Muslim - Catholic relations

Since we have been discussing the Islamic faith, I thought it'd be good to explore the relations between Muslims and Catholics. I figured that since I am Catholic and will soon be a minister in its Church, God willing, it might be good to understand just how each religion views the other, what we agree upon and what we do not.

I begin with a quote from Pope John Paul II when he visited Syria in 2001:

Interreligious dialogue is most effective when it springs from the experience of “living with each other” from day to day within the same community and culture. In Syria, Christians and Muslims have lived side by side for centuries, and a rich dialogue of life has gone on unceasingly....For all the times that Muslims and Christians have offended one another, we need to seek forgiveness from the Almighty and offer each other forgiveness. Jesus teaches us that we must pardon others’ offenses if God is to pardon us our sins (http://www.usccb.org/seia/borelli.htm).

From this quote alone, one can see that not all Muslims hate Christians and seek to have them killed. Muslims and Catholics have dialogued with each other for centuries, mostly informally but at times in formal settings as well. In recent years, there have been some important recognitions from both the Muslims and Christians regarding each other's beliefs. I will highlight just a few of them, but you can read all of them by going to the link shown at the end of the quote above.

1. Muslims are particularly eager to tell Christians that Islam is not a new religion and that they venerate all the prophets, including Jesus and his mother Mary.  Muslims are particularly eager to tell Christians about their respect for Jesus. Over the centuries, Christians have been making incorrect statements and Muslims want to educate Christians about Islam.
2. What Muslims are truly looking for in religious individuals is God-consciousness or fear of the Lord as Christians might call this virtue. That is what is important for Muslims.
3. Muslims look upon Christians pretty much as one group so if one Christian says something or does something very negative with regard to Islam, Muslims expect other Christians to correct that person or by our silence we are expressing agreement with what has been said.
4. The word “mission” functions in the same way among Muslims as the word “jihad” does among Christians. Both are beautiful words but in their use or perceptions there are implications of violence which are difficult to avoid.
5. Christians and Muslims often judge one another by the extremists. This can happen between any two groups, but because of the particular history they have had and the way strife has been promoted as a way of dealing with one another, they each make the mistake of judging the other(s) worst by their own best. Christians and Muslims have let the extremists too often do all the talking in public discourse.

This last point is of particular importance because the violence we are seeing in the news recently is being instigated and encouraged by Muslim exstremist groups. There is support for this belief in the fact that these caricatures were actually published in an Arabic newspaper in Egypt last October. The editors critized the cartoonists, but there was no massive outrage, violence or riots. Even more interesting is that this Egyptian publication occurred during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in which Muslims belief that a jihad during this time warrants even greater glory from God. A WorldNetDaily article had this to say: "This irrelevant outrage timing is but a sign that this violent response to the cartoons is politically motivated by Muslim extremists in Europe and the so-called secular governments of the Middle East" (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48746). If this isn't proof of the extremists abusing and hijacking the Islamic faith for their own evil and political purposes, then I don't know what is.

We cannot let our relations with other faiths be influenced by our preconcieved notions or by misinformation, especially regarding non-Christisan faiths. It is more difficult for us in the United States (not to exclude my other worldwide readers) because most of us do not live in an environment that is strongly Muslim. Christianity is by far the dominant religion in the U.S. But in other places around the world, including those places in which many of my readers live, those who are Muslim and those who are Christian live together without rioting, violence and hatred. They certainly disagree about the tenets of each other's faith, but we don't even agree about elements of our faith among Christians (or somtimes even among Catholics!) Some of my faithful readers have even posted in the past few days about their friends who are Muslim and who they converse with about their faiths. This is how the two faiths should exist.

As always, I welcome and comments, criticisms, disagreements or insights. If there is still interest, measured by whether I get comments or not, I will continue the discussion on Muslims and our respective faiths in the upcoming blogs. If there doesn't seem to be any further interest, I will proceed with another topic, probably determined by whatever whim strikes me for that day. Until next time...God bless.

posted by: crossman at 16:15 | link | comments (4) |
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Comments:

#1  23 February 2006 - 18:54

 

Hi Bro. Christopher,
I've been following your entries for quite a while now. Anyway, I was wondering if I could use this entry on Muslim - Catholic relations for my blog as I live in a country where like you mentioned Catholics and Muslims live side by side peacefully. I would acknowledge you as the author of the text of course.
Keep up the good work on this blog. God Bless.

pauldmolina

#2  23 February 2006 - 20:50

 

Greetings!

Thank you for being a faithful reader of my blog. By all means, please feel free to post any part or all of this blog entry to your blog site.
I will put a link to your blog on my blog site as I saw you have one to mine on yours.
Thanks again for your comments...I really enjoy getting a worldly point of view on these issues and I greatly enjoy your insights.

God bless.

crossman

#3  26 February 2006 - 21:16

 

some of us dance the watusi some of us dance a waltz it's all good jah is love baby jah is love

Anonymous

#4  26 February 2006 - 21:18

 

some of us dance the watusi some of us dance a waltz it's all good jah is love baby jah is love

Anonymous

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