Our Lady of Piat, watch of the blessed children on the Phillipines and let us, here in America, emmulate their gentle piety!
I love Belloc for his astuteness, wit, and not infrequently, humor. But this essay stopped short of Central Asia. There is one country in the Far East that was herded into Catholicism by violent colonization. The cruelty of Spanish-Mexican colonizers was legendary, but the Philippines stood fast in its newly-found faith. ( The Philippines was an Islam-pagan country before Spain claimed it as colony.)
The irony of it is that nowadays Islam is making great headways into the main population centers and converting large groups of people into Islam. It's a question of economics. It's easier to become a migrant worker in Saudi and Kuwait if one converts into Islam, than - remain Christian and tries to immigrate into the U.S. or Canada or Spain. The economic situation is so bad that everybody it seems wants to leave the country for greener pastures.
But not to lose heart - a great majority of the people (80%) is still Catholic and more staunchly Catholic than ever before. Please pray for the Philippines.
Our Lady of Piat, watch of the blessed children on the Phillipines and let us, here in America, emmulate their gentle piety!