In the shadow of a world where nearly half the nations, 88 out of 195, to be precise, clamp down on the Bible with bans, restrictions, or outright hostility, the West's obsession with "equalism" and unbridled diversity stands as a monument to self-delusion. Open Doors' inaugural Bible Access List, unveiled in October 2025, paints a grim canvas: from Somalia's extremist stranglehold to North Korea's death sentences for Gospel whispers, and China's calculated squeeze on unregistered churches, where 5-10 million Christians crave Scriptures they cannot obtain. Enter Cardinal Joseph Zen, that unyielding sentinel of faith, who years ago decried the Vatican's "terrible" dalliance with Beijing's regime, urging believers to flee the state-sanctioned sham churches and retreat "to the catacombs" lest they become "complete slaves" to a Communist apparatus that twists worship into party propaganda. "If we fight, they will do even more [harm]," he warned, counselling a tactical withdrawal to preserve the "truth that makes us free." Yet here we are, in the enlightened West, genuflecting to every imported creed while our own heritage is bartered away. It makes no sense: the West bends over backwards with equalism regarding diversity, only to find that gesture met with a contempt. This one-sided farce isn't just illogical — it's suicidal, inviting the intolerant to reshape our societies without a whisper of reciprocity.
This asymmetry reeks of civilisational masochism. Consider the arithmetic of intolerance: Open Doors catalogues 15 nations with "extreme" Bible restrictions, where possessing Holy Writ invites imprisonment or worse — Somalia, Afghanistan, Yemen, North Korea, Mauritania topping the list — and another 18 with "severe" barriers, including China's Orwellian "sinicisation" that demands religions bow to Marxist dogma. In Beijing's grip, unregistered flocks, once grudgingly ignored, now face raids, with Bibles confiscated amid a surveillance state that monitors every sermon for ideological purity. Zen's lament echoes this: the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, that puppet edifice, enforces bans on evangelising youth, shackles bishops as "state clerks," and reduces faith to a tool of the Party, all while the Vatican, shamefully, pushes for "unity" with this schismatic farce. Globally, 100 million Christians languish without Scriptures, starved by persecution, poverty, or print shortages, their spiritual famine a testament to regimes that view the Cross as a threat to control.
Now pivot to the West's folly: in Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, and America, we roll out the red carpet for the very ideologies that fuel this repression. We accommodate prayer rooms in airports, burqas in schools, and Ramadan observances in workplaces, preaching "inclusion" as if it's a sacrament. But reciprocity? A mirage. Try building a church in Saudi Arabia, where Bibles are contraband, or preaching the Gospel in Pakistan without courting blasphemy charges that end in mob lynchings. In Turkey, ancient cathedrals like Hagia Sophia morph into mosques, their crosses scrubbed, while Erdogan's regime jails pastors on trumped-up terror raps.
This lopsided bargain extends to immigration, the great engine of our demographic undoing. We import millions from these Bible-banning bastions, Afghans, Yemenis, Nigerians, Ethiopians, granting them asylum, welfare, and voting rights, all while they remit billions home to bolster the very systems that persecute our co-religionists. In Europe, the influx from Islamic nations, where apostasy from Islam merits death in 13 countries, has birthed no-go zones in Malmö and Molenbeek. Australia, that once Anglo outpost, absorbs waves from India and China, where Hindu nationalists torch churches and Beijing shutters Christian house fellowships, yet demands "diversity training" for its native sons. America's southern border, even post-Trump fortifications, leaks Central Americans fleeing corruption, only for their kin to form ethnic lobbies.
Why this madness? Equalism — the modernist heresy that all cultures are interchangeable widgets, that Somali clannism equals English common law — blinds us to the obvious: diversity without reciprocity is conquest by consent. Our elites, marinated in guilt over colonialism and crusades, peddle "tolerance" as virtue, forgetting that true equality demands mutual respect. They don't: in Iran, Bibles are burned; in Algeria, churches are sealed; in India, anti-conversion laws muzzle missionaries. Yet we fund UN resolutions condemning "Islamophobia" while ignoring the "Christophobia" that claims 5,621 Christian lives annually, per Open Doors' tallies. This isn't progress; it's the intolerant feast on our freedoms without extending theirs.
Cardinal Zen's catacomb call is prophetic: if China forces faithful underground, why does the West surface every alien creed above our own? The Vatican's "provisional agreement" with Beijing, renewed despite Zen's pleas, exemplifies this capitulation, legitimising a "state church" that Zen brands a betrayal, pushing clergy to register or face ruin. We must heed his urge: remain "faithful to the truth," rejecting the false unity that Zen decries as "destroying all the Church." For Christians, this means reciprocity as policy: tie aid, trade, and visas to religious freedoms abroad. Bar immigration from nations that ban Bibles or persecute believers; why welcome those who won't welcome us? Revive our Christian patrimony: mandate Western history in schools, not grievance studies; subsidise native families, not endless inflows; enforce assimilation or deportation.
The West's equalism is a sucker bet, unreciprocated and unrewarded. As 88 nations shutter the Scriptures, we fling open our gates to their emissaries. Enough. Let us straighten our spines, demand mutuality, and preserve the Christian flame that lit civilisation. For if we don't, Zen's catacombs await us all, not in distant tyrannies, but in the hollowed heart of our own homelands.
https://gatewayhispanic.com/video/almost-half-countries-world-ban-restrict-holy-bible/