fi production. Frontmen wore “corpse paint” – make-up that made them look like month-old cadavers.

    Any account of the subgenre must reckon with the lurid events of the early 1990s. They revolve around a much mythologized band called Mayhem. It was formed in Oslo in 1984. One of its first members, Kittil Kittilsen, had the good sense to get out early and later became a born-again Christian. In 1991, Mayhem’s vocalist, who went by the name of Dead, committed suicide. In 1992, bassist Varg Vikernes, also called Count Grishnackh, began burning churches, claiming he was exacting revenge for Christianity’s suppression of Norwegian pagan traditions. In 1993, Vikernes murdered Mayhem’s guitarist Euronymous.

    At that stage, Mayhem still hadn’t released a full-length album. That came in 1994, with De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas (“Of the Mysteries of Lord Satan”), whose title track featured lyrics in pseudo-Latin. The cover depicted Trondheim’s ancient Nidaros Cathedral, prompting speculation that band members had intended to bomb the edifice on the album’s release date. Mayhem’s grim antics reenergized the black-metal scene, especially in the Nordic countries. But heavily sensationalized accounts of the band created a false impression that the subgenre is a teeming hotbed of criminality, rather than an uncompromisingly bleak artform favored by basement-dwelling teens.

    As Mayhem’s fame spread, an Australian musician who recorded under the name Horde made an album inspired by the band’s raw sound. Hellig Usvart (“Holy Unblack”) contained a twist: its lyrics were vigorously Christian. On tracks such as “Crush the Bloodied Horns of the Goat,” Horde sang about eviscerating a symbolic representation of Satan.

    The album scandalized black-metal fans and reputedly inspired death threats against its record label. Was this, as the Norwegian press suggested, a parody of Mayhem, or was it a sincere expression of Christian faith? The album’s creator came forward to explain that he wanted to shine a light into the “bleak, dark, hopeless, lifeless and negative void” of black metal. Horde had inadvertently created a new sub-subgenre, known as “unblack metal,” “white metal” or “Christian black metal,” often sonically indistinguishable from the original.

    That was the background against which Emil Lundin underwent his conversion. In 2014, his band Reverorum ib Malacht released the album De Mysteriis Dom Christi (“Of the Mysteries of the Lord Christ”), in a pious nod to Mayhem. After he became Catholic, Lundin feared he might be killed by an aggrieved metalhead. In reality, he faced no backlash. This suggests that, despite its violent overtones, black metal may be more genuinely inclusive than many a liberal university campus.

    Lundin came to see black metal as a form of Romanticism: a yearning for a pre-industrial world of mystery, drama and visceral emotion. The early 20th-century critic T.E. Hulme described Romanticism as “spilt religion.” Extreme metal, too, seems like a secular expression of religious instincts. Its anti-religious forms are ironically dependent on Christianity, a primary source of potent words and imagery.

    Did Lundin’s conversion trigger a wider transformation? His bandmate also became a Catholic. And other Catholic extreme metal bands followed, such as Voluntary Mortification and Erlösung (who perform a unique rendition of the hymn “Silent Night”).

    But it’s hard to discern whether this signals a genuine revival because subgenres like black metal are small, obscure and thrive underground. Reports of conversions are hard to corroborate. They may be short-lived or intended only as provocations. But one thing’s certain: there is a well-trod path from hailing Satan to saying Hail Marys.

    This article was originally published in The Spectator’s November 10, 2025 World edition.

  • How the occult captured the modern mind

    How the occult captured the modern mind

    The British science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, proposed a “law of science” in 1968: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

    Clarke’s proposition had a quality of rightness, of stating the obvious with sparkling clarity, that propelled it into dictionaries of quotations. The timing was perfect: Concorde would soon be flying over rock festivals packed with hippies obsessed with “magick.” Naturally Clarke’s readers understood the difference between aerodynamics and sky gods. But African tribesmen gawping at an early airplane, or Pacific Islanders watching an atomic explosion, could only conclude that they were witnessing a supernatural event: for them, a scientific explanation was literally inconceivable. And one day scientists might perform feats so incredible that even educated westerners would fall back on religion or the occult.

    More than half a century later, perhaps that day has arrived. The technology of artificial intelligence is now so advanced that even the people developing it are flirting with magical thinking and supernatural fantasies. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are talking in riddles that invest computers with occult significance. They are exploiting the ambiguity of the concept of artificial intelligence to revive the decades-old debate about whether AI can develop a mind of its own (a philosophical rabbit hole from which no one emerges with satisfying conclusions).

    Big Tech bosses and computer engineers are perfectly capable of distinguishing between algorithms and magic. But many of them choose not to. We’re living in strange times, weirder than the late 1960s. Digitally driven belief in the paranormal has never been so variegated, gullible – or profitable.

    Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal, is busy turning this gullibility into gold with his lectures on “the Antichrist,” a murky concept derived from strands of apocalyptic Bible prophecy and 20th-century conspiracy theories about a global elite. But his fantasies are pitched at a luxury market of investors who are convinced that their fellow global elitists are plotting to handicap or hijack the potential of AI to transform the world. How? That’s to be decided – and then revealed to the owners of private jets at an invitation-only seminar.

    Further down the food chain, technology, old-style magic and apocalyptic prophecies are combining in chaotic patterns. The number of self-identifying witches in the United States has now overtaken the number of Presbyterians, and almost all of them employ digital tools to refine their magic. They use ChatGPT and other large language models to write spells tailored to rival traditions.

    These include Wicca, a pantomime of covens and pentacles invented in the 1940s by the retired English civil servant Gerald Gardner; Astral Magery, whose mathematical formulae are supposed to harness primordial forces; and Chaos Magic, a pop-flavored postmodern take on the occult that treats beliefs as mere tools for releasing psychic energy. Then there are versions of Shamanism, Voodoo and Santeria adopted by liberal western neo-pagans who need a magic formula to banish suspicions of ‘cultural appropriation’.

    That’s where AI comes in handy. “Sometimes we don’t know what to say and need a little inspiration,” explains Dave Linabury, a veteran occult blogger and illustrator from Detroit known as “Davezilla.” ChatGPT will craft an incantation in the style of a Yoruba magician or the British occultist and sex guru Aleister Crowley, while AI will conjure up a Wiccan goddess. It’s the illustrations, incidentally, that sow discord among today’s witches: occult “content creators” are always accusing each other of infringing copyright or using AI to fake magical images.

    Davezilla is an amiable and witty fellow who might sport the bushy beard and neat hairstyle of the new breed of American traditionalist Catholic, but is in fact very witchy. To repeat, these are weird times. In a YouTube discussion with fellow magician Ivy Corvus, he explains that AI is just a tool for witches: he compares it with the huge market for astrology apps that calculate planetary positions. But then he lurches into a description of how, if you leave chatbots talking to each other for long enough, they’ll start ‘holding meditation sessions, feeling the perfect stillness’, and even he thinks that is spooky. “The dead and other spiritual entities long ago figured out how to get into televisions, radios, static… There’s no reason they can’t infiltrate the internet.”

    This is where Davezilla’s suspicions coincide with those of his sworn enemies: right-wing Christians. A month ago the maverick conservative commentator Tucker Carlson devoted an episode of his YouTube podcast to “The Occult, Kabbalah, the Antichrist’s Newest Manifestation, and How to Avoid the Mark of the Beast.” So far it has notched up 2.6 million views; rarely can so many people have been treated to such a lavish smorgasbord of conspiracy theories in just under two hours. Carlson’s interviewee, Conrad Flynn, is an authority on rock music and the occult. Now he is branching into ‘secret histories in entertainment, literature, politics and tech’.

    The discussion was one of the oddest ever hosted by Carlson, whose manic laugh unintentionally highlighted the demonic subject matter. Let’s just consider the tech component, because that’s where AI met the Antichrist. Flynn asked whether technology was creating artificial intelligence or “giving a body to a pre-existing intelligence that previously wasn’t incarnated in the physical world.” Carlson: “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. I know what I think.” Flynn followed this with a dizzying sequence of non-sequiturs, derived from the writings of the unhinged far-right British philosopher Nick Land, in which a demon summoned by Elizabeth I’s court magician John Dee traveled back to ancient Babylon and poisoned Jewish minds with the Kabbalah. This dark magic eventually fashioned AI and will soon awaken the Beast of Revelation. Carlson: “Was there any effort during the US occupation [of Iraq] to excavate Babylon? I always wondered that.”

    Probably quite a few witches have wondered the same thing, for different reasons but with the same enthusiasm for bogus history and science. Sociologists talk of a “cultic milieu” in which the radical right and radical left swap objectively false claims. In the late 20th century the apocalyptic prophecies of Christian fundamentalists found their way into bookstores where New Agers sipped herbal tea to the tinkling of wind chimes. Today, pipe-smoking Catholic and evangelical podcasters contemplate the coming techno-apocalypse while versions of this fantasy circulate among genderqueer magic-workers who sit comfortably on the far left of the Democratic party.

    What is also surprising is that computer scientists are dabbling in the cultic milieu. Some are so intoxicated by the prospect of AI abolishing poverty – or lighting an accidental nuclear holocaust – that they sound like the apostles of a new apocalyptic religion. Bear in mind that Silicon Valley occupies the corner of the US where Christianity is weakest and toxic cults have flourished since the 1960s. Most employees of tech corporations grew up without religion; many have also been force-fed eastern mysticism by bosses determined to cultivate “mindfulness” among the workforce.

