Figuratively, Europe is going up in flames. No one in the West is sober enough to realize the fire is already out of control.

Giulio Meotti The writer, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio, writes a twice-weekly column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the book "A New Shoah", that researched the personal stories of Israel's terror victims, published by Encounter and of "J'Accuse: the Vatican Against Israel" published by Mantua Books.. His writing has appeared in publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Frontpage and Commentary. More from the author ► The writer, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio, writes a twice-weekly column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the book "A New Shoah", that researched the personal stories of Israel's terror victims, published by Encounter and of "J'Accuse: the Vatican Against Israel" published by Mantua Books.. His writing has appeared in publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Frontpage and Commentary.

Christianity goes down, Islam rises and the conversion of churches into mosques continues in Europe.

Three articles got my attention just this week.

A local English newspaper writes about a church in Colne, Lancashire. That\s where the Saint Bartholomews Church will become the Madina Mosque.

Then a report from the French monthly Causeur. “In Swansea, Wales, the St Andrews Church, owned by the United Reformed Church, was turned into a mosque. On the same street, the Imam Khoei Shiite Islamic Center also occupies a former church. In Edinburgh, Scotland, the old Presbyterian Church built in 1859 on Lauriston Place became the Dar al-Arqam Mosque. Last year, on the Hebrides archipelago, a mosque replaced the old church of Stornoway”.



Headlines about churches turned into mosques no longer generate any astonishment.

And another article appeared in a Middle Eastern newspaper, the Arab Weekly, which reports of 10 churches transformed into mosques last year in Germany alone. “A Christian association called Friends of the Protestant Church in Berlin published a report on the conversion of ten churches this year in Germany into mosques. It said the phenomenon was not new but it was repeated and deliberate. Militant Islamist groups are finding dozens of churches for sale across Europe and encouraging Muslim businessmen to buy them so they can be converted into mosques”.

In Europe, where the cultural and religious bases of Western identity have been shaken and weakened, everything is coming apart and these headlines about churches turned into mosques no longer generate any astonishment.

In the West we are reliving the story of the clown told by Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. One day, he wrote, a traveling circus was hit by a fire. The clown was sent to ask the neighboring village for help. He begged the inhabitants for help. But people applauded, clapped and laughed themselves to tears. The clown then began to cry himself, but the more he cried the more the people applauded and laughed. The circus and the village went up in flames.