Satan Is Winning

ISIL has little to do with Satan's growing power; it is because of the impotent and hypocritical Vatican, the growing relativism of morality, the increasing skepticism and irrelevance of Jesus that Christ's influence is diminishing.

This is not a time for the genuinely faithful to join the herd that is wandering astray, to echo its collective call for blind acceptance of God-free, Satan-centric values, nor is it a time to demand absolutism, for no one can speak of absoluteness without first knowing God's Truth.

God's Truth is absolute.  Perhaps Jesus gave all a glimpse of it, a Truth based on love and forgiveness.  Man is certainly capable of it but with Satan around, he is not, unless he is willing to engage in a constant struggle against Evil, even that does not ensure that he will overcome the forces of Evil, but at least they will be attenuated.

What about God's love and forgiveness that is different from man's?  God's love and forgiveness is pure and unconditional, without guise and self-interest.  What God wants for all mankind is complete and eternal fulfillment; but the first things most people want are those advantageous to them, self-serving, that culminate in fulfillment in their mortal lives.  In a way, that is an acceptance of Satan's third temptation of Christ. [1]

[1] "Again, the devil took [Jesus] to a very high mountain and showed [H]im all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.  'All this I will give you,' he said, 'if you will bow down and worship me.'"  See https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+4%3A1-11  It is interesting to note that Satan never uttered the words "for eternity".  Therefore, no matter how exceptional and desirable anything is in life, it is only temporal, its worth  nil at death.  Such are the promises of Satan, temporal that become worthless at death, and death is certain.