Posted on 10/19/2013 9:21:37 AM PDT by piusv
If that's not what you mean by "legitimate," then what do you mean?
I mean the dictionary definition of legitimacy: lawful. I think the CCC says they adore the same God as Catholics do, and I think it actually uses the word “adore”. I’m not (ahem) protesting, but I am confused as to how exactly that’s supposed to work.
I looked it up, paragraph 841 of the CCC. It says the plan of salvation includes the muslims.
Plus it is Canada.
Like I said...Canada. Don’t worry the Canadian govt will be hiding in Christian church basements when the Mooselums take over their panty waist country.
How about kicking out the public funding or close the school. Or ask Frank for a check to cover the costs.
This is no an endorsement of Islam (which refers to a religious system) but an invitation to Muslims (which refers to a people) to cast off the distortions and to accept Jesus.
It's all there.
You may have been misled in thinking that these false faiths are called saving religious systems-- they are not --- we only hold the hope that elements of truth to be found in them may lead a sincere Muslim person onto the path of All truth, which is the Gospel --- rather, it is Christ Himself.
A welcome to Muslims (to approach the Church) is not an endorsement of Islam.
When you read the whole section you will see that people are counseled against being misled into religious error, and urged to seek Christ's Church.
Thank you for your diligence in looking up and reading the whole thing.
Bottom line: the plan of salvation includes all sinners. Muslims, yes -— and not just Muslims. All sinners. “It is the will of God that all men be saved, and come to a knowledge of the truth.” (1 Tim 2:4)
The point being that nothing that has been written in recent times about Islam/Muslims was ever written or taught prior to Vatican II. There was never talk of them being part of the plan of salvation, adoring the same God, being held in high esteem.
This sort of talk is novelty, unless someone can show me otherwise...which is what I was asking in the first place.
On the contrary, pre-VII popes have called Mohammed an infidel, a reprobate, faithless. Popes have called Islam a diabolical and abominable sect.
Nowhere do I see them saying anything even CLOSE to what Vatican II professes.
Pardon me for not quoting the relevant parts of your post but it’s 7:30am here and I’m still in a morning fog. Paragraph 841 of the CCC references Lumen Gentium 16 wherein AFTER muslims are discussed is the phrase “Those also can attain to salvation those who through no fault of their own...”. My concern isn’t with invincible ignorance but it looks like to me (again, in a morning fog) that VII is saying that muslims are already “in the club”.
Now I grant you that’s just the English translation from the Vatican website so it may be the Abbott translation and therefore rotten and I don’t have a better translation of LG laying around handy... although EWTN’s copy is supposedly “provided by the Holy See” and it’s different than the actual translation on .va, so that’s weird enough.
Regardless, a straightforward reading of both versions does not seem to be saying what you say it says, not that that isn’t what it should say, but it doesn’t read (to me) like it’s inviting muslims to accept Jesus and it does seem to be saying that muslims already adore God. Point being, if I was a muslim reading that I would think Catholics were fine with me being right where I was.
As a reminder from years gone by when I was more active on Freep: I’m registered at, and faithfully attend Holy Mass at, a diocesan parish. I’m not a SSPXer or a feenyite with an axe to grind against VatII although I am a father of five who isn’t too thrilled with having to fight churchmen every step of the way to raise my children Catholic... so maybe I do have an axe to grind after all.
The Muslims --- people --- are those who are being addressed, being called, in some aspects being esteemed; not their religious system.
Look at it this way, for a comparison: Jesus encountered people who belonged to a false religion: Samaritanism. This sect preached that God was to be worshiped on Mt. Gerazim, not Jerusalem; did not believe in the inspiration of the post-Torah portions of the Tanakh (only the Samaritan Pentateuch); Samaritan law is not the same as halakha (Rabbinical Jewish law), they accepted neither the priestly, nor the prophetic, nor the rabbinical forms of mainstream Judaism; worst, in the post-exilic period, the Samaritans forcefully (and for a time, successfully) interfered with the building of the Second Temple of Jerusalem.