    But perhaps the most significant factor is that, like hundreds of millions of people from the ages of 16 to 60, the new prophets of doom and utopia, together with the hordes of digital witches, have imbibed a popular culture saturated in fantasy fiction, movies and video games. (Google “schools of magic” and the AI overview will come up with a list borrowed from Dungeons & Dragons.) Also, the younger they are, the more likely they are to have been brainwashed by a gender ideology whose claim that humans can change biological sex invokes preposterous magic.

    Presumably, like most occult ideas, this one will eventually pass out of fashion. But, in the meantime, the rest of us have to endure the fake jollity of an ever-lengthening season of woke Halloween, demonstrating that any sufficiently advanced cultic fad is indistinguishable from hell.

  • When foreign-policy critique becomes blood libel

    When foreign-policy critique becomes blood libel

    “I’m a Christian man,” the college student at the University of Mississippi said to J.D. Vance, our future 48th (or 49th) President, during a TPUSA event attended by thousands. Uh-oh, here we go.

    “And I’m just confused why there’s this notion that we might owe Israel something… or that they’re our greatest ally or that we have to support this multi-hundred-billion-dollar foreign aid package to Israel… to quote Charlie Kirk, ‘ethnic cleansing in Gaza.’”

    That was nothing you wouldn’t hear outside of, say, Glenn Greenwald’s Twitter feed, but then it got dark. The student continued, “I’m just confused why this idea has come around considering the fact that not only does their religion not agree with ours but also openly supports the persecution of ours.”

    Judaism doesn’t support the “persecution” of Christians. The religions share half a Bible. Christianity’s savior was a Jew until the Romans murdered him. Here we go again with a foreign-policy critique turning into a disgusting blood libel.

    The audience, trained by groypers to hate Jews since childhood, roared with approval, and J.D. Vance didn’t seem willing to anger his base. “Sometimes Israel has similar interests to the United States and sometimes they don’t,” he said, as though he were talking about Almond Joy and Mounds. But sometimes you feel like a nut, and Vance said there were “significant theological differences” between Judaism and Christianity.

    Instead of adding something like “Israel is our trusted ally and Jews do not control the United States, they are a valued part of America’s rich, diverse tapestry,” Vance said, “What I’m not OK with is any country coming before the interests of American citizens. That’s what we’re going to do… I promise you.”

    And so we come to the central problem. As on the left, there’s a significant number of people on the political right who simply hate the Jews. This week, Tucker Carlson interviewed Nick Fuentes, who went on and on, as he does, about how “organized Jewry” is a threat. Tucker laughed and laughed in front of the roaring river that forms the backdrop to his online life.

    In response, Heritage Foundation President Kevin D. Roberts, who as recently as this year called anti-semitism “evil,” refused to condemn this conversation. “We won’t start canceling our own people… that includes Tucker Carlson, who remains — and always will be — a close friend of the Heritage Foundation.” He also said, “Christians can critique the state of Israel without being antisemitic. And of course anti-semitism should be condemned.”

    It should be condemned, and it often is, usually by Jews who feel the walls closing in around them. My social-media feed yesterday was full of World Series chatter, see-through Sydney Sweeney dress photos and conservative Jews saying that they feel betrayed by their political compatriots. Yesterday was a day you’ll never forget, unless you weren’t paying attention. When the left hates you and the right hates you, all that remains is vigilance. American Jews should get their passports ready. And maybe sign up for some Krav Maga.

  • The perils of Catholic social media evangelism

    The perils of Catholic social media evangelism

    Jesus, it could be reasonably observed, recruited a motley cast to serve as the first heralds of the gospel.

    An endlessly squabbling band of fishermen, with a few tax collectors and zealots thrown in, the biblical narratives have them endlessly jockeying among themselves for prominence and status before they, to a man, flee when the going gets tough and their Messiah gets arrested.

    In the two thousand years since, the Catholic Church has done its best to balance the inevitable imperfections of its messengers with the perfect truths they are supposed to announce. It’s not always an easy task – and as with so many other things, the internet has made it much more complicated. Especially because there are as many or more self-appointed evangelists as those actually commissioned by the Church to do so, and often with far less formation.

    Recently, one of the new crop of self-made and self-credentialed online evangelists appeared to flame out in grisly spectacular fashion.

    Alex Jurado, a young man with a burgeoning following for his “Voice of Reason” platform, found himself accused via several social media accounts of exchanging sexually explicit messages with a number of women and, allegedly, a 14 year-old girl – which he has vigorously denied, while acknowledging unspecified “mistakes, failures, and sins.”

