ISLAMIC TERROR: Coming soon to a church near you

It's been a horrendous week (current example) for Christians abroad. Islamic fundamentalists also attacked a Catholic church near the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, last Sunday, disrupting the celebration of Holy Mass there.

According to Asia News, some 50 armed militants of the Islamic Defender Front (FPI), women included, invaded St. Bernadette's Missionary Center. The attackers burned the front gate, and blocked other exits, forcing Mass-goers to leave the main hall of the center, which is used as a chapel, and threatening them with machetes. As a result, the parish priest has been forced to cancel the Sunday and Monday Masses.

Several Catholic eyewitnesses of the Sunday attack criticized the conduct of security forces. Some 50 police who were at the scene did not intervene decisively against the FPI activists when they began to block the exits. (That follows the same pattern of the Egyptian police when Moslems slaughter Christians within their Coptic Orthodox churches. Because of international apathy -- like towards their neighboring country of Sudan -- these are ongoing and rarely reported occurrences.)

Last Friday, inflammatory sermons inciting violence against the "kafir" (an Islamic word for "non-believer") as called for in their Koran were delivered in the local mosque against the Catholic community. Several militant Muslim groups in Indonesia have admitted receiving millions of dollars in funds from Al-Qaeda and received money channeled to them by Osama bin Laden's terrorist outfit. Some of these groups included the Islamic Defender's Front (FPI), Majelis Mujahidin Council, the Islamic Youth Movement, Laskar Hizbullah and Laskar Jihad. These groups are pushing for the imposition of Islamic law in Indonesia. As in Europe which has now become overrun with them, Moslem immigrants to North America are now calling for the same thing (Shi'ria) in Canada and the USA!

Last Sunday's incident is not the first to take place in Cileduk, where Muslim fundamentalists are increasing. The fundamentalists describe the celebration of Mass in the school building as "proselytism," ostensibly for using a hall in the Cileduk's Sang Timur School. The Islamic fundamentalists accuse parishioners of proselytizing because they have been using the hall as a temporary church for the past ten years. But the parishioners had little choice since for the past 12 years local Islamic authorities have refused to grant them the necessary permit to build a permanent church in the area.

The attack Sunday also interrupted the activities of the Catholic school of Sang Timur, in the missionary complex of St. Bernadette in Cileduk, in Benten province, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Jakarta. The school, with a student body of 3,000, including many Muslims, and run by the Religious of the Child Jesus, was closed this week. Armed Islamic fundamentalists thugs brutally forced the Carmelite Sisters of the Child Jesus, who run the school, to either shut it down or endure mass rape.