Benedict XVI went to Africa to deliver the post-synodal exhortation. Two years ago, the special synod for Africa that took place in Rome was very little covered by the media.  But it was «good work» – the pope then said – since it was able to mediate sufficiently between the political and spiritual dimensions. «And for me – the Pope said – this is also a reason for thanks because it makes the post-synodal document easier to draft». The penultimate act of that synod were the 57 final propositions delivered by the assembly of African bishops. The propositions touched on many topics including «greater ecclesial communion at all levels, encouraging cooperation within the Church», as well as an appeal to all those who are at war in Africa: «Stop the hostilities and be reconciled!» Another theme that was frequently discussed was the environment. Observing that there was «an irresponsible degradation and senseless destruction of the earth, which is ‘our mother’» the Synod Fathers noted  that «some businesses, governments and multinational and trans-national companies engage in business that pollute the environment, destroy flora and fauna, thus causing unprecedented erosion and desertification of large areas of arable land… in complicity with those who exercise political and economic leadership in Africa». The bishops also raised their voices on the issues that impact women. They rejected abortion and  so-called reproductive health rights of women, calling instead for the defense of the family and of human life.

All of these topics had been issued by the Pope during his short trip to Benin. «Africa is a continent of hope», Benedict XVI claimed. Hope is the key-word to understand the trip to Benin. As a key-speech was the one held in the Presidential Palace, on November, 19th. After the speech, the Pope moved to Ouidah, 43 kilometres far from the capital of Benin Cotonou from where – at the beginning of the 18th Century – every year 20 thousand slaves taken from all the Western Africa left to the Usa. In Ouidah, Benedict XVI finally deliver the post-synodal exhortation, Africae Munus, African Commitment. The commitment that Benedict XVI delivers to Africa is an important one. From Africa, he warns all the leaders of the world  against political corruption, scandals, instrumentalizing the name of God to justify violence and the individualism that generates despair.

Pope appeals to all political and economic leaders of African countries and the rest of the world to not to manipulate their people and not to deprive their  peoples of hope. «Do not cut them off from their future by mutilating their present! Adopt a courageous ethical approach to your responsibilities and, if you are believers, ask God to grant you wisdom!», the Pope said.

The background of African countries is filled with the Arab Spring and the recent - and Church sponsored – independence of the South Sudan. Neverthless the worries for the future of the Christians after the Arab Spring – especially in Egypt and Libya – the Pope favorably see to the claim of the people. During these last months – he said –  «many peoples have manifested their desire for liberty, their need for material security, and their wish to live in harmony according to their different ethnic groups and religions. Indeed, a new state has been born on your continent. Many conflicts have originated in man’s blindness, in his will to power and in political and economic interests which mock the dignity of people and of nature. Human beings aspire to liberty; then to live in dignity; they want good schools and food for their children, dignified hospitals to take care of the sick; they want to be respected; they demand transparent governance which does not confuse private and public interests; and above all they desire peace and justice».

Benin is an examplar country. Cardinal Bernardin Gantin is considered one of the father of the country – to him is dedicated the airport of Cotonou. And Catholicism had great part in the development of Benin, The former Archbishop of Cotonou, Isidore de Sousa, received special permission from the John Paul II to act as the effective leader of the country in the early 1990s, leading it through a transition from Marxism to democracy. Relationships between the Catholic Church and the State of Benin are wonderful, missionaries and Christian institutions make an appreciated job in the country. The 42,8 per cent of population of Benin is Christian, and the 27,1 per cent of these is Catholic. The rest is made up of faithful of other Confessions, mainly originated by the Lutheran reform. The 24,4 per cent of population is Muslim, and the rest of population belongs to ancient African creeds.

And all the representatives of those religions were sitting in front of Benedict XVI, together with the representatives of government and institution on November, 19th. The Pope contrasts the hope to the paradigm of the expert – who imposes his conclusions and proposes, at the end of the day, few useful solutions – and to the temptation to analyze the realities of Africa like a curious ethnologist or like someone who sees the vast resources only in terms of energy, minerals, agriculture and humanity («reductionist and disrespectful points of view which lead to the unhelpful “objectification” of Africa and her inhabitants»).