    Screen shots of the supposed exchanges to one side, the details are a little murky. It’s not exactly clear when all of these exchanges were meant to have happened (if they did). In fact, it’s not immediately clear how old Jurado is himself – different reports suggest he is somewhere between 28 and 30 years old.

    For those unfamiliar with him – as I was myself – it is equally unclear what his credentials are as a professional public explainer and defender of Catholic teaching, though he claims to have spent some brief period in a seminary, at some point, somewhere.

    Other Catholic media sites have been quick to scrub guest appearances by Jurado in response to the accusations, and to distance themselves from the young man. It remains to be seen if and how his situation will resolve itself, but thus far the narrative arc is – like so many things in the online world – unique in the particulars but familiar in its outline.

    In the great before time, before social media and YouTube, before podcasts and livestreams, Catholic evangelists and apologists existed in the same kinds of gate-kept ecospheres as many other areas professional expertise: to get in front of a large audience, generally speaking some institution had to credential you and put you there.

    For Catholics, highly developed systems of doctrine, dogma and canon law favoured the ordained clergy, where most of the institutional knowledge, training and endorsement tends to be focused. And Catholics, unlike their Protestant brethren, retained an innate suspicion of anyone who showed up on the scene without an official hierarchical endorsement.

    As American TV airwaves filled with self-made televangelists in the late 20th century, flashing their Rolexes and private jets and preaching a highly lucrative vision of salvation-as-pyramid-scheme, Catholics tended to shake their heads in amusement – all the more so when these self-ordained profits of prosperity would end up flaming out in scandals of one sort or another.

    All that, though, has changed in an era of instant online celebrity and riches, where “influencing” is a big business with almost no barrier to entry. And in an age of institutional disaffiliation and suspicion, self-proclaimed experts of every variety have shot to celebrity status, opining online about everything from politics to medical science to the practice of journalism.

    Among Catholics, a new micro industry of social media celebrity evangelist-apologist-commentators has flourished, fueled by skepticism of the Church hierarchy in the wake of clerical abuse scandals on one side, and the ever advancing tide of progressive sexual, social and political mores on the other.

    Opportunities for money and sex and never far behind. A trailblazer of the online outsider Catholic persona was Michael Voris, founder of the combative Church Militant website, who pitted himself as a prophetic voice of truth and integrity against a supposedly compromised Church hierarchy and wicked secular world, before the whole project collapsed under the weight of debts, lawsuits and accusations of sexual misconduct.

    One of the more established and credible websites to distance themselves from Jurado last week, Catholic Answers, has already had to watch Patrick Coffin, previously one of its more well-known in-house personalities, depart and slide into an obsession with anti-popes and chemtrails.

    For the Church hierarchy, the phenomenon of celebrity social media Catholicism is a vexing problem. Indeed, the Church might reasonably conclude it has enough problems online with its official ministers.

    The former Bishop of Tyler, Texas, Joseph Strickland was fired by the Vatican in 2023 in no small part because of his social media posts, which increasingly catered to the bishop’s committed personal following while taking aim at the pope personally.

    The Vatican’s former ambassador to Washington, D.C., Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a quiet career Church civil servant who retired in 2016, went viral at the height of the sex abuse scandals of 2018 when he publicly accused Pope Francis of covering up for the later defrocked Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and demanding that the pope step down.

    From there, the archbishop became a fixture in the MAGA firmament, addressing “Stop the Steal” rallies after the 2020 election and hailing Donald Trump as a divinely-sent defender of Christian civilization, before deciding the Donald was soft on LGBT issues and switching his endorsement to Vladimir Putin and finally being excommunicated by the Vatican last year.

    Minnesota’s Bishop Robert Barron, whose Word on Fire media company racks up considerable digital engagement across platforms, pitches himself as a patient pastor and friendly teacher, wide open to dialogue with all comers. Yet he’s also routinely savaged as being “Trumpy” for holding the Church’s teaching on, for example, trans issues, or for failing to make immigration a front line priority.

    Social media, perhaps sadly, isn’t going anywhere. While it has become an unignorable reality, almost no one holds it out as a good thing getting better – in fact, the received wisdom is the opposite.

    But, as long as there are souls to be saved and money to be made, Catholics of all ranks and kinds will be there, bringing a fair share of scandal along with the gospel.

  • Is the religious right shifting?

    Is the religious right shifting?

    In 2021, for the first time in 1,400-odd years, Britain ceased to have a Christian majority. The United Kingdom, the political entity of which the island of Great Britain has been a part since 1801, has had its share of not-quite-Christian prime ministers over the years, with a handful of agnostics and quiet atheists. But in 2022, for the first time, the UK had a prime minister who practiced a non-Christian religion – and Hinduism had the distinction of claiming the first post-Christian head of state, Rishi Sunak.

