The 20th, worst of centuries — if you reckon such things by as blunt an instrument as the number of civilians murdered by their own governments — was bloodied by that deadliest of things: bad philosophy. The intellectual errors of previous centuries had festered slowly in thick French and German books, still restrained by the accumulated inertia of
The war also discredited the old political and intellectual order. Suddenly, such ideological nostrums as
Perhaps worst of all, the war coated the old ideals of the West with a thick layer of toxic cynicism that may soon, in our own lifetimes, kill it. After learning of the French and British generals who sent wave after wave of young men through poison gas to catch bullets from German machine guns, in the hope that sooner or later the guns might overheat, no one could argue with Wilfrid Owen when he sneered at pleas for patriotic self-sacrifice:
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
A fitting response to the crassness of the ruling classes that launched the First World War, the traumatized pacifism of those who survived would cripple them when it came time to deal with Stalin and Hitler. Those who still broke down sobbing on Armistice Day, mourning (as Tolkien and Lewis did)
Surely not. It must be a misunderstanding, a cultural miscommunication that could be assuaged by appeasement. So French and British politicians told themselves, inhaling a pink, anaesthetic cloud, craving the peace that suppresseth all understanding.
Two weeks ago, I pointed out how our leadership today is addling its wits and soothing its nerves when it comes to the non-negotiable agenda of orthodox Islam: an intolerant, theocratic state where non-Muslims are systematically humiliated, women are forever fixed in the status they attained in seventh-century Arabia, and other faiths are treated like venereal diseases — which must be firmly controlled if they cannot be eradicated. No, not every Muslim in the world knows his faith well enough, or practices it so devoutly, that he strives to achieve Islamic domination. There are millions who covertly drink wine, neglect to fast, and spend their money not on funding jihad but on belly-dancers . . . thank God! For us folks outside the umma, the only good Muslim is a bad Muslim, which tells me that the Holy See should drop its ecumenical outreach to Islamic clerics and instead strike up partnerships with the black marketeers who smuggle vodka into
All this thinking about what Islam really wants, and good Muslims ought to want, brings me back to the question of what good
I have been there myself. How many toasts to Francisco Franco I once offered at brunches after Latin Mass . . . how many blurry pamphlets denouncing the separation of church and state have I taken from the tapered claws of anti-Masonic matrons! I’m reminded of the slogan of French right-wing
What soured the joke for me was realizing that Veuillot’s quip could be used, word for word, by today’s Muslim supremacists. They want tolerance for their intolerance, until they are strong enough to squash us. And when you think of it that way, you realize that the sentiment is contemptible. Those who aspire to intolerance do not deserve tolerance, and if they exploit the weakness of a free society to undermine it, they ought to be systematically repressed.
It was this realization that inspired the
It is not the job of the state to repress religious error, defend the integrity of the gospel, or protect its “helpless” citizens from injurious ideas. In teaching this, the
No one, I think, has claimed that any of those previous
On the other hand, the minimalistic libertarian state is a rare and fragile thing, no sooner achieved than it is abused. Secularists are no better — and are frequently worse — than true believers when it comes to asking for liberty while they are weak, then seizing the power of the state to become (in Stalin’s phrase) the “engineer of human souls.” There is something in fallen human nature that will not be content with defending one’s rights, practicing charity, and otherwise minding one’s business.
Photo: Reuters
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No. And first of all within ourselves.
But do we have to be indescriminately tolerant? Are we Catholics going to tolerate the Sharia laws that have women (and men to a lesser extent) stoned for (supposedly) committing adultery? Are we going to turn a blind eye toward polygamy and 35 year old men marrying 14 year old teens? Gentile mutilation anyone?
There are things I allow in my home: the boys (lots of boys) playing in the store room or our basement. Other things will get will get you in trouble–hitting, swear words.
Some things do not deserve toleration. “Good” Islam appears to be one of those things. If we Catholics do have the One True Faith, then we (especially the hierarchy) had better start proclaiming it and letting the Muslims know Sharia won’t get them to Heaven. In fact, it will most likely bring Heck to earth.
