A large, historic Catholic church in New York is on its way to becoming a mosque, following its purchase by a Muslim organization.
On August 11, Fr. Ronald Vierling drew attention to the sale in a social media post: “St. Anne’s Church, Buffalo, NY. Permanently closed. Sold to the Islamic community for $250,000 who are converting the historic church into a mosque.”
According to one report, “St. Anne’s was built in 1886 by German immigrants. It had fallen into disrepair and become unusable for worshippers in recent years.”
Fr. Vierling’s post — which as of this writing had been viewed nearly 12 million times — sparked a backlash on social media.
“Muslims get a church for $250k but I can’t buy a house in a decent neighborhood for less than $500k,” one X user wrote. “Selling off Catholic Churches to Islam to convert it into a Mosque borders Blasphemy and Stupidity!” wrote another.
Vierling responded on the following day by writing,
No anger should be directed against the Islamic community. The parish complex was made available for sale by the diocese. No doubt the changing demographics of the area and the inability to financially support the complex made the continuance of St. Ann as a viable parish possible. This scenario is being played out in once large, urban dioceses across the country.
The significance of both of his posts — the first saying that Muslims bought and were transforming a church into a mosque, and the second saying that “no anger” should be directed at Muslims — are both true and important, though possibly for misunderstood reasons.
Regarding the first post, know that, for Muslims, this is not a mere business transaction. A point is being made.
From its very origins, Islam always sought to convert the temples of other religions into mosques — victory mosques, to be precise. Past and present, one of the very first signs of Muslim consolidation was/is the erection of a mosque atop the sacred sites of the vanquished: the pagan Ka’ba temple in Arabia was converted into Islam’s holiest site, the mosque of Mecca; the al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest site, was built atop Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem; the Umayyad mosque was built atop the Church of St. John the Baptist; and the Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque upon the conquest of Constantinople (and again, recently).
For Muslims, the transformation of temples into mosques is the physical manifestation and validation of Islam’s ancient battle cry: Allahu akbar, which simply means “my god is greater than your god,” as seen by Allah’s taking up residence in the temple of his vanquished counterparts.
The transformation of Christian churches into mosques is especially emblematic of this phenomenon. Because most of the land Islam conquered (or stole) from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east was for centuries Christian, most of the religious houses that were turned into victory mosques were churches.
Make no mistake of it: the transformation of St. Anne’s Church in Buffalo into a mosque is, for Muslims, another example of Islam’s triumph over its Christian nemesis. “Allahu akbar” will be chanted as the Muslim deity makes his residence in this vacated church.
Even so, Fr. Ronald Vierling saying, “No anger should be directed against the Islamic community” is also true. Muslims are, after all, only doing what is good for them and their religion. Who can blame them? They are not directly conquering anyone or annexing any building; the Catholic Church sold it to them. All fair and legal.
This is the point that so many in the West, who are otherwise wise to Islam and its wiles, do not seem to understand: Muslims cannot be faulted for flooding Western Europe; or for having so many children (so that the number one name for newborn baby boys in several Western capitals is Muhammad); or for advocating for laws and behavior that conform to sharia. In doing all of these things, they are merely engaging in self-preserving and self-promoting activities, which is how all normal people behave.
As such, so too should they not be blamed for buying and turning churches into mosques.
Alarmed Christians or Westerners in general will get nowhere until they learn to point their fingers in the right direction — at themselves, or at least, at their “elected” leaders who allow Muslims to promote themselves over the native peoples of the West.
And then doing something about it.
In short, yes, Christians should be angered that their churches are being pawned off to Muslims, who turn them into mosques; but Christian anger — if it is to be of any value — should be less directed against Muslims, whose actions are normal and representative of a people seeking to preserve and promote itself, and more toward themselves and their leaders, whose actions are suicidal and precisely what has led to so much Muslim empowerment and entitlement in the West.
Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West and Sword and Scimitar, is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.