    The West’s ethnic and religious foundations have already shifted in our great cities

    It may be some time before an American president is Hindu. Already, however, there are several prominent Hindus in the Trump orbit and near the top of the Republican party. Vivek Ramaswamy hopes to be elected governor of Ohio next year, and his ambitions don’t stop at the state level. His 2024 run for president in the GOP primaries might have been less about winning the nomination than about raising his profile by serving, at times, as a proxy for Donald Trump. But he may yet get his turn at the top of the national ticket.

    Ramaswamy is rumored to have a rivalry with J.D. Vance, the Ohio senator who became Vice-President. Vance is Trump’s political heir apparent; if he makes it to the White House, he’ll be the first Roman Catholic Republican president. His wife Usha, however, would be America’s first Hindu first lady. The Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, is the first Hindu ever to serve at the cabinet level. She had earlier, as a Democrat, been the first Hindu elected to Congress. There have been four others since then, all of them Democrats.

    The year Gabbard first won a seat in Congress – 2012 – is also the year America ceased to have a Protestant majority, according to findings by the Pew Research Center. That was chiefly because of the rise of “nones” – Americans with no religious affiliation, most of whom come from Christian backgrounds. But Islam, Hinduism and other faiths are growing. Only about 1 percent of Americans are Hindu. Yet that makes Hindus as numerous as Episcopalians, who were once America’s establishment (if not actually established) Christian denomination: the church of George Washington, most signatories of the Declaration of Independence and roughly a quarter of all our presidents.

    Least year, a delegation of Hindu Indian nationalists spoke at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, DC. The international character of NatCon draws gibes from critics, but there’s nothing illogical about nationalists of different nations cooperating to promote the principle of nationalism itself, with liberal internationalism or globalism as a common enemy. Yet at dinner a Protestant friend told me he felt uneasy about the polytheist presence.

    Two generations earlier, his grandfather might have had similar misgivings about getting involved in a coalition with Catholics or Jews. Since at least the 1980s, however, Republican leaders have made a point of professing their fealty to the exquisitely nondenominational thing that is “Judeo-Christian values.” Perhaps now it’ll have to be Semitico-Indo-European values?

    The American right has always had a theoretical and theological problem here. Most on the right affirm that religion is most definitely the root of our nation and civilization. But it’s never convenient to specify exactly what that religion is: Episcopalianism? Certainly not. Catholicism? Evangelicalism? An ecumenical blend of theologically contradictory denominations with Judaism thrown in as well? (Never mind that Judaism itself comes in many varieties.) And don’t forget the Mormons.

    With politics demanding such flexibility of the religious right, it doesn’t seem likely Hinduism will be where lines get drawn. But this, of course, highlights the impossibility of claiming that a heterogeneous political coalition is restoring a single faith. Yet there is an overarching tradition here, albeit one that exists in tension with strong orthodox belief. America’s Founding Fathers were, for the most part, distinctly latitudinarian: George Washington may have attended Episcopalian services, but it’s not clear he believed in the Trinity. John Adams was an avowed Unitarian. Thomas Jefferson redacted the Gospels to eliminate any trace of the supernatural; he self-identified on one occasion as an Epicurean. Later leaders dear to the right could be just as elusive in their religious commitments: Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump are cases in point.

    As for Hinduism, conservatism’s own founding philosopher-statesman, Edmund Burke, not only championed respect for the religion in India but offered a greenhouse on his Beaconsfield estate for the use of a visiting Brahmin envoy, Hunand Rao, who needed a place to perform Hindu rites. This was something of a scandal both to Enlightenment rationalists of the era and to Christians who thought Burke far too culturally accommodating. The traditions that Burke and America’s Founders sought to uphold were capacious.

    The most devout men and women of today’s right want something more. Yet the demographics of the United States and Europe suggest the left and right alike will feel the need to enlist support beyond Judeo-Christian boundaries. If Zohran Mamdani succeeds in becoming New York’s mayor, two of the largest cities in the English-speaking world will have Muslim mayors from left-wing parties: the other being Sadiq Khan in London, where roughly a quarter of school-age children are Muslim. In European cities such as Vienna, the proportion is even higher.

    The West’s ethnic and religious foundations have already shifted in our great cities, opening a gulf between them and the surrounding countries. The political geniuses of the 18th century built their systems on human nature, not just the conditions of the moment. Just how natural and adaptable those systems are is now being put to a test.

    This article was originally published in The Spectator’s October 13, 2025 World edition.

