Islam ascending: Muslims outnumber Catholics

For the first time in history, Islam has eclipsed Roman Catholicism as the world’s largest religion.

“… We are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us,” Monsignor Vittorio Formenti said in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.

Formenti was relying upon figures from 2006, which is the most recent year available. The figures for Islam came from Muslim countries by way of the United Nations, so Formenti could only confirm the Vatican’s figures, but he put Roman Catholics at 17.4 percent of the world population and Muslims at 19.2 percent.

Altogether, Christians still make up about 33 percent of the world population.

Formenti attributed the changing statistics to the fact that Muslims tend to have very large families, whereas Catholics, particularly in Europe, have been giving birth to far fewer children than they used to.

Many writers have been warning of the changing population of Europe for years. Almost since its creation, Islam has had aspirations of conquering Europe, but throughout history, there have been the Pope Urban IIs and Charles Martels who have beaten Islam back from the borders.

In the modern era, infected by liberalism and a nihilistic obeisance to “diversity,” Europe may be on the verge of cultural surrender. The crisis is so severe that European thinkers have already dubbed the future state “Eurabia.” The violent clashing of civilizations has been evident in riots in France and other countries, in death threats made to artists and politicians who resist the Muslim revolution.

In 2004, when many Americans were siding with John Kerry against the war on Islamo-fascism, artist Theo Van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim fanatic for making a film critical of Islam. The pope himself has been threatened by Muslims for merely quoting the words of a Byzantine emperor, who surely had a clear-eyed view of Islamic “open-mindedness.”

And yet, Europe continues to make concessions to Muslim extremists, even so prominent a person as the archbishop of Canterbury saying Britain must make allowances for shariah law.

Is America any better off? Will we understand what the collapsing of Europe foretells in time to make a difference to our erstwhile allies? Will we have the sense and courage to fight back if “Eurabia” does come about?

Already in this country, we have enclaves of Muslim extremists who have been allowed into our borders, such as in Michigan, where Dearborn is becoming known as “Dearbornistan” to those who are watching the cultural tides shift. Or Minnesota, which sent Washington its first Muslim congressman, Keith Ellison, as part of the Democratic wave in 2006. In Chicago, there is the example of Barack Obama’s church, Trinity United, whose leadership kowtows to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. In Oakland, Calif., there was the recent case of Your Black Muslim Bakery, some of whose members are suspected in the 2007 murder of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey.

And yet, almost half the country is opposed to the war on Islamo-fascism. The opposition is so blind and uncritical that George Bush, one of a handful of leaders who has steadfastly opposed Islam’s threat to destroy Western civilization, is hated by his own people to the point of being booed just for throwing out the first ball at a Nationals game.

Atheists, relativists and liberals of all stripes will probably shrug at this statistical sea change, claiming that one religion’s the same as another, but rational people will know there’s good reason to be concerned: Islam is the only major religion founded by a warlord, and his people still bear the mark of his bloody intentions.