Pope Francis and Islam: Continuing The Discussion...

[Beloved2018]

As we are all aware of the actions of Pope Francis vis-a-vis Islam, I won't over burden this post with examples. My purposes in starting this thread is to 1)delve into the reasons for those actions and 2)also to find parallel examples in his predecessors and the reasons for those actions. I don't know if I'm really seeking to rehabilitate the papal office from scandal, but I'm most definitely looking out for the truth.

Let me begin by saying, I don't believe Pope Francis is a rogue Pope. In my opinion, there is precedence for his position. One of the theological reasons behind his actions may be summarized as:

841 The Church's relationship with the Muslims. "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day." (Catechism)

If Pope Francis believes the Muslims and Catholics 'adore the one, merciful God', then visiting mosques, praying alongside Imams, ect. becomes more understandable.

But do we? Do Muslims and Christians 'together...adore the one...God', when Faith teaches us that God's Oneness is Trinitarian, something which Muslims reject (although wrongly understood)? As well, Christian cannot 'adore' God outside of invoking either in heart or with tongue, the Name of Jesus, something not done in Islam.....

Thoughts?

 

[Mark_Sam]

I was actually reading Dr. Ed Peters' blog post on the death penalty (The death penalty debate and the Church’s magisterium) and he brings up an interesting point, which actually gave me some peace of mind. As all of our Pontiff's dubious actions and words are an exercise of the ordinary Magisterium, they cannot bind the faithful unless they are taught by the pope and the bishops over a long period of time (papal-episcopally, as he says). And as Canon 752 ("religious submission of the intellect and will ...") is very new in the Canon Law, it is not obvious what excactly the scope of this canon is, or how it is to be applied. If this is the case, it is no longer necessary to "spin" everything the Pontiff says, especially if it is something novel. If the pope is truly preaching religious pluralism, we should not be ashamed to ignore it in good faith.

But please, let no one tell this to the pope, lest he try to exercise his extraordinary Magisterium (which a pope can exercise on his own) - for the sake of his own soul.

That being said, the main problem with the Declaration in question is that one litte sentence implying that religious pluralism is willed by God. That Christians and Muslims worship the same God, is old hat at this point (Nostra Aetate, no. 3) - with the always-necessary precaution that Islam is not a road to salvation, nor is it a true or God-pleasing religion. But God cannot will a false religions (an intrinsic evil) in the same way that he wills languages and cultures (not intrinsic evils), and grouping them together is a categorical fallacy. Best case scenario, it is mediocre theology written badly. Worst case scenario, it is a heretical theology written in a confusing way.

 

[Beloved2018]

I was actually reading Dr. Ed Peters' blog post on the death penalty (The death penalty debate and the Church’s magisterium) and he brings up an interesting point, which actually gave me some peace of mind. As all of our Pontiff's dubious actions and words are an exercise of the ordinary Magisterium, they cannot bind the faithful unless they are taught by the pope and the bishops over a long period of time (papal-episcopally, as he says). And as Canon 752 ("religious submission of the intellect and will ...") is very new in the Canon Law, it is not obvious what excactly the scope of this canon is, or how it is to be applied. If this is the case, it is no longer necessary to "spin" everything the Pontiff says, especially if it is something novel. If the pope is truly preaching religious pluralism, we should not be ashamed to ignore it in good faith.

Just so there is no misunderstanding, it's not my intent to 'spin' anything. I'm only after the truth. Thank you for the link.

But please, let no one tell this to the pope, lest he try to exercise his extraordinary Magisterium (which a pope can exercise on his own) - for the sake of his own soul.

To my knowledge, he can only exercise it in two ways, 1) call a council 2) speak from the chair of Peter. In both cases, doesn't he have God's promise of Orthodoxy?

That being said, the main problem with the Declaration in question is that one little sentence implying that religious pluralism is willed by God. That Christians and Muslims worship the same God, is old hat at this point (Nostra Aetate, no. 3) -

But I'm not an old hat, and my concerns are still valid.

with the always-necessary precaution that Islam is not a road to salvation, nor is it a true or God-pleasing religion. But God cannot will a false religions (an intrinsic evil) in the same way that he wills languages and cultures (not intrinsic evils), and grouping them together is a categorical fallacy. Best case scenario, it is mediocre theology written badly. Worst case scenario, it is a heretical theology written in a confusing way.

I don't see how this addresses any of my particular concerns.

 

[Mark_Sam]

Just so there is no misunderstanding, it's not my intent to 'spin' anything. I'm only after the truth. Thank you for the link.

That one was not directed at you specifically - there has been this tendency for people across the board (from libs to trads) to read into Francis whatever they want. But the truth should always be our goal, yeah.