  • How Islam and the Bible are fueling France’s ‘baptism boom’

    How Islam and the Bible are fueling France’s ‘baptism boom’

    You have probably heard that something extraordinary is happening in the Catholic Church in France.

    The French bishops’ conference announced in April that more than 10,000 adults were due to be baptized in 2025 – a 45 percent increase on the year before.

    It’s not just adult baptisms that are booming. A record 19,000 people, many young, attended this year’s Paris to Chartres pilgrimage. An unprecedented 13,500 high school students took part in the 2025 Lourdes FRAT pilgrimage, a major annual youth event.

    The country is also seeing what French media call a “boom biblique”: a rapid rise in sales of the Bible. Religious bookstores report a 20 percent increase in purchases since 2024.

    It’s easy to state these facts. But it’s harder to discern their cause. Why are young people flocking to the Catholic Church more than 200 years after it was violently ejected from the public square during the French Revolution?

    News reports – both in France and the English-speaking world – have only scratched the surface of the phenomenon. But the most in-depth investigation to date has just been published in France. It’s called Enquête sur ces jeunes qui veulent devenir chrétiens (“Inquiry into Why Young People Want to Become Christians”) and the author is Antoine Pasquier, a journalist at the French Catholic weekly Famille Chrétienne.

    Pasquier explores what young French adults seeking baptism as catechumens say about themselves. He mixes their observations with his own insights as a catechist who saw the wave arrive in his parish and watched as it took on breathtaking proportions.

    The dynamics he uncovers are unexpected.

    For example, through his interviews with catechumens, Pasquier finds that reading the Bible plays a more fundamental role in conversions than the internet and social media. Also, many young seekers arrive at church with an idea of religion shaped not by Christianity but by Islam.

    The book, currently available only in French, offers guidance to Church leaders as they grapple with this unforeseen influx. Pasquier calls for a deep transformation of French Catholicism, from a community resigned to decline to a “catechumenal Church.” He sees signs that this shift may be beginning.

    Pasquier spent 10 years as a reporter for a French regional weekly newspaper before joining Famille Chrétienne in 2013. He has coordinated the Catholic magazine’s investigations into topics such as the abuse crisis. He is married, with four children, and has accompanied young catechumens at his church in the Paris region since 2020.

    In an interview with the Pillar, he discussed the genesis of his book, what surprised him about the catechumens, and the French Church’s lessons for Catholics elsewhere.

    Catholics around the world are fascinated by what’s occurring in France. How would you explain briefly what’s happening to someone living outside of France?

    Since 2020, France has seen a significant influx of catechumens from all ages and social backgrounds. The figures speak for themselves: in 2025, the number of adults seeking baptism is the highest ever recorded since the French bishops’ conference began tracking catechumens in 2002. For the first time, the symbolic threshold of 10,000 adult baptisms has been surpassed.

    Over two years, the growth is remarkable: 5,463 baptisms in 2023, 7,135 in 2024 (+30.6 percent), and 10,384 in 2025 (+45.5 percent). In other words, the number of adult baptisms nearly doubled between 2023 and 2025 (+90 percent).

    Among these 10,384 newly baptized adults, the 18 to 25 age group now represents the largest share, with approximately 4,360 catechumens (42 percent). Adolescent baptisms (ages 11-17) also show strong growth. In 2025, there were 7,404, compared to 1,547 in 2022 (+76 percent). In just three years, the numbers have multiplied nearly fivefold.

    Paradoxically, this phenomenon occurs in an ecclesial context marked by the sexual abuse crisis and a decline in vocations. This completely unexpected influx has caught parishes off guard, forcing them to adapt quickly. Initially taken aback, French Catholics are now seeking the best ways to welcome and support these seekers of God.

    Is your book the first in-depth exploration of why so many young people are becoming Catholics in France?

    Until now, this phenomenon has only been analyzed by media outlets, whether Catholic or secular. Drawing on the statistics published and interpreted annually by the French bishops’ conference, these media have attempted to explain the reasons behind this influx of catechumens. Numerous testimonies have also been published.

    As a journalist for Famille Chrétienne magazine, I began working on this topic three years ago. However, my book is the first comprehensive investigation that seeks to deeply analyze the reasons why these young people are choosing to become Christians.

    I deliberately focused on the 15-25 age group, first, because it is the best represented demographic (45 percent of French catechumens in 2025, or more than 8,000 young people), and second because their pathway differs from that of older adults.

    When did you first become aware of this phenomenon?

    Since 2020, I have been accompanying high school students preparing for baptism in my parish in the Paris region. As a catechist, I’ve seen a growing number of young people in my group who are seeking God and eager to become Christians.

    They often came in groups, frequently with friends. We also began noticing them more often and in greater numbers at Sunday Masses, approaching during Communion with their arms crossed to receive the priest’s blessing.