Hope is the key to understand two African realities. The first one deals with the sociopolitical and economical situation. The Pope says: «Human beings aspire to liberty; then to live in dignity; they want good schools and food for their children, dignified hospitals to take care of the sick; they want to be respected; they demand transparent governance which does not confuse private and public interests; and above all they desire peace and justice. At this time, there are too many scandals and injustices, too much corruption and greed, too many errors and lies, too much violence which leads to misery and to death ». It is not a ill that affect just Africa: it affects all the world. And people want to understand, they do not want to be manipulated. No policy is absolutely right and no economical policy is neutral. But both policy and economy – the Pope admonishes – has to be done for the common good.

That is why Benedict repeatedly cried out in defense of the poor. During an open-air Mass on sunday in a soccer stadium in Benin’s capital, before some 40,000 wildly enthusiastic, dancing and singing locals, he said «Jesus wanted to identify himself with the poor» and the poor deserve respect because «through them, God shows us the way to Heaven». And in the Africae Munus Benedict called the church to act as a «sentinel», denouncing situations of injustice. The pontiff also took yet another swipe at neo-con ideologies. In his opening speech of the trip, he warned Africans that an «unconditional surrender to the laws of the market and of finance» is among the pathologies of modernity they would do well to avoid.

The second reality deals with the interreligious dialogue. How many wars had been fought in the name of God? «True interreligious dialogue – the Pope said – rejects humanly self-centered truth, because the one and only truth is in God. God is Truth. Hence, no religion, and no culture may justify appeal or recourse to intolerance and violence. Aggression is an outmoded relational form which appeals to superficial and ignoble instincts. To use the revealed word, the Sacred Scriptures or the name of God to justify our interests, our easy and convenient policies or our violence, is a very grave fault».

The challenge for Africa – outlined in the post-synodal exhortation – is to free Africa from his ills. First of all, Aids, to face by providing «everyone with access to treatments and medicines, taking account of uncertain situations! The Church, indeed, has been pleading for a long time for high quality medical treatment to be made available at minimum cost to all concern ». And then, illiteracy that «represents one of the principal obstacles to development. It is a scourge on a par with that of the pandemics. True, it does not kill directly, but it contributes actively to the marginalization of the person – which is a form of social death – and it blocks access to knowledge». More: «Africa’s memory is painfully scarred as a result of fratricidal conflicts between ethnic groups, the slave trade and colonization. Today too, the continent has to cope with rivalries and with new forms of enslavement and colonization». And also the intolerable treatment to which so many children in Africa are subjected: child soldiers, child prisoners, children forced into labour, children ill-treated on account of physical or mental handicap, children said to be witches or warlocks, children said to be serpents, children sold as sex slaves, traumatized children without any future prospects.

Was it a sort of Benedict XVI’s opening to theology of liberation? There is – obviously – some more in depth reason. Leaving Benin, the Pope asked: «Why should an African country not show the rest of the world the path to be taken towards living an authentic fraternity in justice, based on the greatness of the family and of labour? May Africans be able to experience reconciliation in peace and justice!» In a few years, Africa can become the most Catholic continent in the world. The Pope bets on the awakening of Africa, because it is in that awakening that resides the awakening of the Church. The Church that must push for Truth, Reconciliation, Dialogue, Care for Human Being. And Africa – with its Truth and Reconciliation commissions, with its experience of interreligious dialogue because of the cohabitation of several creeds, with his traditional care for human being – can indicate the path to follow to all the world. Africa is a continent of hope. Even for Christianity. Now more than ever.

Egyptian situation is an example of how the religions can be used by political power. There are no religious conflicts at all, but religious belonging is used and pushed to create a social split. After the clash between soldiers and Christians that killed 26 people (a clash that came after an escalation of violence against Christian: recent attacks included the killing of Coptic youths in Moqattam and Embaba, the cutting-off the ear of a Copt, attacks on the Churches as well as preventing the governor of Qena from occupying his post because he is Christian), very few people is doubtful about the fact that – as Joannes Zakaria, Coptic Catholic Bishop of Luxur, put it - «attacks against Christians in Egypt are being incited by groups of Mubarak followers or Islamic extremist from Saudi Arabia. It is more a political matter than religious».

