A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics

Marquette professors reveals the fruitlessness of ecumenism with islam May 29, 2013

Most often, when I read about ostensibly Catholic Marquette University, it’s because some professor has determined Christ would have officiated at homosexual marriages or would have lobbied for abortion, had He only had the chance. I exaggerate, slightly.  But it seems there are some good professors there.  One of them, Dr. Howard Kaines, professor emeritus (and that likely explains the reasonableness), recently had a post regarding islam and the Church’s proponents of ecumenism.  It’s pretty good (I add emphasis and comments):

Islam is an “Abrahamic” religion only in the sense that Muslims claim that Abraham’s sacrifice in Genesis 22 was of Ishmael, their ancestor [Wait. He is their self-proclaimed ancestor. There is little evidence in Scripture and Tradition to support this claim]  , not Isaac. The God of Islam is not a Father, certainly not love, but rather the master of the universe, in which all human beings are his slaves. Some non-believers (as well as the mysterious spirit beings known as jinn) are actually created for hell. The commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself” appears nowhere in Islam. Jesus was not the Son of God, was not crucified, and did not arise from the dead.  Rather, he preached the coming of Mohammed—a fact that does not appear in the now corrupted versions of the New Testament.  Jesus will return at the end of the world to break all crosses, kill all pigs (food eaten by Christians), destroy Christianity, and Islamize the world.  Mary was the daughter of Imran, the father of Moses and Aaron, and thus the sister of Aaron. The New Testament has been defiled. All the references of Jesus in the Gospels to the coming of Muhammad have been removed. Christians are the “vilest of creatures” (Qur’an 98:6), and can escape the death mandated for unbelievers only if they pay a special poll tax (juzya) in Muslim countries……..[Islam is, in reality, an amalgam of Arian “Christian” beliefs and very likely heretical Jewish sects in Arabia. The idea that Jesus was just a man, unlike God the Father in every respect, comes directly from extreme Arianism]

…….Islamic morality allows for practices that Catholicism abhors, including contraception, female genital mutilation, and even sexual slavery of non-believing women. Abortion is permitted in the first trimester. Child marriage is rampant in Islamic jurisdictions.  Polygamy is permitted, along with easy divorce of wives by men and “temporary” marriage laws. Sharia Law, Spencer adds, makes the chasm between Christianity and Islam almost completely unbridgeable: “Sharia Law calls for, among other things: the dehumanization of women; the flogging/stoning/killing of adulterers; and the killing of homosexuals, apostates and critics of Islam. All of this is part of orthodox Islam, not some ‘extremist’ form of it.”

In a book I published during the 1980s, Ethics in Context, I included a section on the Golden Rule, which began with a listing of various versions of the Golden Rule in major religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism.  I was unable to find anything like the Golden Rule in Islam…….

 …..Aside from tolerance and normal respect and communication with Muslims, it remains questionable whether systematic and structured “dialogues”—to come to an agreement on religious doctrines or moral values—are of any benefit whatsoever. Our main hope in addressing the Christian-Muslim “chasm” is an emphasis on natural law and natural rights, which, being written on the hearts of all men, can be activated even in the midst of religious pressures and interdictions……[But if you read the comments on the post, some pretty intriguing evidence is presented that islam is not even open to the natural law]

In a few hundred words, this professor has managed to show that islam is morally, theologically, politically, and militarily endemically hostile towards Christianity. It doesn’t take a PhD to know that, anyone who reads even a modicum of non-revisionist history knows that islam has been almost constantly, monstrously hostile towards Christianity in general, and the Church in particular, for over 1300 years. Pretending that islam worships the “same God” as the Judeo-Christian religions has always struck me as bizaare, and truly, begging the question. Muslims do not accord Catholics the same generous treatment.  In point of fact, muslims are busy eradicating the last remaining Catholics from the Mideast.

But there was one other excerpt I wanted to bring up, because I thought some readers might find it thought-provoking. Here ’tis:

Other Vatican II documents, however, envisioned extending the outreach (not strictly ecumenical dialogue, but “interfaith dialogue”) to non-Christian religions. Lumen Gentium (1964) strikingly affirmed that “the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Moslems: 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”; and Nostra aetate (1965), urging “mutual understanding,” emphasized that “The Church has also a high regard for the Muslims. They worship  God, who is one, living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has also spoken to men. They strive to submit themselves without reserve to the hidden decrees of  God, just as Abraham submitted himself to God’s plan, to whose faith Muslims eagerly link their own.”

The thought exercise I thought you might find interesting, was to compare and contrast the priest’s exegesis on Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus I posted yesterday, and the excerpts above, which are 100% correct and in context. I really struggle with that statement above, because saying “the plan of salvation includes…..Moslems” seems to go very far beyond the fact that some, through cooperating with Grace in an unseen way and thus living a supremely virtuous life and avoiding those grave sins which the natural law reveals, could gratuitously be saved outside visible communion with the Church.  Lumen Gentium 16 goes on to say that these people may be saved by following their religion as it dictates their conscience……but what if that religion dictates that behaviors contrary to the natural law are perfectly acceptable?  This is a severe conundrum that has not been authoritatively addressed at all, to my knowledge.  As can be read above, regularly accepted practices of islam are directly counter to the natural law on numerous fronts.

I also don’t think it any stretch to say that Lumen Gentium 16 and other statements like that referred to from Nostra Aetate above, have gravely weakened the Church’s evangelical efforts. Pope Benedict argued strenuously that such statements have to be taken in light of Tradition, but I don’t think his position is in the majority, even in the hierarchy. Or especially in the hierarchy.  In practice, these statements have led to a huge rupture with the Church’s prior Tradition.  And even Pope Benedict, when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger, had to back off statements in the encyclical Dominus Iesus that greatly limited the “rupture” interpretations of Vatican II statements on ecumenism.  Whereas Dominus Iesus was initially hailed as a virtual “return to the Syllabus of Blessed Pope Pius IX,” much complaint by Jews and other non-Catholics led Ratzinger to undermine to varying degrees Dominus Iesus, which he had largely written, in later press interviews on the matter.  To say that confusion reigns supreme, would be putting things mildly.