As the world reels in horror at the atrocities committed by Muslim terrorists—200 victims murdered in India, hotels bombed in Pakistan, a Coptic church attacked by thousands of Muslims in Cairo—our prelates remain fixated on the ideology of dialogue and rapprochement. A few weeks ago, Pope Benedict spoke about something he called the Muslim "Golden Rule." Now Cardinal Tauran expresses his gratitude to Muslims for bringing God back (from Reuters):
Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, head of the Catholic Church's department for interfaith contacts, said religion was now talked and written about more than ever before in today's Europe.
"It's thanks to the Muslims," he said in a speech printed in Friday's L'Osservatore Romano, the official daily of the Vatican. "Muslims, having become a significant minority in Europe, were the ones who demanded space for God in society."
...Tauran said religions were "condemned to dialogue," a practice he called "the search for understanding between two subjects, with the help of reason, in view of a common interpretation of their agreement and disagreement."
Dialogue participants could not give up their religious convictions, Tauran said, but should be open to learning about the positive aspects of each others' faith.
"Every religion has its own identity, but I agree to consider that God is at work in all, in the souls of those who search for him sincerely," he said. "Interreligious dialogue rallies all who are on the path to God or to the Absolute."
The Absolute? Perhaps we should go easy on Cdl. Tauran for he is merely a product of his environment. It was, in fact, Vatican II that first pronounced that Allah and God the Father were one in the same:
In the first place amongst these there are the Mohamedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind. Lumen Gentium, no. 16
Is it any wonder that the good God gave us over to a new Mass, once we no longer knew Him Whom we worshiped? (John 4:22) Pray that the return of the Traditional Mass signals an end to the plague of ideology.
Moving ahead... A Muslim just wrote a front-page article for the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano. See http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/209963?eng=y
Here is an excerpt:
"But the variable geometry of dialogue can also serve another purpose: freeing Islam from the monopoly of neofundamentalist theology, which obscures the symmetry of the relationship between history and eternity, and tends to consider history as eternity and eternity as history, with the result that Islam loses its spiritual dimension and impoverishes its own culture. The Muslims must take this into account. Dialogue is in a certain way connected to 'salvation,' even in its profane version, which must illuminate the darkness of our time."
Wow! Does he know Cdl. Tauran? If we could raise a cadre of psycho-babbling Muslims, maybe they'd hold their own "Vatican II," and the terrorism would end!
Two members of the "religion of peace" were plotting to bomb the cathedral in Milan on Christmas:
http://europenews.dk/en/node/16911
Hello, my brothers and sisters in Christ and lovers of the Holy Mass in its very glorious form,the so called "Tridentine".
I am moved to post this as a caution, regarding criticism of the Holy Father in his attempt to explore avenues of discussion with our brothers following Mohammed. First consider that from the beginning, the Mohammedan faith was and is a Catholic heresy, and as such we have as the Church a responsibility to continue teaching any who would listen of their own free will. Second, no one has the right to prevent that conversation between the Church and a willing listener, a point made bravely by the Holy Father at the outset of these dialogs. He has called for an end to laws prohibiting conversions and has asked for mutual respect in the context of the allowance of the building of Catholic Churches in countries controlled by Islamics, restructuring the conversation regarding the mutual respect which fundamentalists call for in a new way.
Third, you may not realize that while the angel Gabriel may have spoken to Mohammed in his personal prayer, his interpretations were seriously tainted by his more educated brother in law, who was literate and who likely edited these words. This brother in law was a priest of the sect of Nestor, a heretic in his own rite, and a denier of the dual nature of Jesus Christ: fully God and fully man. It is certainly our responsibility to teach this and to encourage Islamics in those areas where they successfully enact the will of God in their actions so that they will continue in dialogue and over time have a softened heart to the truth...as described to us in John's gospel: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us."
With all my love,
Al Ramey
Thanks Al for the thoughtful response. I'm in full agreement with you that the Holy Father, and all Christians, should seek the conversion of Muslims. What prompted this article and the prior article critical of His Holiness is that the methods employed by Rome are unrealistic and novel, and are thus bound to fail. For example, praising a supposed Muslim golden rule while overlooking the fact that the Quran prescribes beheading for Christians is practically a capitulation. Muslims aren't fools.
Why is it that only the Muslims realize that we are at war, physically and spiritually? In more sensible times, popes recognized the magnitude of the war and preached the Crusades. Unless we start acting in a militant fashion, i.e., prohibiting Muslim immigration and building of Mosques, we will be overtaken. We will fail to convert them as well, and without conversion, Muslims will be eternally lost.