They had been defined «sectarian fights», but they would be fomented by the Supreme Military Council. The high military hierarchies are in some ways playing with the delicate relationship between Copt and Muslims. The appeal issued by Benedict XVI a few days after the violence that took place in Cairo was also aimed to underline this situation. The Pope said he was united in sorrow with the families of the victims and with the Egyptian people, who he said, were being torn apart by attempts to undermine the peaceful co-existence between communities in the country. Pope Benedict underlined the importance of preserving that co-existence, especially he said, at this time of transition and he urged the faithful to pray , so that Egypt can enjoy a true peace based on justice, respect for freedom and the dignity of every citizen.

One of the 26 shot dead during the clash between Christians and soldiers was a young Copt Christian. He was in Tahrir Square, as many other young people. Nobody was conscious he was Christian. Because there was no religious color in the pacific Egyptian revolution.

But now the pressures to the Supreme Military Council to withdraw the power and leave it to a civil and elected government came not just from the people of Tahrir Square, but also from the new social movements and political parties that had been generated by the revolution. The passage to a civil government has been requested by all the candidates to the presidency of Egypt and by all the parties – included the Muslim Brothers’ one. The request came out together with the request to change the electoral law, decided in a top-down way from the Military Council. Just a few days ago, the Scaf – the government of transition – decided to modify the art. 5 of the electoral law, thus yielding to the pressures. About 48 hours after the decision, Cairo was theater of violence. Journalist and witnesses speak about the repression of the Army, accused to run down the demonstrator with the vehicles and to have shot true bullets, and not just tear gas. Why this disproportionately high reaction?

Religions play an important role on the balance of the region. After the soldiers attack against Christians, a dangerous threshold has been passed. And it has been passed through the use of salafists – linked to radical Islam –  to let the authority that manage the security of the Countries – as the Army and the old State Security – renewed in the name, not in the men – to push on stability and safety of the country. The strategy has not changed after the Arab Spring. At the beginning of 2011, in Alexandria of Egypt, an attack had been moved toward a Coptic Church. After the revolution, it had been discovered that the attack had been directly inspired by the powerful Habib el Adly, Minister of the Intern of Mubarak government now imprisoned in Tora and accused of the killing of about a thousand people in Tahrir Square and in all the Egypt during the Thawra.

The strategy had always been the same in Egypt, where the Coptic Community have faced increasing marginalization after the 1952 coup d’état led by Gamal Abdel Nasser. Until recently, Christians were required to obtain presidential approval for even minor repairs in churches. Although the law was eased in 2005 by handing down the authority of approval to the governors, Copts continue to face many obstacles and restrictions in building new churches. These restrictions do not apply for building mosques.

The Coptic community has been targeted by hate crimes and physical assaults. The most significant was the 2000–01 El Kosheh attacks, in which Muslims and Christians were involved in bloody inter-religious clashes following a dispute between a Muslim and a Christian. International Christian Concern reported that in February 2001, Muslims burned a new Egyptian church and the homes of 35 Christians, and that in April 2001 a 14-year-old Egyptian Christian girl was kidnapped because her parents were believed to be harboring a person who had converted from Islam to Christianity.

In 2006, one person who was claimed to be both drunk and mad, attacked three churches in Alexandria, left one dead and from 5 to 16 injured, although the attacker was not linked to any organization. In May 2010, The Wall Street Journal reported increasing «waves of mob assaults» by Muslims against Copts, forcing many Christians to flee their homes. Despite frantic calls for help, the police typically arrived after the violence was over. The police also coerced the Copts to accept “reconciliation” with their attackers to avoid prosecuting them, with no Muslims convicted for any of the attacks. In Marsa Matrouh, a mob of 3,000 Muslims attacked the city’s Coptic population, with 400 Copts having to barricade themselves in their church while the mob destroyed 18 homes, 23 shops and 16 cars.

