By Peter Vree, Editor New Oxford Review

Is he serious?

On the return flight from his visit to Lebanon late last year, Pope Leo XIV said the West should be “a little less fearful” of Islam (Dec. 2). This “fear,” he said, is “often generated by people who are against immigration and trying to keep out people who may be from another country, another religion, another race.” Instead, the Pope said, “we all need to work together” to “look for ways of promoting authentic dialogue.”

Not two weeks later, police in Germany arrested five men suspected of plotting to drive a vehicle through a Christmas market near Munich “with the aim of killing or injuring as many people as possible.” The men were not from Germany, not Christians, and not Germans. They were, in fact, from another country, another religion, another race. Three were from Morocco, one from Syria, and one from Egypt — all were Muslims. The Egyptian was an imam at a nearby mosque. The quintet, said Bavaria’s state interior minister, had been planning an “Islamist-motivated attack.” They were working together to send a message to their host nation, expressed in the language of murder, mayhem, and terror… Continue