To my knowledge, he can only exercise it in two ways, 1) call a council 2) speak from the chair of Peter. In both cases, doesn't he have God's promise of Orthodoxy?

That is true. I was hinting at the (very unlikely) scenario that should a pope want to exercise his extraordinary Magisterium to say teach something false or heretical, then God would probably strike him down before he could do that (disease, lightning from the sky, idk). The promise is to the office of the Papacy, not to the individual incumbent.

But I'm not an old hat, and my concerns are still valid.

I have debated this topic extensively in the past (about the Catholic-Muslim relation), and have heard most arguments, but it's wasn't my intention to devalue or downplay your concerns, which are indeed valid.

I don't see how this addresses any of my particular concerns.

Yeah, I was kind of just ranting a little here, off topic maybe.

 

[Beloved2018]

I have debated this topic extensively in the past (about the Catholic-Muslim relation), and have heard most arguments, but it's wasn't my intention to devalue or downplay your concerns, which are indeed valid.

If it's not overly burdensome to you, I would love to talk about it with you. But if you've had enough, I understand.

 

[Rhamiel]

A lot of people deeply respect Pope John Paul II but when he received a Quran as a gift he kissed it as a sign of respect

I think that action and the actions done at the Assisi Ecumenical Prayer Meetings leave a permanent black eye on his pontificate

 

[Beloved2018]

A lot of people deeply respect Pope John Paul II but when he received a Quran as a gift he kissed it as a sign of respect

I think that action and the actions done at the Assisi Ecumenical Prayer Meetings leave a permanent black eye on his pontificate

I absolutely agree. I don't mean to make light of the other scandals by zeroing in on this, but I just find this so ......Christ-denying.

 

[football5680]

If Pope Francis believes the Muslims and Catholics 'adore the one, merciful God', then visiting mosques, praying alongside Imams, ect. becomes more understandable.

But do we? Do Muslims and Christians 'together...adore the one...God', when Faith teaches us that God's Oneness is Trinitarian, something which Muslims reject (although wrongly understood)? As well, Christian cannot 'adore' God outside of invoking either in heart or with tongue, the Name of Jesus, something not done in Islam.....

Thoughts?

We shouldn't visit mosques or pray alongside Imams. Whether we worship the same God just depends on how deep we look in to it. If we say we worship the God of Abraham, and they say they worship the God of Abraham, then in this regards, it is the same. When you go deeper than this, the differences in our understanding are much greater but the same logic can be applied to the Jews as well.

I don't think Pope Francis has anything more than a very basic, surface level understanding of Islam so he is easily deceived. The same Muslim who signed the document that talked about people having the freedom of belief, thought, etc...also says death to apostates, so that is how seriously he is taking that scrap of paper. I could also point out like 50 more things in that document that Islam explicitly rejects so it was just a big deception to try and make Islam look better to a Western audience that won't do any further research and will just accept it at face value.

 

[football5680]

A lot of people deeply respect Pope John Paul II but when he received a Quran as a gift he kissed it as a sign of respect

I think that action and the actions done at the Assisi Ecumenical Prayer Meetings leave a permanent black eye on his pontificate

I agree. Praying with Muslims and Jews is one thing, but having all those other religions there is just disgusting.

 

[Beloved2018]

We shouldn't visit mosques or pray alongside Imams. Whether we worship the same God just depends on how deep we look in to it. If we say we worship the God of Abraham, and they say they worship the God of Abraham, then in this regards, it is the same. When you go deeper than this, the differences in our understanding are much greater but the same logic can be applied to the Jews as well.

I don't think Pope Francis has anything more than a very basic, surface level understanding of Islam so he is easily deceived. The same Muslim who signed the document that talked about people having the freedom of belief, thought, etc...also says death to apostates, so that is how seriously he is taking that scrap of paper. I could also point out like 50 more things in that document that Islam explicitly rejects so it was just a big deception to try and make Islam look better to a Western audience that won't do any further research and will just accept it at face value.

It's more difficult to apply the 'we all worship the God of Abraham' model to Muslims than to Jews because we know the Jews have a God-inspired revelation, Muslims do not. Gabriel did not descend from heaven and dictate the Koran to Mohammed and the Koran itself is heretical...more so it denies Christ (unlike the Old Testament which points to Christ). So why did Pope JPII kiss a heretical-Christ denying book? It gives me the creeps (Remember I come from a church-background that considers the pope or office the seat of the anti-Christ. This kinda stuff just plays into that).

 

[football5680]

It's more difficult to apply the 'we all worship the God of Abraham' model to Muslims than to Jews because we know the Jews have a God-inspired revelation, Muslims do not. Gabriel did not descend from heaven and dictate the Koran to Mohammed and the Koran itself is heretical...more so it denies Christ (unlike the Old Testament which points to Christ).