These are number that are the nitid picture of what the Pope wrote in the last message for the World Day of Peace. The Pope singled out Christians as the religious group that suffers from the most persecution on Thursday, denouncing lack of freedom of worship as an «intolerable» threat to world security. The message reflected a pressing concern by Benedict in recent months for the plight of Christian minorities in parts of the world, especially in the Middle East.

Christian minorities that are on the move. The Egyptian Census of 1897 reported the percentage of Non-Muslims in Urban Provinces as 14.7%( 13.2% Christians, 1.4% Jews). The Egyptian Census of 1986 reported the percentage of Non-Muslims in Urban Provinces as 6.1%( 5.7% Christians, 0% Jews). The decline in the Jewish representation is interpreted through the creation of the state of Israel, and the subsequent emigration of the Egyptian Jews. There is no explanation for a 55% decline in the percentage of Christians in Egypt.It has been suggested that Egyptian censuses held after 1952 have been politicised to under-represent the Christian population.

But the decrease of Christian population is a matter of fact for the whole Middle East, as pointed out in the recent Synod dedicated to the Middle East.

The scenario outlined in Egypt risks to be the most authoritative forecast of what will be the situation of the Middle East. Everything is truly complex, and deals with religions, policy and the regional balance. What is going on is really well pictured out by the story of Hani Bushra, that explains the use of the mob from who wants to assure order and stability. Here’s an extract of his story:

«We reached the officer (rank of general), and the first thing that I did was to show him my U.S. passport and told him that I am now under his protection. I told him that I was attacked because I was a Christian. One of the men who is a policeman but wearing civilian clothing began to talk to the general that I was a Christian and that I institigated the mob to attack me and that I am carrying weapons in my bag. The officer, who had seen my passport, told him to shut up. This policeman in the civilian clothing seemed to be the coordinator between the mob and the police. The general pushed me back behind the cordon of CSF soldiers, but I wanted to get my phone back, and so I went out again. The person who had stolen my phone was right there, and I told the general that I wanted my phone back. As I was talking to the general, a group of policemen were around me, one of them was behind me poking my butthole with his stick. I turned around and said that if you want to fuck me in the ass, you should be man enough to fuck me in public. At that point the policeman in civilian clothing who had earlier clashed with me called me a liar, and the general once again told him to shut up. I was assigned a young officer to protect me. My phone was gone, and they wanted to protect me until it was safe. I met two young officers, a first and second lieutenants, who were very respectful and were concerned for me. I told them that I hope that when they grew in their rank, they would always remain this professional. They were so nice that one of them let me use his phone so that I can call Happy and tell him that I was okay».

Benedict XVI landed the last Thursday in a Germany that seems to live a profound crisis of identity. «More than a crisis – Thomas Blanck, student, says – I would talk about a certain indifference of the young people toward public life. The old parties does not answer to the needs of young people. On the other hand, young people is not looking for new parties to come». That is the reason why that PiratPartei, the Pirate Party, gained the 9 per cent to the last local elections in Berlin. Pirate Party is a young party – he was founded in 2006 in Sweden – , that is now structuring itself. «Now it is time to make the work – Sebastian Nerz, leader of the German PiratPartei – people voted us because they felt close to some of our issues. Our program deals with the copyright and way it is brought on – we think it is against human rights, and it suffices to analyze the security laws approved after 9/11 to see it. Seeing it from a wider perspective, we think the State should have less influence on private life of people».

Is the ekectoral growth of Pirat Partei the sign of an always more individualist Berlin? The last big mass movement was the one that brought people to let the Wall fall. «But after the reunification – Thomas Blanck explains – people had also been very disappointed. The Chancellor Helmut Kohl told that the differences between East and West would level within a maximum of ten years. It was not so.». But it is also the life of a Berlin that still look for God, nevertheless the melting pot of cultures. «There is, here in Berlin – Kathy Schulz, a German that lived in Italy, says – the Karneval der Kulturen, the Carnival of Cultures, and during that Carnival nobody feels to be in Germany, but it seems to be in the different countries this multicultural city represents. But, when everything ends, one can still find strong differences between the West and East part of Berlin. In the East, that was ruled by an atheistic regime, there is no believing in God. But they celebrate the Jugendweihe, a civil rite which replace our confirmation».