    This personal observation was echoed by other catechists in different parishes and towns. After doing some research, this time as a journalist, it quickly became clear to me that this phenomenon was nationwide and completely unprecedented.

    Many reports stress the role of the internet in the new wave of conversions. But you’ve discovered that the Bible plays an even more important role. Can you explain why this is the case?

    Gen Z is raised on social media. Influencers on these platforms share increasingly specific and well-crafted content, created by Christian influencers, which provide answers to their existential and spiritual questions.

    But these networks are not the place of their conversion. The conversion happens earlier, in a natural way, I would say. Social media and the internet complement and support their conversion.

    The Bible, on the other hand, plays a role much earlier in their journey. Once they decide to deepen their spiritual search within the Christian faith, the Bible becomes essential for them. Almost all the young people I accompany or have interviewed tell me they bought, opened, and read the Bible before taking any official steps with the Church.

    Alongside the church and Mass, the Bible is a reliable and easily identifiable reference point for them. They think, “I want to be Christian, how do I do it?” And the answer is obvious to them: “I need to read the Bible and go to Mass.” The strong growth in Bible sales, both in France and abroad, reflects this new enthusiasm.

    You note that many young French people who approach the Catholic Church come with an idea of religion that’s shaped by Islam, with its stress on fasting practices, etc. Why is that, and what challenges does it bring?

    It’s primarily the public and overt expression of Islam that challenges them. Some of their Muslim friends openly embrace their faith and religious identity without reservation. This prompts our young people to also make their growing Christian faith visible. This is expressed through wearing a cross necklace, sometimes a chapel veil for young women, or by observing the practices of various liturgical seasons, particularly Lent.

    Lent, with its radicalism, attracts these young people searching for guidance and meaning. They sometimes tend to view this period as a “Christian Ramadan.” Catechists must take care to explain the differences clearly and remind them that Christianity is not primarily a religion of observance but of personal and inner conversion.

    What surprised you most about the young people becoming Catholic?

    Their determination and patience. Some have been on a journey for years, hidden from view, out of fear of being misunderstood by friends or family.

    I think of a young woman who waited nine years between her first time entering a church and her official request for baptism. Another took three years between her first reading of the Gospel, alone in her room, and attending her first Mass with a friend. Their faith is already so strong that they are not afraid to wait this long to receive baptism.

    You call for the French Church to be transformed into a “catechumenal Church.” What would this look like?

    The early Church, the Apostolic Church, was by its very nature a catechumenal Church. When the Apostles and the Virgin Mary received the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, they immediately left the Upper Room to proclaim the Good News of Christ and performed the first baptisms (Acts 2:41).

    In the early communities, Christians — who were therefore neophytes — listened to the teachings of the Apostles. This teaching was centered on proclaiming the kerygma, the core of the Christian faith. These communities were also attentive to each other’s salvation and to the work of the Holy Spirit among them.

    A catechumenal Church is a Church attentive to proclaiming the kerygma, to the salvation of each and every person, and listening to the Holy Spirit. These dispositions will help our Church today to be ever more attractive and open to those who seek God.

    Is there anything that other countries that are also seeing a boom in adult baptisms could learn from the Church in France?

    The Church in France is gradually coming to terms with what is happening. I’m not sure it has many lessons to teach other Churches.

    The first to understand what was happening were the catechists, those closest to the grassroots. They reacted quickly and took steps to address this unexpected wave. If there is a lesson to draw from France, it is this adaptability on the ground.

    The Church must be careful not to remain trapped in old patterns or reflexes. The mindset of “We’ve always done it this way!” is no longer viable. Without losing its essence, the Church must adapt to these new Christians, responding to their questions, expectations, and thirst.

    Pope Leo XIV himself says it well: “The crisis of faith and its transmission, together with the hardships related to ecclesial belonging and practice, invite us to rediscover the passion and courage for a new proclamation of the Gospel. At the same time, various people who seem to be distant from the faith often return to knock on the doors of the Church, or open themselves to a new search for spirituality, which at times does not find adequate language and forms in the usual pastoral offerings.”

    This article was originally published in the Pillar.

  • The inadequate response of Christian leaders to Charlie Kirk’s death

    The inadequate response of Christian leaders to Charlie Kirk’s death

    It has been very heartening to see all the clips online of people saying they are going back to church for the first time in ages – or going for the first time ever – because of Charlie Kirk. They’re picking up Bibles, even leaving the left. As the Wall Street Journal reports, the Charlie phenomenon is going global. You should also know that in some of the European media, he is being described as a right-wing extremist and freak (strong implication: who had it coming). Felix Nmecha, a Christian soccer player for a leading German team, got in trouble for posting mild, apolitical support for Charlie.

