Back to the Keyboard

Work and Christmas get in the way of blogging, but The Terrier is back. I missed a lot, non-flying imams, Iranian rants, Pelosi party preps, and the ISG for a short list. Let me jump back in with this: Lepanto. Or rather Crisis Magazine on Lepanto, by way of G.K. Chesterton. This gives the battle a decidedly Catholic slant, but as The Terrier is proud to be of that persuasion it works for me. This is how it starts, and every word is worth your time:

Lepanto, 1571: The Battle That Saved Europe
By H. W. Crocker III

The clash of civilizations is as old as history, and equally as old is the blindness of those who wish such clashes away; but they are the hinges, the turning points of history. In the latter half of the 16th century, Muslim war drums sounded and the mufti of the Ottoman sultan proclaimed jihad, but only the pope fully appreciated the threat. As Brandon Rogers notes in the Ignatius Press edition of G. K. Chesterton’s poem “Lepanto”: Pope Pius V “understood the tremendous importance of resisting the aggressive expansion of the Turks better than any of his contemporaries appear to have. He understood that the real battle being fought was spiritual; a clash of creeds was at hand, and the stakes were the very existence of the Christian West.” But then, as now, the unity of Christendom was shattered; and in the aftermath of the Protestant revolt, Islam saw its opportunity.

Lepanto