It is peculiarly felt in Berlin – and it is anyway felt toward all of Germany – the distinction and difference between East and West. Ossi (inhabitant of East Berlin) and Wessi (inhabitant of West Berlin) are still not metaphysical terms for a country that founded great part of its identity of today on the post-Nazi regime. «I will be provocatory – Thomas Blanck says – but I think that it is on Auschwitz that German people build up their collective memory». Nazism is very often quoted in the speech of politician, as to admonish not to let that dark period of the story be back in Germany.

Even Benedict XVI constantly in his speeches constantly referred to the Nazi Regime. The Pope quoted a Saint Augustine’s sentence during the speech he held in Bundestag: «Without justice – what else is the State but a great band of robbers?». And he then explained: «We Germans know from our own experience that these words are no empty spectre. We have seen how power became divorced from right, how power opposed right and crushed it, so that the State became an instrument for destroying right – a highly organized band of robbers, capable of threatening the whole world and driving it to the edge of the abyss».

It suffices reading the Joseph Ratzinger’s autobiography to understand that he was subjected to, more than lived, the Nazi regime. The young Joseph Ratzinger saw Nazi regime through his father’s critical eye. As a soldier, his father was not able to accept the political arrest of priests, and he helped the one he could. Stil very few people remember that one of the first concentration camps in Germany was the Theresienstadt one in Berlin, where priest, gay, handicapped people and gipsy were imprisoned.

But Benedetict XVI did not forget about the other dictatorship the German People experimented: the Commonism. «Here in Thuringia – Ratzinger said during his homily at the Holy Mass in Erfurt – and in the former German Democratic Republic, you have had to endure first a brown and then a red dictatorship, which acted on the Christian faith like acid rain.  Many late consequences of that period are still having to be worked through, above all in the intellectual and religious fields.  Most people in this country since that time have spent their lives far removed from faith in Christ and from the communion of the Church.  Yet the last two decades have also brought good experiences: a broader horizon, an exchange that reaches beyond borders, a faithful confidence that God does not abandon us and that he leads us along new paths».

Turning back to God is a need for Benedict XVI. He met the representants of Zdk, the Central Committee of German Catholics, and told them about the exposure programmes. Within these programmes, a team of expert goes to a poor country to learn how to concretely help poor people. «Let us imagine – Benedict XVI then said – that an exposure programme of this kind were to take place here in Germany.  Experts from a far country would arrive to spend a week with an average German family.  They would find much to admire here, for example the prosperity, the order and the efficiency.  But looking on with unprejudiced eyes, they would also see plenty of poverty: poverty in human relations and poverty in the religious sphere».

Turning back to God. Benedict XVI – since the beginning of his visit – that he had «come to talk about God». He reasserted it during the meeting with the several religious confessions: he wished the full unity with the orthodoxes, he invited Muslims to Assisi and to bring on an alliance based on the great principle of life, he said to Jewish that «without God, the respect for the man misses». Everybody looked at the meeting with the Evangelic Church of Germany, in a land where Catholics and Lutherans are equivalent in number of faithful. Two years ago, in a sort of unprecedented alliance, Evangelicals and Catholics campaigned signed by signed to gain the victory in a referendum to let the religion remain a teaching subject in school, and not just a facultative subject to learn in the afternoon courses. Actually, there are still theological problems. «I do not foresse a full unity of Evangelicals and Catholics – Jens Schroeter, professor of New Testamentary Theology at Humboldt University in Berlin, says – but I see that there is something moving from the basis communities: there several catholics that are getting closer to Protestants. Theological discussion is obviously still alive, but common people live really more closer than what we can think». Are the Kulturkampf times – the cultural battle against Catholicism brought on by Chancellor Bismarck «for freedom and not to let an interference of religion in public life» – come to an end?

Benedict XVI praises the providentiality of secularizing trends. During the meeting with the Catholics committed in the Church and in the Society, the Pope affirmed that « secularizing trends – whether by expropriation of Church goods, or elimination of privileges or the like – have always meant a profound liberation of the Church from forms of worldliness, for in the process she has set aside her worldly wealth and has once again completely embraced her worldly poverty. In this the Church has shared the destiny of the tribe of Levi, which according to the Old Testament account was the only tribe in Israel with no ancestral land of its own, taking as its portion only God himself, his word and his signs. At those moments in history, the Church shared with that tribe the demands of a poverty that was open to the world, in order to be released from her material ties: and in this way her missionary activity regained credibility».

