In 1993 I was studying law at Cambridge University in England.  Of course, we visited the Inns of Court in London, power-central for British jurisprudence.  At lunchtime, a bit heady from the obligatory sherry-for-ladies-pre-prandial, I wandered a bit and came upon, of all things, the sepulcher of a Crusader. 

I knew what it was immediately. I am Catholic, and although quite unregenerate at that time, still, the old stories and pictures were there.  Besides, you couldn't mistake it; the period was right: a knight in stone effigy, on the grave, decked out in the very latest warrior garb of the (circa 1100 AD) time; and anyway, the knight still clutched, in death, his shield across his chest, emblazoned upon which was that big, red Cross.

Of a sudden the din of outside London was stilled.  This place was holy, myself notwithstanding; and I knew "holy" because I'd just visited Rome over our class break and, there, I had visited the Catacombs.  The Catacombs are “holy” whether you want them to be or not.

And so was the grave of this knight, killed fighting the Saracen hordes all those centuries ago.  I surprised myself by instinctively doing something I hadn't done for years. I knelt at this man's gravesite and, from the depths, quite unbidden, came a prayer:  “Make me courageous, like you.”

Last week, Alvernia University, an ostensibly Catholic university in Reading, Pennsylvania, announced it had scuttled its teams’ “Crusader” mascot and removed the name and image of  “Crusaders” from its various team and university logos. More than just the most recent casualty in the Islamic war against the West, this strikes at the very heart of Judeo-Christian culture, namely, the Crusaders!

It is not too much to say that, but for those real “holy warriors”, the West would not be the West, and indeed we'd all be chanting Allahu Akhbar five times a day with our rumps in the air and all the (genitally mutilated) women at the back of the bus. Sorry, I meant the mosque.

Yes, Alvernia U. this week distinguished itself from the ranks of your everyday, run-of-the-mill quislings and topped the charts.  Caving in to pressure from the Muslim Students’ Association (part and parcel of the Muslim Brotherhood), Alvernia removed all references to the name and image of a “Crusader”.  The replacement has yet to appear, but we may all rest assured that it will be something “diverse”, something “inclusive”, and above all something not “troublesome” or “offensive” (which was how the Crusader mascot/logo was characterized by Alvernia’s officials, for whom the great courage of those knightly Crusaders might as well be entombed with their bones). Of course, the replacement won't include any “Catholic” names.  Or “Christian”, or “Jewish.”  No saints need apply, and as for anything even vaguely smacking of “whiteness”, well...!

Actually, unless the new mascot/logo is deemed acceptable and approved by the Muslim/LGBT/illegal alien/BlackLivesMatter masters of the universe there at Alvernia U., it'll never see the light of day. They’d much rather diss the Crusaders than The Religion of Peace™.

The dysfunctional family that is Islam has a need to be engaged in perpetual warfare.  And it isn't just the jihad doctrine either.  Harking back to my pre-law days as a Psych Nurse, I saw this sort of pathology play out over and over, ad infinitum, ad tedium, ad nauseam.  Dysfunctional families never have a normal sense of belonging, of closeness, of bond.  But they still crave it.  And the one time they do achieve it is when they are threatened from the outside, even if that threat has to be manufactured. Only then can these “families” feel themselves to be, well, a “family” at all. 

So on they go. A kid is arrested?  Bonding!  Dad's in the slammer?  Feel the love!  The one and only time you see these units as a whole is invariably in the courtroom where -- notwithstanding all the tats and the sagging trousers -- they're aglow with family feeling.  Which vanishes immediately the kid gets his case dismissed, or dear old Dad is released on time-served.

Islam won't stop attacking, and when those attacks (like, say, an invasion of Europe) elicit protective reactions (like, say, the Crusades), those reactions are characterized as unprovoked attacks driven by Islamophobia.  But We-The-People took a giant step towards non-facilitation of their attacks when we lately defied both political parties, all of the media and all the odds and elected Donaldus Magnus as president. Newsflash, Alvernia U: We've already established that you're not Catholic.  But you're still American.  Oh, wait. Are you?

Kathy Brown, Esq. is an attorney and a nurse, and in addition currently teaches American History at a Catholic school. She’s a native of NYC who now makes her home in the American Heartland.