Less than two weeks after Poland’s massive “Rosary at the Borders” event, Archbishop Wojciech Polak has warned the priests of his diocese that he will not hesitate to suspend anyone who takes part in anti-immigrant activities.

Polak, who is the metropolitan archbishop of Gniezno and primate of all Poland, has threatened to suspend “a divinis” (from priestly activity) any member of the clergy of his archdiocese who takes part in activities directed against migrants.

“If I hear of a protest against migrants in which any of my priests has participated, my response will be swift: every priest who joins these events will be suspended,” he said in an interview this week. “I have no alternative as head of my diocese. In a situation where there are priests who explicitly support one side of a political conflict, I must act immediately.”

“Christ suffers in refugees and we need to open up to these refugees,” he said. “That is not the usual opening of borders without any control, but the wise systemic help that we can and should give, and which will not pose any threat to us,” he added.

Bishop Wojciech Polak, Secretary General of the Episcopal Conference of Poland, attends a press conference concerning paedophilia in church on September 27, 2013, in Warsaw. (Photo by MIKOLAJ TORUNSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

More than a million Catholics showed up along the Polish borders on Oct. 7 to pray the rosary, asking the intercession of the Virgin Mary to “save Europe from Islamization.” The feast of the Holy Rosary celebrated on that day commemorates the 1571 victory over the Ottoman Turks at Lepanto, a battle that turned the tide for the Christian “Holy League” against the Muslim invaders.

In preparation for that decisive encounter, Saint Pope Pius V ordered the churches of Rome opened for prayer day and night, and urged the faithful to invoke the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary through the prayer of the Rosary. On hearing of the Christian victory, the Pope established a new feast day in the Roman Liturgical Calendar, originally called Our Lady of Victory and now known as the feast of the Holy Rosary.

According to the spokesman for the Polish Bishops’ Conference, Father Pawel Rytel-Andrianik, the Oct. 7 event drew “millions of people” to pray the rosary together and was the second-largest prayer event ever held in Europe, after the 2016 World Youth Day.

“This exceeded the boldest expectations of the organizers,” he said.

The Archbishop of Krakow, Marek Jedraszewski, who sits in the former chair of Karol Wojtyla, presided over the rosary recitation, calling on the faithful to “pray for Europe to remain Christian to save its culture.”

Several mainstream media outlets suggested that the Rosary at the Borders carried a message that was xenophobic and anti-Islamic.

PICS: Thousands of Poles Pray on the Border Against ‘Islamisation of Europe’
https://t.co/Nyfw00LXsr

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 8, 2017

The Associated Press (AP), for example, suggested that the event smacked of “a problematic expression of Islamophobia” while warning that the event had “anti-Muslim overtones.”

Citing an “expert on xenophobia,” the AP said that the border prayer event “reinforces the ethno-religious, xenophobic model of national identity,” and represents a “problematic expression of Islamophobia” in the country.

The AP was not the only mainstream media outlet to criticize the overtly Christian commemoration, which was supported by Poland’s bishops as well as the country’s prime minister.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) called the rosary prayer “controversial,” suggesting that the event could be seen “as support for the government’s refusal to accept Muslim migrants.”

For its part, Newsweek magazine proclaimed that the border prayer was a “controversial event seen as anti-Muslim,” repeating the charge that “the prayers seemed like a way to express Islamophobia.”

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PARIS (AP) — A French ex-intelligence chief is expected to addresses failures in tracking Islamic extremists, at the trial over deadly 2012 attacks on a Jewish school and French soldiers.

Bernard Squarcini, now a private security consultant, was heading the French police counterterrorism agency when Mohammed Merah went on a shooting rampage, killing three French paratroopers, three Jewish schoolchildren and a rabbi.

Squarcini said at the time that Merah acted as a lone wolf, self-radicalized when in prison for petty crimes and wasn’t affiliated with an extremist network. But Merah had been placed on the “fiche S” listing, a register of people suspected of being radicalized, as soon as 2006 because of his relationship with older brother Abdelkader Merah, who is on trial for complicity to terror in connection with the three shooting attacks Mohammed Merah carried out in and near Toulouse.

Mohammed Merah was on the U.S. government no-fly list and in 2010, French military intelligence had been alerted by U. S. officials after he turned up in southern Afghanistan and was caught at a random roadway checkpoint by Afghan police, then handed over to the U.S. military.

He was also quizzed by a police official months before the carnage.

The 23-year-old Merah died days after the killings, following a 32-hour standoff with France’s police special forces, and questions immediately rose about the slow police response. Squarcini said authorities couldn’t have foreseen the attack at the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school because Merah planned it at the last minute.

Prosecutors believe Abdelkader Merah played an active role in radicalizing his brother and in plotting the attacks, although Mohammed said he acted alone during his standoff with police, according to a transcript obtained by the French newspaper Liberation a few months afterward.

If convicted of complicity to terror, Abdelkader Merah faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Daniel Llorente, a Cuban dissident who made news in May by running into the island nation’s communist May Day parade waving an American flag, remains trapped in Havana’s notorious mental institution. Family say doctors have not diagnosed Llorente with any illness or charged him with any crime.

The Castro regime has a long history of using the institution in question, known commonly as Mazorra, to isolate and torture pro-democracy dissidents.

This week, the Miami-based outlet Marti Noticias published an interview with son Eliécer Llorente, who stated that “it is obvious State Security is keeping him there,” either to punish the man for his repeated pro-American transgressions or to prevent him from staging more acts of protest. As Llorente is not officially an inmate of the state and has not been charged with any crime, he does not technically count as a political prisoner.

The younger Llorente says his father has refused all medication and food that come from the state, so his family sends him crackers and milk. “He says that he will not eat from the hand of the oppressor,” Eliécer told Martí.

The outlet notes that medical professionals at Mazorra had issued a report in June clearing Llorente of any mental illness, but that report has disappeared and been replaced a month later with a government-provided document claiming Llorente was “aggressive” and required institutionalization.

Llorente had faced charges of “public disorder” following the incident in May, but a local court dismissed the charges in August. The dismissal appeared to have no effect on Llorente’s confinement.

The younger Llorente had also previously told Martí that his father had accused one medical staffer in particular, Dr. Marien Guerra Guerra, of lying to him about his legal status before he confirmed he had been exonerated of the charges against him.

Prior to his son’s interview this week, the Cuban independent outlet 14 y Medio published an interview with Daniel Llorente most recently on October 1, in which Llorente explained, “They tell me here that my situation is on standby because my cause is being examined.” Llorente was aware, however, that the state had dropped the charges against him. He noted that officials did not allow him to leave a tiny area of the mental ward or have much interaction with people.

In that interview, Llorente revealed two tattoos, one on each fist, of the Cuban and American flags. 14 y Medio also noted that Llorente has requested political asylum in the United States, but, despite repeated assurances by President Donald Trump that he would support the Cuban freedom cause, he has yet to receive permission to enter the country.

Llorente referred to America as “the greatest defender of human rights, hope, freedom, justice, brotherhood, and the pursuit of happiness” in the world.

Llorente ran into Havana’s May Day parade this year proudly waving the American flag for several seconds before plain-clothed Cuban police attacked him, publicly beating him, and dragging him away. Following his arrest, authorities told Llorente he would be transferred to Mazorra for “believing in God,” which doctors deemed a sign of mental illness.

The Castro regime has long used Mazorra as an alternative prison for political dissidents. In a 1995 report, Amnesty International noted that they had received reports that “political prisoners were being sent to psychiatric institutions’ detention pavilions controlled by the State, where they are confined in dangerous conditions with poor hygiene and exposed to ill treatment from personnel and other inmates.”