This entry opened with a quotation of the Vatican’s statement about Pastor Jones:
The World Trade Center attacks “cannot be counteracted by an outrageous and grave gesture against a book considered sacred by a religious community,” the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue said, regarding the planned burning of the Koran by Pastor Terry Jones. Every religion “has the right to respect and protection.”
To which Laura replies:
This is a terrible moment in the history of the Church. I cannot find any excuse for this statement by the Vatican.
There is not an excuse for the statement by the Vatican, but there is a compelling and authoritative reason for it, which I discussed in 2006-07 following the Regensburg Lecture Jihad and the pope’s pathetic surrender thereto. Why did he surrender to the rioting Muslims and renounce the penetratingly critical statements about Islam that he had made in Regensburg? Because the Church’s own authoritative documents from the Vatican II period, implanted in the Catholic Catechism, require Catholics to look at Muslims as “fellow adorers of the one God.”
Here is a 2007 entry at VFR in which I discuss the Catholic Catechism’s teaching on Catholics’ relationship with Islam. I’m quoting the entire initial entry. (The discussion following the iniitial entry is lively and I recommend it too.):
What the Catholic Catechism says about Islam
In a lively discussion, Vincent C. defends the Church from the charge that it commands its members on penalty of sin to support open borders. I replied that though support for open borders is not required of Catholics, it is still promulgated by the Church hierarchy and carries much authority and influence, and therefore the Church, as the Church, can be criticized for it.
Unfortunately, it is also the case that some of the most dangerous liberal teachings of the Church are not optional, but are included in the Catholic Catechism, the Church’s official statement of the Catholic faith, and thus all Catholics are required to subscribe to and practice them. I am thinking specifically of the Catechism’s passage on the Church’s relations with Islam, which, along with the rest of the Catechism, Vincent tells us, Catholics must accept on penalty of sin. Here it is:
The Moslems, “professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who at the last day wiill judge mankind” (Lumen Gentium 16). Though the Islamic faith does not acknowledge Jesus as God, it does revere Him as prophet, and also honors His virgin mother. Moslems “prize the moral life, and give worship to God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting” (Nostra Aetate 3). Noting that there had been many quarrels and hostilies between Christians and Muslims, the Second Vatican Council urged that all “forget the past and strive sincerely for mutual understanding, and, on the behalf of all mankind, make common cause of safeguarding and fostering social justice, moral values, peace, and freedom” (Nostra Aetate 3).
Let us now consider these statements of authoritative Catholic doctrine one at a time.
“Moslems profess the faith of Abraham.”
Meaningless and dangerous. That Muslims claim descent from Abraham and even claim to share his faith tells us nothing about the actual doctrines and history of Islam. It does not mean that those doctrines have anything in common with Christianity and Judaism.
“Muslims along with us adore the one and merciful God.”
False. The god of the Koran, who is a god of pure will unknowable to man, a god who commands his Islamic followers to conquer the earth, a god who commands that Muslims kill Jews and Christians unless they accept Islam, is not the God of the Bible.
“The Islamic faith regards Jesus as a prophet.”
False. The Islamic faith regards Jesus, along with Abraham and Moses, as Islamic prophets, and says that anyone who believes otherwise is an enemy of Islam who must be punished.
“Moslems prize the moral life, and give worship to God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.”
False. Muslims only believe in moral treatment toward their fellow Muslims. Non-Muslims are enemies, to be lied to, warred against, stolen from, subdued, and killed. The idea of an objective morality is foreign to Islam.
“Forget the past [i.e., forget 1,400 years of jihad, including the destruction of Eastern Christendom by Muslims] and strive sincerely for mutual understanding [with Muslims].”
Catholics are thus obligated to forget that their 1,400 year old enemy, their enemy who is commanded by his religion to subdue and destroy Christendom, is in fact their enemy. This obligation on Catholics is worse than suicidal liberalism. It turns suicidal liberalism into a religion, which says if you believe that your enemy is your enemy, if you speak the truth about your enemy who is commanded by his unchanging religion to subdue and destroy you, you are in a state of sin and may go to hell.
“On the behalf of all mankind, make common cause [with Muslims].”
