Geert Wilders wants to spread his anti-Islam message to other countries (Washington Post) and is forming a group that will operate initially in U.S., Canada, Britain, France and Germany.  His message is  that immigration from Muslim countries to the West should be outlawed and Islamic Sharia Law should be banned. Wilders plans to speak about his message in each of these countries in the coming months.  A Dutch Muslim spokesman, Ayhan Tonca,  said he feared Wilders message would fall on fertile ground in much of Europe, where anti-Islam sentiment has been swelling for years.    So why is this happening and is this a good thing?

The "why" is easy - Muslims bring a radically different "culture" and their extremists are more extreme than our own Christian extremists.  Some Christians want to beat up gays and perhaps even kill abortionists - but this behaviour is not common like it was centuries ago.  But the Muslim extremists of today want to impose woman-hating Sharia law and seem to tolerate honour killings by labelling it as "just a domestic dispute".  Unfortunately, there are few Muslim moderates willing to do more than lament that "not all Muslims are like this".  So does Wilders have a point?  Should we "outlaw immigration from Muslim countries to the West and ban Islamic Sharia Law"?

Dan Dennett wrote an essay a few months ago that talked about  "Preachers Who Are Not Believers"   He found five examples of preachers (ministers, priests etc) who were willing to talk about the fact that although they once believed enough to start a career in religion, they now did not believe but were trapped.  What career could they now go into?  What would they tell all their friends?  This group I sympathize with.

But it seems to me that there is a large group of Catholics and others who are in the same boat but deserve no sympathy.  To become a Catholic priest, you start by being a true believing Catholic.  You believe everything that is taught.  You believe that if you commit a mortal sin and then die, you will go to hell.  The only way out is to confess and be forgiven.  But to be forgiven, you must be truly sorry and seriously intend to never commit the sin again.  So if you repeatedly repeat a sin - for example, repeatedly abuse children, or repeatedly hire male escorts and live high using money stolen from the parish like Fr. Kevin Gray of Waterbury, Conn.,  - then you must no longer believe Catholic teachings.