Cross versus Crescent in Albania

Extract

To-day when, encouraged by the ostensible causes of and excuses for the Great War, the oppressed of centuries raise their heads, it behoves Catholics to look around and abroad, noting how fare their brethren in various parts of the globe. Troubles in foreign as well as adjacent lands are too often dismissed with the comfortable assurance that “these people are always fighting among themselves.” If enquiry reveals that grave wrongs are perpetrated with impunity, but also that interference entails risk of financial loss in great commercial transactions, the subject is laid aside and attention directed elsewhere. Thus only can be explained the indifference of Christian communities who equip missions for the Far East, to the desperate plight of Christians close at hand struggling for the right to live under the powerful pressure of ever-triumphant Mohammed.

Constantinople is popularly supposed to be the last stronghold of the Turk in Europe. In reality he is ensconced nearer home amid the impregnable fastnesses of Albania, whence he harries the Christians within reach, imposing his will on these fated slaves who still resist the shining lure of the Crescent. Among the recalcitrants are the Miridite, Malissori, and other Catholic tribes who mistakenly took it for granted that Turkey shared the defeat of her allies in the late war, and that they need no longer submit to the rule of Mohammed but could govern themselves on Christian lines.