Unlike the Jews, Muslims accept Jesus as the Christ but reject that he is the son of God. Their religion is not divinely inspired but it is based on Christianity and Judaism which is why in the early days of Islam they were not considered a separate religion, they were considered heretics. A lot of their stories that they have about Biblical figures are based on the stories that the heretics told.

So why did Pope JPII kiss a heretical-Christ denying book? It gives me the creeps (Remember I come from a church-background that considers the pope or office the seat of the anti-Christ. This kinda stuff just plays into that).

He shouldn't have done it, but he was just trying to show them respect to maintain good relations between Christians and Muslims in Iraq.

 

[Beloved2018]

Unlike the Jews, Muslims accept Jesus as the Christ but reject that he is the son of God.

In what ways do they accept that He is the Christ?

Their religion is not divinely inspired but it is based on Christianity and Judaism which is why in the early days of Islam they were not considered a separate religion, they were considered heretics. A lot of their stories that they have about Biblical figures are based on the stories that the heretics told.

So in the early days, the Church considered Islam a 'Christian' heresy (as opposed to pagan)?

He shouldn't have done it, but he was just trying to show them respect to maintain good relations between Christians and Muslims in Iraq.

If I kiss the Pope's ring, I'm showing my respect for his authority. How is his kissing the Koran not showing respect for the Koran's supposed authority?

 

[Markie Boy]

A lot of people deeply respect Pope John Paul II but when he received a Quran as a gift he kissed it as a sign of respect

I think that action and the actions done at the Assisi Ecumenical Prayer Meetings leave a permanent black eye on his pontificate

On one hand we all make mistakes, and as soon as we do we know it. On the other, I'd like to think I'd really know where I was before going into a situation like that (If I'd even go) - so as to avoid such things.

The whole Assisi stuff makes me want to distance myself from that, and those who thought it was a great idea.

 

[Markie Boy]

In what ways do they accept that He is the Christ?


So in the early days, the Church considered Islam a 'Christian' heresy (as opposed to pagan)?


If I kiss the Pope's ring, I'm showing my respect for his authority. How is his kissing the Koran not showing respect for the Koran's supposed authority?

Because kissing the Koran is like kissing any other false idol or thing. It's "supposed" authority - not real.

 

[dzheremi]

In what ways do they accept that He is the Christ?

They call him in their Qur'an and related documents 'Messiah' al-Masih المسيح, which is the title used by Arabic-speaking Christians and Muslims alike to refer to Jesus.

Interestingly, His given name differs according to religious confession -- for Christians, it is Yasou' يسوع, which comes from the Aramaic, while for Muslims it is 'Isa عسى, which perhaps comes from the East Syriac ('Nestorian') pronunciation of His name in that language, or from some kind of mutation from Esau when borrowed into Arabic from Aramaic. (See Arthur Jeffery classic book The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'an if you're interested in this kind of thing; it's fascinating to see all the things that Islam put in its supposedly 'pure' Arabic Qur'an that ultimately come from other cultures and times.)

So in the early days, the Church considered Islam a 'Christian' heresy (as opposed to pagan)?

Many early Christian writers approached it as one, yes. From the Chalcedonians, there are people like St. John of Damascus, who was contemporaneous with the early Muslim generations that overtook that city. It was during the saint's lifetime that the Christian administrators like St. John himself were replaced by Muslims, in accordance with Islamic law that no non-Muslim should rule over Muslims. And from among my communion there were many such as Mor Dionysius Bar Salibi (famous in this arena for his Syriac-language dispute text known as A Response to the Arabs, 12th century) who wrote against Islam in a context that only makes sense if it is a Christian heresy. I'm not sure at what point the view changed (I assume that certainly by the 12th century Christians had been exposed to enough Islam to know that it was its own thing), but it's probably more common in the East to hear it talked about this way, as the West has not exactly kept alive its defense against this religion on a theological level. (What I mean here is not a 'dig' at Western Christianity, but I mean that things like Mor Dionysius Bar Salibi's Response are well-studied to this day, while the West took a different route in criticizing Islam, as in for instance Dante's Inferno, that did not really deal with the content of Islam as closely as the Eastern apologists tended to. It's just a different approach.)

If I kiss the Pope's ring, I'm showing my respect for his authority. How is his kissing the Koran not showing respect for the Koran's supposed authority?

Ooo...this is where I flash my "Guest" badge to give me a reason to leave the room before security has to escort me out in order to avoid a ruckus. Can I say that I personally believe it was meant to be a respectful gesture that might not have been considered from all possible angles before it was done? (I mean, it seemed spontaneous at the time, and not everyone plans out everything they do beforehand.)

