Church bells tolled at noon throughout France on August 15, during Assumption, a national holiday here 
as a wake up call to the increasing genocide of Christians in the Middle East, who are being displaced and slaughtered without mercy by the Islamic State.
Assumption is my favourite Marian holiday, that is also the anniversary of my formal conversion into Catholicism and the date that I found myself mysteriously brought to the Assumption Eve celebration in Rocamadour years ago that started to crystallise many spiritual events in my life.
https://www.cherrychapman.com/2012/09/10/rocamadour-my-own-journey/
As I gathered with the hundreds of other faith filled Catholics in front of Notre Dame Saturday waiting for the procession to begin, I thought how blessed I am to have the simple freedom to worship without the total fear of being killed like our brothers and sisters have every day in the Middle East.
Some of those Christians, who are descendants of the original early Christians even speak Aramaic, the mother tongue of Jesus. Their plight has become worse and terrifying as Islamic State takes over their homeland, pillaging and destroying their churches along with ancient Christians texts , some from the first century AD.
Christians aren’t the only minority that are under the cruel assault of those of a twisted interpretation of Islam. The Yazidis, are also being systematically rounded up like cattle, killing males and selling women into sexual slavery.
Young prepubescent Christian and Yazidis girls are brought in to be raped, and enslaved under the heinous warped pretext of Islamic theology alterated and codified to nullify rape, and sexual slavery. Hard to stomach that this reality is happening as I type.
It seems like the beginning of another holocaust is amongst us again, only with the local changed and different religious backgrounds of victims. They are all as innocent as the Jewish people of this continent, viciously scapegoated and murdered by a sociopathic madman.
Whereas Hitler was the main leader of the Nazi, the Islamic State seems to have a more diffused network to carry out their terror and destruction. They appear to have set up cells of terrorists throughout the northern African continent and frighteningly beyond.
Moderate line Islamic nations, such as Tunisia are a perfect example of proliferating terrorist cells operating within their infrastructure. It is only a matter of time for these hidden caliphate cells to strike again, not only there but in neighboring countries and across seas in Europe and the Americas.
Some here in France are calling that a Fifth Column exists here too, and my gut feeling says that this is true. The term “fifth column” was coined during the Spanish civil war, and means any clandestine group within wanting to overthrow the larger dominant group in control.
These very skillfully hidden sect like groups, sympathisers to Islamic State, are waiting in the aisles for the most propitious time to attack and maim, with even more vengeance than Hebdo Charlie. It is terrifying to think that Notre Dame could be considered a prime target as well with its millions of visitors each year.
Even more frightening for me, is to see the vast waves of young men and women being successfully recruited from various western European nations, America and Australia to secretly carry out the caliphate’s mission there and upon return to their home countries.
France notoriously tops the statistics of young jihadists leaving the country to join the Islamic State, followed by the UK, then Germany. Australia has adopted a no return policy and disrobing of Australian nationality, but neither Europe nor America have implanted any firm laws and resolutions to deal with identified returnees, other than possible attempts at “rehabilitation”, which I feel would be a waste of time and effort.
Identified is a key word here, as many unidentified terrorists and terrorists to be, are currently being camouflaged from law enforcement scrutiny in all western nations. The enemy is amongst us my friends.
One hears of shocked family members and friends upon learning that their children, brothers and sisters, neighbors and close friends have embraced such twisted beliefs. Indoctrination of ideologies that are abhorrent to the mainstream Western societal mores that these young folks grow up in, can only occur when there is a void within that young person.
Our youth are very vulnerable prey for Islamic State, which offers them a tightly woven community that seemingly proliferates belonging and acceptance into a spiritual and or religious unity that is often lacking in their own homes, especially in France.
France is a good example of being a nation that swung to the extreme embrace of secularism after the French revolution did away with royalty and tried to destroy Christian tradition that was also seen as complicit in the despotism of their royal leaders.
Many priests and religious were murdered and citizens with sympathies to either royalty or religious went to the guillotine. By the 1900’s there was also an intellectual desecration of religious beliefs, fueled by Karl Marx, who considered religion the “opium of people”, and Freud stating that it was a “universal neurosis”.
Here in France, this rhetoric was also espoused by Lacan, whose pseudo psychological tenets are still taught and voiced within psychoanalytic circles, oblivious to modern psychological theories, and neurophysiological and genetic research.
Voicing yourself as an atheist here became a sought after self label that certainly brought much more peer and social acceptance than admitting to having any religious convictions. Not surprising that France is reaping the bitter harvest of lost youths, very vulnerable to Islamic enculturation having grown up in households, who considered any religious beliefs to be the verbal ravelings of fools.
Although the French have many holidays that are in origin Catholic feast days, they are kept for the inbred societal calendar that affords them time off work and bridges to long weekends, rather than any religious significance.
