(LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Marian Eleganti, in an interview published Thursday, said that Islam cannot be integrated into Western political systems that the Christian faith has shaped.

During the interview with La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana published August 13, the auxiliary bishop emeritus of Chur, Switzerland, emphasized that it’s impossible for Islam to be integrated into the Western world, which holds Christian foundations. The bishop further highlighted the “anti-Christian” agenda of both Islamists and modernism and the dangers of mass migration into Europe.

“Personally, I am convinced that Islam cannot be integrated into our political systems, which have been shaped by Christianity,” Bishop Eleganti said during the interview.

“There is no such thing as an apolitical Islam, one of purely internal religious devotion. It is a system of domination. And the more its followers are convinced of this, the less it can be integrated. The result is parallel worlds,” he added.

During another part of the interview, the Italian outlet cited a 2017 Pew Research Center report that projected that by 2050 there will be 57.9 million Muslims in Europe, accounting for 11.2% of the population. The interviewer also noted that while the Muslim population is steadily growing in Europe, the native population, which primarily includes at least nominal Christians, is declining.

Eleganti stressed that this is a result of European Christians having “far too few children of our own” and compensating by importing Muslim migrants. Asked about how the Catholic Church has responded to this mass migration, the bishop underscored that the hierarchy refuses to see the reality of the situation.

“(The Church) refuses to see things as they really are and speaks only of charity — against which there is nothing to object. But that doesn’t solve the problem,” he said. “A father who wants to help orphaned children and already has two of his own must still assess whether he can afford to adopt another child.”

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“His love for his neighbor is expressed in a reasonable way. He evaluates whether the child can be integrated into the existing family, both from a human-psychological and a financial standpoint,” he added. “One too many adoptions could place a heavy burden on the family and perhaps even put it at risk. Those who cannot provide for a child cannot adopt. Any child understands this.”

Pope Leo XIV’s pro-migrant rhetoric

Indeed, Pope Leo XIV and other prominent Catholic prelates have taken numerous opportunities to praise and only highlight the dignity of migrants while largely ignoring the Church’s full teaching on immigration.

While the Church affirms that immigrants should be treated with dignity and respect, as the Holy Father suggested, it also notes that a country has a right to secure its borders. In the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB’s) “Catholic Social Teaching on Immigration and the Movement of Peoples,” the conference outlines that countries are under no obligation to accept all who wish to enter.

In particularly egregious remarks during the pontiff’s June visit to Spain, he praised migration into Europe, days after a migrant from Muslim-majority Sudan attacked and attempted to behead a man in Northern Ireland.

Just under two months later at the end of July, 50,000-60,000 migrants swarmed into the small Spanish territory of Ceuta illegally from the predominantly Islamic Moroccan border.

During the reckless surge, at least 86 people died, mostly by drowning while trying to swim onto the Spanish shores.

READ: Horror invasion unfolding as tens of thousands of Moroccans swarm Spanish enclave

The Daily Mail reported at the time that the situation even led to unrest in the streets, with locals taking to the streets to protest and push back the trespassers.

“Many were seen waving Spanish flags and screaming at them,” the Mail reported. “As a group of migrants were seen running away, a loud police siren was heard in the background.” The National Police union Jupol issued a statement bemoaning the “clear lack of personnel and material resources” to deal with the situation.

‘Anti-Christian agenda’ of Islam, modernism

A bit later in the interview, Eleganti compared Islam with “neo-Enlightenment modernism,” which has also spread throughout Europe. He stressed that despite being different ideologies, they both have an “anti-Christian agenda” in common.

“What (these ideologies) have in common is an anti-Christian agenda. We must pray and place our trust in God,” the bishop said. “Ultimately, this is a supernatural struggle: on the one hand, the Incarnation of God and the revelation of truth; on the other, the constant and ever-new Luciferian inventions that seduce humanity. The latter aim for an earthly and political kingdom. God, however, wishes to reign in hearts.”

Asked how the Church’s focus on issues like migration, dialogue, poverty, and ecology has “emptied seminaries,” Eleganti concluded the interview by lamenting that Pope Francis had begun moving the Church in this direction.

“Jesus says clearly: ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ Therefore, the Church should not constantly speak as if the kingdom of God were of this world,” he said. “Our task is not the same as that of politicians.”

“The Church has been speaking out on these (social) issues for decades. We don’t need a constant stream of new documents on the subject,” he added. “What matters to us is the salvation of souls. The Gospel contains all the answers. Ultimately, things are simple. An excess of words and complexity is not a sign of a divine solution. Our solution is Jesus. That is what we must offer the world — nothing else. It’s that simple.”

Other prelates’ criticism of mass Islamic migration

Several other Catholic prelates have similarly criticized the mass migration of Muslims into Europe in recent years. In a recently resurfaced clip from 2025, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, noting the mass influx of Muslim migrants into Europe, emphasized that many of these people are not refugees and that the “mass Islamization” of Europe is part of a plot by the “powerful” to destroy Christianity in Europe.

WATCH: Bp. Schneider calling out ‘Islamization of Europe’ goes viral amid Spain migrant crisis

“Now we are witnessing an invasion. They are not refugees — no — this is an invasion of the mass Islamization of Europe,” the bishop said in the clip. “And so this is a global political agenda by the powerful of the world: to destroy Europe culturally and religiously — to destroy Christianity ultimately in Europe.”

This story has been updated.

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