Hundreds of thousands of Catholics prayed together along the Poland’s 2,000-mile border over the weekend. Over 300 Catholic churches supported the “Rosary to the Borders” event that took place at more than 4,000 locations across the country. According to local media reports, around 150,000 Poles took part in the day-long event.
The nationwide prayers mark the victory of a Christian military alliance over the Ottoman Turks at the naval battle of Lepanto on October 7, 1571. The victory of the Christian forces in the Greek Ionian Sea halted the Ottoman imperial expansion into the Mediterranean and prevent the Islamization of the Southern Europe almost four and a half centuries ago.
The sight of tens of thousands of Christians peacefully united in prayer prompted hysteric reaction by the mainstream media, with major new outlets crying xenophobia and Islamophobia.
“Poles pray en masse at border; Some see anti-Muslim agenda,” the Washington Post wrote. The Post quoted a “xenophobia and extremism” expert who “saw the prayers Saturday as a problematic expression of Islamophobia coming at a time of rising anti-Muslim sentiment in Poland.”
“Islamophobic Action?” asked the leading German newspaper Die Welt. “The campaign is controversial – opponents claim that it is aimed at Muslims, added the newspaper.
According to the BBC, Poland’s Catholics were “hold[ing] controversial prayer day on borders.” Without citing any references, the UK broadcaster claimed that “there are concerns it could be seen as endorsing the state's refusal to let in Muslim migrants.”
The New York Times parroted the same line of argument and conclude its report quoting an obscure left-wing Polish politician accusing the Catholic organizers of “treat religion as a tool for maintaining backwardness in the Polish backwater.”
European TV network France24 reported the Poland’s nationwide prayer event:
Reciting "Rosary to the Borders", they called to be protected from the dangers facing them. The episcopate insisted that it was a purely religious initiative.
The goal was to have as many prayer points as possible along Poland's 3,511-kilometre (2,200-mile) border with Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Russia and the Baltic Sea.
Fishing boats joined the event on the sea, while kayaks and sailboats formed chains on Polish rivers, local media said.
During a mass, broadcast live by the ultra-Catholic Radio Maryja, Krakow archbishop Marek Jedraszewski called on believers to pray "for the other European nations to make them understand it is necessary to return to Christian roots so that Europe would remain Europe."
Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki, head of the Polish Episcopal Conference, told the commercial radio station RMF FM that "the key objective of this manifestation is to pray for peace."
It is intriguing to see the hysteric reactions coming from the mainstream media outlets at the sight of a European nation openly embracing its Christian faith and heritage. Media commentators, telling everyone on to “get on with it” and “learn to live with it” every time radical Islam rears its ugly head and leaves a fresh trail of blood behind, see ‘Islamophobia’ if someone lifts as much as a rosary in name of the Christian Europe.