Because that's what I'm comfortable saying in this forum. I liked JPII. He was Pope when I first joined the RCC after long years in agnosticism/atheism. I really liked him as a person and found many of his other acts, such as the leadership he showed in confronting the Sandinista-backing priests in El Salvador during their civil war, to be very commendable. Of course the refrain is "nobody's perfect", and that applies here as much as anywhere. And even more to the point, you or Pope Francis or whoever do not have to do what he did. As far as I know there is no Catholic tradition of kissing Qurans.

 

[Beloved2018]

They call him in their Qur'an and related documents 'Messiah' al-Masih المسيح, which is the title used by Arabic-speaking Christians and Muslims alike to refer to Jesus.

Interestingly, His given name differs according to religious confession -- for Christians, it is Yasou' يسوع, which comes from the Aramaic, while for Muslims it is 'Isa عسى, which perhaps comes from the East Syriac ('Nestorian') pronunciation of His name in that language, or from some kind of mutation from Esau when borrowed into Arabic from Aramaic. (See Arthur Jeffery classic book The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'an if you're interested in this kind of thing; it's fascinating to see all the things that Islam put in its supposedly 'pure' Arabic Qur'an that ultimately come from other cultures and times.)



Many early Christian writers approached it as one, yes. From the Chalcedonians, there are people like St. John of Damascus, who was contemporaneous with the early Muslim generations that overtook that city. It was during the saint's lifetime that the Christian administrators like St. John himself were replaced by Muslims, in accordance with Islamic law that no non-Muslim should rule over Muslims. And from among my communion there were many such as Mor Dionysius Bar Salibi (famous in this arena for his Syriac-language dispute text known as A Response to the Arabs, 12th century) who wrote against Islam in a context that only makes sense if it is a Christian heresy. I'm not sure at what point the view changed (I assume that certainly by the 12th century Christians had been exposed to enough Islam to know that it was its own thing), but it's probably more common in the East to hear it talked about this way, as the West has not exactly kept alive its defense against this religion on a theological level. (What I mean here is not a 'dig' at Western Christianity, but I mean that things like Mor Dionysius Bar Salibi's Response are well-studied to this day, while the West took a different route in criticizing Islam, as in for instance Dante's Inferno, that did not really deal with the content of Islam as closely as the Eastern apologists tended to. It's just a different approach.)



Ooo...this is where I flash my "Guest" badge to give me a reason to leave the room before security has to escort me out in order to avoid a ruckus. Can I say that I personally believe it was meant to be a respectful gesture that might not have been considered from all possible angles before it was done? (I mean, it seemed spontaneous at the time, and not everyone plans out everything they do beforehand.)

Because that's what I'm comfortable saying in this forum. I liked JPII. He was Pope when I first joined the RCC after long years in agnosticism/atheism. I really liked him as a person and found many of his other acts, such as the leadership he showed in confronting the Sandinista-backing priests in El Salvador during their civil war, to be very commendable. Of course the refrain is "nobody's perfect", and that applies here as much as anywhere. And even more to the point, you or Pope Francis or whoever do not have to do what he did. As far as I know there is no Catholic tradition of kissing Qurans.

Thank you for your reply. There's a lot to absorb here, so I'm not going to say much. It's clear that I need to study more.

I did find this on First Things :The Christian Origins of Islam | Peter J. Leithart

 

[football5680]

In what ways do they accept that He is the Christ?

They call him the messiah, believe that he will return in the end times to defeat the Antichrist and then rule for 40 years.

So in the early days, the Church considered Islam a 'Christian' heresy (as opposed to pagan)?

Yes. The Muslims were not polytheists and they claimed to believe in the same prophets but their views were unorthodox. Their beliefs were a perversion of the true faith which is why the Christians who encountered them considered them to be heretics. Later on when Christians learned more about what Muslims believe and the origins of Islam, it started to be viewed as a completely separate religion.

If I kiss the Pope's ring, I'm showing my respect for his authority. How is his kissing the Koran not showing respect for the Koran's supposed authority?

Like I already said, he shouldn't have done it but kissing it does not imply he had any sort of respect for its authority. Something could be completely worthless to one person but if it has special meaning for another and they are offering it as a gift, then it has value in that regard.

Obviously the Pope should have taken it, thrown it on the ground and burned it right in front of them but that might have had negative consequences for Christian-Muslim relations. I would have preferred this course of action but the Pope wasn't as radical as I am.

 

[Markie Boy]

Kissing it was just bad. If it was a mistake - it was a bad mistake. Someone in that position shouldn't do something that blatantly wrong.

 

[LivingWordUnity]

I came to realize that Vatican II and the communist infiltration in the Church that preceded it was what led up to the current problem in the Vatican.

 

[Beloved2018]

I came to realize that Vatican II and the communist infiltration in the Church that preceded it was what led up to the current problem in the Vatican.

Do you think Vatican II was illegitimate or just abused?