    “Rest in peace with God. Such a sad day,” wrote Nmecha. He later changed that to: “May the Lord assist the Kirk family with special grace at this time. Jesus is the true way to peace and love.” And added: “Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Celebrating the murder of a father of two, a husband and a man who peacefully stood up for his beliefs and values is truly evil and shows how much we need Christ. May God have mercy and open our eyes and hearts, in the name of Jesus.”

    This outraged some fans, and has prompted the team to say they are going to be having a talk with Nmecha. And you wonder why Europe is in so much trouble.

    On the day of the assassination, the Pope tweeted not about Charlie, truth, or martyrdom, but about migrants

    But Nmecha is right. Charlie showed young Christians and young Republicans they were not alone and that they could and should stand up for themselves. He was willing to suffer the scorn of campus haters for the sake of engaging them in public debate. Indeed, he said many times that the alternative to debate is violence. He paid for that conviction with his life. I don’t feel comfortable calling him a Christian martyr, because he was not murdered for his faith per se. But he was absolutely a martyr for free speech, and now we see very many people who were afraid no longer willing to be silent.

    I have also heard a lot of people complaining that their churches were packed over the weekend, but their pastors said nothing at all about Charlie’s murder. To be fair, I don’t believe clergy are obligated to preach on current events. But this one? My God, it was news around the world, and had so much to do with faith and courage and the wages of sin. And so many pastors, it appears, blew it. How out of touch with your flock can you be? I am reminded of the Orthodox priest I once met who refused to talk about gender ideology to his congregation, even though parents in it were confused, because he didn’t want to be “political.”

    Men of God, sack up! People need to know that church is a place they can go for wisdom and leadership on how to live godly lives in a world that has turned its back on Him. If all you can provide are canned sermons that have little or nothing to do with the lives people live, you are failing.

    Gender ideology is a lie, and Tyler Robinson, Charlie’s alleged assassin, was living that lie. He was in a romantic partnership with a man who is thought to be transitioning to female and who is also, it seems, a “furry” (a weird subculture of people who dress up as animals and often sexualise their costumed selves). Robinson and his partner were ex-Mormons, raised in conservative families, who were radicalized by going deep online and living there as if it were reality. I believe that among the things the state should do is to ban all gender transition. Close the clinics. Forbid cross-sex hormones and prosecute doctors who persist. If that is politically untenable, then strictly forbid it to anyone under the age of 30. We must abnormalize this condition again.

    We must also abnormalize giving children computers and smartphones. In 2013 Robinson’s mother posted an image that ought to be on the minds of every parent in America. It shows a young Tyler gaming on a computer, with the caption: “Almost forgot Tyler! He can totally avoid us now that he got all of the computer accessories he’s been wanting.”

    The American pope had nothing to say about Robinson; no light in the dark for all the other disturbed young Americans living lies online. On the day of the assassination, Pope Leo tweeted not about Charlie, or truth, or martyrdom, but about migrants on the island of Lampedusa. His only mention of Charlie came two days later in a private conversation with the new US ambassador to the Vatican, in which he expressed his condolences and warned that “political differences must never be resolved with violence.” A diplomatic platitude, whispered in private, while the nation chanted in the streets.

    Leo has also indicated that his first foreign trip – like his predecessor’s – will be to Lampedusa. If so, it’s a signal that nothing much is going to change in this pontificate.

    Would that Leo go to Lyon to comfort the family of the wheelchair-bound Chaldean Catholic who fled his native Iraq to escape ISIS persecution and was slaughtered on a livestream by a machete-wielding Islamist for the crime of preaching the Gospel? Ashur Sarnaya, who was killed the same day as Charlie while live-streaming about Christianity, was martyred by the same sort of person Pope Leo is urging Europe to keep letting in, and whose violent presence is driving the continent to the brink of civil war. Such is the pastoral wisdom of so many Christian leaders. Europe, and all the West, ought to be a haven for Christians fleeing Islamist persecution.

    Since Charlie’s assassination we are seeing who people are – and who they are not. We are seeing Good, and we are seeing Evil. We are seeing ourselves, too. The words, or lack of words, from religious leaders say nothing to us, or are even counsels of despair. But the blood of those who have died shouts to us: You must change your life!

    Tertullian said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” Strictly speaking, Sarnaya is the only true Christian martyr here. But there is not a Christian alive – not a person of conscience anywhere – who cannot read these signs, and choose to live in a different, braver way. Me too. Bob Dylan expressed it well two generations ago:

    For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled
    The battle outside ragin’
    Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
    For the times, they are a-changin’

    This article was originally published in The Spectator’s September 29, 2025 World edition.