Is the credibility the answer to the subtle kulturkampf moved not only against Catholic religion, but against all the religions? Benedict XVI spoke severely about the Church of Germany: «Behind the structures, is there also a corresponding spiritual strength, the strength of faith in the living God?  We must honestly admit that we have more than enough by way of structure but not enough by way of Spirit.  I would add: the real crisis facing the Church in the western world is a crisis of faith.  If we do not find a way of genuinely renewing our faith, all structural reform will remain ineffective».

Turning back to God. This is what the Pope underlined also during the important ecumenical celebration with the Evangelical Church of Germany. Everybody was waiting for the revoke of the excommunication of Martin Luther, or at least some opening on the Holy Communion to the mixed couple. Benedict XVI caught everybody off guard.  «Prior to my visit – he said during the ecumenical celebration – there was some talk of an “ecumenical gift” which was expected from such a visit.  There is no need for me to specify the gifts mentioned in this context.  Here I would only say that, in most of its manifestions, this reflects a political misreading of faith and of ecumenism.  In general, when a Head of State visits a friendly country, contacts between the various parties take place beforehand to arrange one or more agreements between the two states: by weighing respective benefits and drawbacks a compromise is reached which in the end appears beneficial for both parties, so that a treaty can then be signed.  But the faith of Christians does not rest on such a weighing of benefits and drawbacks.  A self-made faith is worthless.  Faith is not something we work out intellectually and negotiate between us.  It is the foundation for our lives.  Unity grows not by the weighing of benefits and drawbacks but only by entering ever more deeply into the faith in our thoughts and in our lives». The true gift is turning back to God.

Because Anders Reivik – the author of the terror attack in Norway that caused more than 80 death people – has been initially described by the press as a Christian fundamentalist. Breivik was – according to the first reports – a Christian obsessed by the Islamic world and by multiculturalism. It was just like every right-nationalist is more likely to any other to have Christian roots, or like being Christian fundamentalists is the only way to be ferociously anti-islamic.

Recently, this have become a common reading of the facts. In Finland, Timo Soini, a Christian nationalist, had been accused of xenophobia. In Hungary, the new Constitution has been founded on Christian roots, and had been accused of homophobia, xenophobia and backwardness. In the Usa, David Limbaugh highlighted how the two most powerful molders of opinion in the nation, the media and Hollywood, are at the head of the line in the war on Christianity, frequently ridiculing and disparaging Christians in ways they would never dream of employing against any other group of Americans. David Limbaugh writes:  «This anti-Christian bias manifests itself in unflattering portrayals of Christians in Hollywood films and entertainment television, and also in the demonization of Christian conservatives in the media». And there are academics who are sharpening their swords and taking the usual swings at orthodox forms of religion.

Whatever comes out about Ander Breivik, one thing is certain. He is far more complex than a common «Christian Fundamentalist». He was a Freemason and a Knight Templar, and immensely proud to be it. The average Christian Fundamentalist is usually anti-Masonic, while Protestant Fundamentalists generally regard Freemasonry as occult and Pagan in nature, in essence very anti-Christian. The Catholic Church forbids all its members from becoming Freemasons under pain of excommunication. The Protestant Fundamentalist position is – on the other hand – absolute and militant, by claiming that «Christians cannot be masons». Given the general position of Christian Fundamentalists on this issue, and given the fact that Breivik listed Freemasonry as an «interest» on his Facebook page up to the day of the massacre, it is virtually impossible for him to truly be a «Christian Fundamentalist».

In fact, Breivik was baptized into the state-run liberal Protestant Church (Lutheran Church of Norway), but later became disillusioned with the way in which Liberal Protestantism has sacrificed much of its historic Christian character. He once blogged: «Today’s Protestant church is a joke. Priests in jeans who march for Palestine and churches that look like minimalist shopping centres. I am a supporter of an indirect collective conversion of the Protestant church back to the Catholic». Breivik (a political Zionist) obviously had little knowledge of Catholicism, for if he did, he would have known that one of the biggest Christian supporters of a Palestinian State is none other than the Catholic Church.

