[American Thinker] Pope Francis, despite being the head of worldwide Catholicism, always seems to be apologizing for the faith. In Malta, that apology extended to hiding the cross from illegal Muslim immigrants. This act of Christian cowardice was more poignant than usual, given that Malta, in the mid-16th century, was the site of one of the Catholic world’s bravest and most successful stands against Islam’s push to take over Europe.The Republic of Malta is a tiny island located southwest of both the toe of the Italian boot and the island of Sicily. Travel further west from Malta and you will find yourself heading to Tunisia, in North Africa. Alternatively, if you head east from Malta, after passing from the Mediterranean Sea into the Aegean Sea, you will find yourself at the Bosporus, and the country known as Turkey today, but that was once home to the powerful Ottoman Empire.
In the mid-15th century, the Ottoman Turks emerged from the east to conquer Constantinople, the last remnant of the great Roman empire. They converted the magnificent Church of the Hagia Sophia into the Grand Mosque of the Hagia Sophia, renamed the city Istanbul. From Istanbul, they continued their conquests.
The Ottoman Empire didn’t stop there. It gradually conquered most of the Balkans (and helped give rise to the story of Dracula, since Vlad the Impaler fought against the Turks), and acquired large swaths of the Middle East, including Egypt and other parts of North Africa, the Holy Land, Baghdad, Mesopotamia, parts of the Caucasus region (which eventually were incorporated into the Soviet Union), some of the former Venetian empire, and more. The Ottomans seemed unstoppable.
However, by the mid-16th century, Europeans began to fight back. One of the most famous battles between Catholic Europe and the Muslim Ottomans occurred at the Great Siege of Malta. The Knights Hospitaller, whom the Ottomans had driven from Rhodes, had their headquarters there and, when the Ottomans attacked, they refused to yield. Instead, they and the citizens of Malta withstood a devastating siege that lasted nearly four months.