Muslims are commanded by their god not to be friends with Christians and Jews, so how can Christians make common cause with Muslims? To the extent that we attempt to follow this command, we engage in a sick fantasy that we are making common cause with Muslims, while they use our state of delusion to advance their power over us.
“Safeguard and foster social justice, moral values, peace, and freedom.”
Social justice is a leftist term that has no meaning in the real world. There has never been and can never be a society that has social justice. Social justice is simply a Marxist slogan the effect of which is to delegitimize every existing society, or rather, to delegitimize Western political society.
* * *
Let me repeat that all the false and destructive ideas discussed above are in the Catholic Catechism and therefore are obligatory on Catholics.
What is to be done? There must be a movement within the Church to remove the passages relating to Islam from Nostra Aetate and Lumen Gentium that are quoted in the Catechism, and to remove the passage in the Catechism that makes those statements part of the official body of Catholic faith. Until that is done, the Catholic Church remains officially committed to—and requires its flock on penalty of sin to believe—false ideas that spell dhimmitude and religious and civilizational suicide, both for itself and for the whole Western world.
[end of initial entry from 2007]
Daniel S. writes (9/10):
James P. writes:
Andrea C. writes:
I’m with you on this. You quoted the Catholic Catechism:
The Moslems, “professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who at the last day wiill judge mankind” (Lumen Gentium 16). Though the Islamic faith does not acknowledge Jesus as God, it does revere Him as prophet, and also honors His virgin mother. Moslems “prize the moral life, and give worship to God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting” (Nostra Aetate 3). Noting that there had been many quarrels and hostilies between Christians and Muslims, the Second Vatican Council urged that all “forget the past and strive sincerely for mutual understanding, and, on the behalf of all mankind, make common cause of safeguarding and fostering social justice, moral values, peace, and freedom” (Nostra Aetate 3).
Those represent a “Galileo moment” for the Church. The above is the Church attempting to cross over and work in the political realm to advance itself—and it weakens our faith and helps keep Moslems slaves to theirs. When the Church does not adhere to Truth, which is its foundation, it gets itself into trouble. The nonsense you quote above about Jesus and Mary etc. is a form of bald groveling. Why? Because the Koran gets that information wrong! (and many of those AE-and-GL-folks knew it!). More about the subject of the errors of Biblical Scripture in the Koran can be found in Serge Trifkovic’s excellent book The Sword of the Prophet . And Trifkovic is by no means the first to notice them. These errors in fact are the reason that scholars over the centuries have concluded that Muhammad was illiterate, at the least showing his lack of knowledge as he was making-it-all-up, or, at worst he was taking dictation from a demonic being—either way being bereft of truth. Either way, what’s most important to us, whether made-up or demonic, the use of Jesus and Mary in the Koran is an attempt to coopt their authority over Christians to further Islam. (The night flight story of Muhammad to Jerusalem is another perfect example of this kind of coopting, in that case it’s a holy site not person.) This is not difficult information and there is no way that many higher-ups in the Church don’t know this. It’s really a rancid thing. And you’re right, fixing this has now to be undertaken as a dangerous struggle under threat of penalty. But that is what has to happen and I think it will.
The sex scandal in the Church is similar to this, another such Galileo moment—hiding the truth in order to prevent a loss of faith which has resulted in an even greater loss of faith.
The phrase “Moslems prize the moral life” makes me ill and sad. It’s because some in the Church find the austerity they see as exemplary. Never mind the totalitarian system that is employed to bring it about … You see this sentiment in Mother Angelica (who I otherwise like). But she falls for this temptation (in Raymond Arroyo’s Mother Angelica and in statements she’s made on EWTN). This is such blindness to true goodness emerging from true freedom. Muslims are slaves to their god. Christians have been set free, ransomed, adopted, brother. The Master has told us what he is doing …
So this is another Galileo moment in the Church. Some of us will lose heart (have lost it) and backtrack and give in, like Galileo, and then reemerge to fight. Others have remained constant, others will join and remain constant. Truth will inevitably win but the suffering that may be caused for no good reason makes us angry and frustrated.
I think I see one loophole to begin this work. That is in the sentence “professing to hold the faith…. along with us [adoring] the one merciful God.” It says they profess this God, as in they claim it’s the same as the Christian God but that’s not been reciprocated or unequivocally agreed to on the Christian side. It comes close, too close shamefully, but does not seem to quite cross over.