But he was baptized «by his own free will» – as he said – probably in order to be accepted into the Norwegian Order of Freemasons (Norwegian: Den Norske Frimurerorden), is the Masonic Grand Lodge in Norway. The first lodge (St. Olai Lodge – Later changed to Lodge St. Olaus to the white Leopard) was opened in 1749 and is still working. The Grand Lodge has followed the Swedish Rite since 1818, which requires its members to adhere to Christianity. During the union of Sweden-Norway, the Swedish-Norwegian king was Grand Master of the Order. The sovereign Grand Lodge of Norway was consecrated in 1891. As of 2009, the Order has about 20,000 members.

In light of his membership in the Masonic Lodge however, Breivik could not be a Catholic, for that would require breaking membership with the Lodge prior to reception into the Catholic Church. More likely, Breivik was lamenting the loss of historic Christian culture, which according to his manifesto he saw on par with historic Nordic Pagan culture.

The parallels between Anders Breivik and Timothy McVeigh (Oklahoma City Terrorist) are starting to surface in the most startling way. According to Breivik’s manifesto he was originally a Liberal Protestant, but later lost his Christian faith, doubted the existence of God, and praised the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin. McVeigh in comparison, was raised a Roman Catholic, but later lost his Christian faith, believed in an impersonal and naturalistic deity, declaring that his «only god is science».

Reading the 1,500 pages manifest of the terrorist, one can understand that Reivik was obsessed with the idea that the political advance of Islam and the multiculturalism of the left have combined to make victims out of traditional European Culture. It is from that overaching framework that many of the rest of his ideas can be understood. On this basis, Reivik Action can be compared to London 7/7 attack.

Actually, the roots of the two attack were the same. «The multiculturalism’s celebration – Brendan O’Neill wrote – of identity over solidarity, its promotion of the politics of self-pity and victimhood, of a perception that minority identities are continually under threat from the post-colonial and xenophobic attitudes of both society’s rulers and its native masses, found its most fanatical expression in the London bombings. In the bombers’ extraordinary levels of self-pity, combined with their arrogant belief that their Muslim identity gave them the right to hector the British throng, we got a glimpse of how far the multicultural ethos can be pushed. Breivik, for all his anti-multicultural pretensions, is not that different».

In conclusion, Breivik is not Christian, and not Catholic, but a member of Freemasonry. The Freemasonry came out even in reports about  the bugging scandal in Great Britain, that seriously damaged the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch’s Reputation. There is a even a malicious link that one could do. A link that would bring to a Third World War forecasted by Albert Pike, 33^rd degree Freemason and author on Masonry, in a letter to the Italian Patriot Giuseppe Mazzini -  33^rd degree Freemason as well. After planning the first and second World War – occurred as proposed by Pike – there would be a Third World War, «fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the ‘agentur’ of the ‘Illuminati’ between the political Zionists and the leaders of Islamic World. The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam (the Moslem Arabic World) and political Zionism mutually destroy each other. Meanwhile the other nations, once more divided on this issue will be constrained to fight to the point of complete physical, moral, spiritual and economical exhaustion».

Science fiction? Maybe. Actually, the Catholic Church must not face only enemies coming from outside, because the cancer is also inside the Church – as the Pope underlined in his visit to Fatima the last year. There is the need – Benedict XVI also claimed several times – for a inner purification of the Church. But the attack from the outside is strong and well structured. And Benedict XVI  in the last message for the World Day of Peace affirmed that Christians are the most persecuted confession in the world, and it is not only because of the massacre of Christians all over the world – e.g. the recent killings of Christians in India. «I also express – the Pope wrote –  my hope that in the West, and especially in Europe, there will be an end to hostility and prejudice against Christians because they are resolved to orient their lives in a way consistent with the values and principles expressed in the Gospel». The Pope also urged Europe to reconcile to its Christian roots, «which are fundamental for understanding its past, present and future role in history».