But Jesus:
This just illustrates that Jesus went out of His way to seek these wrong-believers, and to portray their good aspect, highlighting their decency as human beings, and even --- this is astonishing --- using them as exemplars of salvation ("What must I do to gain eternal life?" -- "Go thou and do likewise.")
This does not negate their need to encounter Christ: that, as expected, comes later:
Speaking well of Samaritans, and showing respect to them (to them, as people, not to their sectarian, anti-Judea religious beliefs) did not preclude a later missionary approach to them; indeed, speaking respectfully of them probably made the success of the later mission possible.
I think it's reasonable to see Our Lord's example as applicable, in some respects to the Church's mission to the Muslim people.
Meant to ping you to this (#72)
This all sounds well and good but I am still looking to see such Church teaching prior to Vatican II. On the contrary, Muslims would be called infidels.
This event is taking place in Canada. The do not have a “First Amendment.”
What I am wondering is when they are going to enforce this in the Mosques in Ontario and Quebec?
And you’d be called a reviler.
You work in a public school. I trust you take every opportunity you can to evangelize your faith to the students, then. Have you told that kid in the rainbow flag shirt just where the Bible stands on all that? Not in private, either: Right in front of the Principal and the Dean of Students. Speak truth to power!
How about that teacher who’s living with her boyfriend - stand right up in the faculty lounge and let her know exactly where that will lead. Oh, and I’m sure you very publicly let the atheists over in the biology lab in on their errors.
This Bishop sounds like he fought as best he could, but at the end of the day was a victim of the Golden Rule: “He who has the gold, makes the rules.” There are about 30,000 people in the whole of the Yukon territory. 6,000 of them are Catholics (spread over an area the size of Oregon.) He faced a Sophie’s choice of codifying every jot and tittle of the Catechism, or keeping the school open and providing some form of Christian eduction for his students. In his mind he made his choice in the best interests of his students.
I’m not saying I agree or disagree with his decision, but I’m not going to castigate him for making it. I’ve noticed we’ve gotten really good at pointing out others’ opportunities for martyrdom around here, and I refuse to act in kind.
In RE: Your suggestion of a new layer of meaning. I’d like to believe it but it’s too convoluted for me to accept. I don’t want to dismiss it out of hand because you obviously put a lot of thought into it. As it happens I read your position before going to Mass today and didn’t want to respond until I’d had sufficient time to digest it.
I think what we have to do is look to the hierarchy to see how they interpret CCC#841/LG16. If we look at how the bishops view the evangelisation of the non-Catholic world (especially the muslims) post VII I don’t believe we see a new layer, we see an entirely new “understanding” that is contrary to what the Church has always taught.
I rarely lose sleep over it anymore because it’s God’s mess to deal with, not mine.
"I think what we have to do is look to the hierarchy to see how they interpret ..."
I have to observe, with you, that if his benign interpretation of "befriending as a path to evangelizing" is the true one, there has certainly been very little evidence that anybody in the hierarchy is actually doing it this way.
I'd like one good strong example. One. From anybody.
I have not called anyone on this forum names (including YOU), but once again, it is my fellow Catholics who have called me names/reported me, etc.
I have asked for answers to questions that have not been responded to because you can’t. You and others who are sooooo upset with me refuse to answer very clear, understandable questions of Vatican II and the actions of the popes subsequent to its promulgation. So you resort to name calling.
Here are the questions again and I’m looking for Church teaching to respond to them not individual Catholics’ interpretations of Bible verses.:
PreVatican II, Muslims were called infidels not held in high esteem. Islam was considered diabolical (aka from Satan), not considered part of God’s salvation.
PreVatican II, Catholics were forbidden to attend/participate non-Catholic assemblies. Now we have popes doing what was condemned for hundreds of years in the name of Vatican II’s “ecumenism”.
If you don’t have answers, just say so (and perhaps reflect on that fact). Don’t resort to name calling.
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