Despite the above, I have nevertheless always seen the Assumption day processions of Notre Dame in Paris, that I participate in, to be very well attended. Last Saturday was no exception, noting the crowds swirling around in front of the cathedral waiting for the procession to begin.
I did notice though a very welcome increase in police milling around as well with their phones in hand trying their best to assure the security of all of us. There is now police surveillance of churches in Paris, since the thwarted attack of a Catholic church in a Parisian suburb was revealed.
Now with our churches and synagogues menaced with being choice theatres for diabolical Islamic terrorist assaults, I am beginning to see some mobilization within a few of the political ranks, though unfortunately not those currently elected.
These underpinnings of discomfort have led to increased support and growth of Marine Le Pen’s party who has been voicing concerns about the creeping over Islamization of France for several years. Meanwhile the numbers of French youth converting to Islam and being radicalized continues to increase, despite recent efforts to monitor those at risk towards jihadism.
I hope all of this is waking up the French to becoming more vigilant to what is happening to the cultural infrastructure of their society that is being invaded by those who want to reap the many social benefits available here, but are not willing to integrate and even despise the ancient Christian traditions of French society.
France has long assimilated many various European, Eastern European, Russian, and Asian immigrants who have successfully integrated here, but that has not been the case with the more recent flooding from her former French colonies, the vast majority embracing Islam.
I hope that the French initiated proposal of an upcoming summit in September that is to showcase the plight of Middle Eastern Christians, Yazidis and minority Kurds, will result in the European community making political asylums easier for them, with concentrated efforts to help bring those to safety and give them housing and tools for a successful relocation.
It is time for action, protection, humanitarian relief and asylum rather than mere words of support and thoughtful solidarity. Europe, collectively, did not do enough to prevent the holocaust, though there certainly were many individuals here secretly involved in trying to save our Jewish brothers and sisters.
Now we have multiple diabolical madmen intent on total purging of these innocent Christians and minorities, along with destruction of their historical monuments and churches to erase their existence in order to expand and solidity their caliphate not only there but beyond. Europe, nor the Americas are safe from the increasing infiltrations taking place under our nose.
My post is alarmist I know, but I would much prefer to have criticism of the sort, that sit back and not voice my true concerns. I have only a very small bell to ring, which I would have done if I had lived during the brooding dark clouds of Nazism.
The upcoming summit is occurring as well on another Marian feast day, the 8th of September celebrating the birthday of Blessed Mother Mary. One of the most beautiful processions that I ever participated in was in Rocamadour, which I wrote about in 2013.
Catholic and Orthodox Christians believe that the mother of Jesus is the spiritual mother of us all, and therefore how appropriate that a conference to save Christians of the Orient will be held on Her birthday.
I did walk away from Notre Dame, with a final encouraging note, at least concerning what I hope are 
signs of a revitalization of Christianity in France. This was the second time this year, that I have experienced standing room only at Mass.
Even though I was one of the first in procession and Notre Dame is an absolutely huge cathedral, I ended up standing up, at least this time up front. Considering that the church was closed during the procession, there must have been a massive bunch of folks waiting to burst in as soon as they opened the doors.
True, there are also vast amounts of tourists here, but I heard a lot of French around me too, which is another good sign since about half of the population of Paris disappears for their annual August vacation and also for Assumption .
If anybody besides Jesus can bring people back to church here, it certainly would be beloved Mother Mary, who offers Her maternal tenderness and love to all of Her children, regardless of their affiliation. Amen!
In some ways it appears that we are, in essence,” devolving” into a modern era of the Medieval times with “religious wars” being the worst of our social problems. The various factions of the Muslim Islamic sections have been fighting amongst themselves for several thousand years;. Now we have a world wide expansion of that. The basic problems are merely “ignorance” and lack of “common sense”. I fear that these are problems that will not be resolved in our life times. It simply is NOT PRACTICAL to mix people of such radically divergent theologies and societies into a country without the assurance of terroristic conflicts.
Our “melting pot” of immigrants is becoming a rather explosive mixture of insoluble societies.
Thank you David for your astute comment that gets right to core to the improbability of trying to integrate some cultures into mainstream western cultural norms, that do indeed have such different religious and very ingrained societal customs. France is a perfect example of trying, very unsuccessfully to do this with the massive influx of Islamic people from her old colonies, who already had an ongoing vendetta against the French and are extremely resistive in accordance with French norms. In France, it takes generations for assimilation, even with immigrants who share various divergent Christian beliefs, which seemingly occurs quicker and easier in America, than here. Asians in France have skillfully carved out for the most part a peaceful adaptation and co-existence with the French, maintaining their own prosperous businesses and enclaves. France is not the poster child of a melting pot society like America!