“It was this realization that inspired the Church at Vatican II to renounce forever the right of Catholic states to practice religious intolerance. The sheer hypocrisy of demanding liberty for the subjugated Christians of Communist Europe, while telling Spanish Protestants, “Error has no rights,” became insupportable, and the Church made a major revision in her social teaching: While the State can defend the natural law and gently promote the true religion, citizens should not be restricted in their private or public practice of their faith — apart from activities that threaten public order.”
2. This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.
Dr. Zmirak, I identify with your description of your zealous youth. I am not intellectually convinced of the legitimacy of “religious freedom,” nor am I compelled by Paul VI’s “Declaration on Religious Freedom.” How is his encyclical any more authoritative than those of many many saintly pontiffs? Rather than directly criticize, I am forced into the unfortunate position of finding grammatical/ideological loopholes in some modern Church documents. I would sooner attribute the apparant inconsistencies to modern flimsiness than contradict the authoritative teaching of the Church’s past. I would like to be convinced otherwise, as you apparently have been, in part because it would make getting along in this world easier. But as of now, I am not.
Great article though!
Pax
“Tolerance” is too foggy a word. Why not just dispense with it? It really is over-used beyond its ability to explain or communicate.
We ought instead to practice caritas in veritate: Love In Truth. Quite apart from the not unimportant detail that there’s a papal encyclical by that name, we know that (a.) God is Love, and (b.) God is Truth (Jesus is God; Jesus is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life”; ergo, God is [the] Truth). So if we work to Love in a fashion which is enlightened by Truth, we are doing what God does, and becoming in some small fashion what God is.
Put another way: We should not be “tolerant,” because who knows what that is, or how to apply it without contradiction?
We should instead love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves. Love is a bold and positive thing; next to it “tolerance” is a grey, dry, negative, and constrained thing.
But we must love others well: Love them in an effective and correct way, oriented towards their true good. To avoid error in loving God and others, we must know the truth. Without truth, love is misguided.
So: Know the Truth, and Love in the light of it. That’s our directive, our action item.
We ought to entirely ignore the concept of “tolerance” except insofar as behaviors describable as tolerance happen to spontaneously emerge in the process of Loving in Truth.
To paraphrase some thoughts from C.S.Lewis: One doesn’t become original by thinking about being original; one must instead focus on doing good work and well, and originality spontaneously emerges. And, one doesn’t become well-liked by constantly trying to be well-liked. But if one focuses on merely being oneself without putting on airs, and on acting with honesty and humility for no other reason than that it’s right to do so, then suddenly: One becomes both likable and liked.
Likewise, one doesn’t become tolerant of the right things (and intolerant of the wrong things) by thinking about or practicing tolerance. But by loving God and neighbor and walking in the light of Truth, one learns to love whatever is good (which is rather better than merely to “tolerate” it) and to overcome whatever is evil (which is far, far better than to “tolerate” it).
So pursue Truth and, in the light of the Truth, love God and men.
I don’t think that we need to go back to the days of the established church, and no religious freedom, I would like to go back to the days of the 1950′s. That model involved religious freedom, but not political correctness or “multi-culturalism.” The 1950′s were actually pretty good in a lot of ways.
@AT,
just to confirm you in your ill-expressed lunacy:
YES, Catholics love facism and ‘skinheads’
YES, America is the focal point of injustice and evil in the world. Namely, we promote despotic regimes and undermine democracies.
YES, dark-skinned Arabs are not people and we willfully kill hundreds of thousands of them.
YES, Bush and The Obama are the same
And YES, Zmirak made it quite clear that we Catholics hate all Muslim moderates. His words were: “No, not every Muslim in the world knows his faith well enough, or practices it so devoutly, that he strives to achieve Islamic domination. There are millions who covertly drink wine, neglect to fast, and spend their money not on funding jihad but on belly-dancers . . . thank God!”
YES we love to create Muslim zealots so we can get away with killing more dark-skinned non-persons.
And finally, YES we appreciate your thoughtful and well-spelt comment.
There’s a good boy. Now go take your medicine.
Cord, your comments are well-taken, even uplifting However, when we’re speaking of politics, it’s worth using the terms current in that discipline, and making clear precisely what we mean. Confronting religions that ARE intolerant, and with a past that includes significant intolerance on our own part, we owe it to the world to explain ourselves in its own terms–just as the theologians of the early Church adopted Stoic, then neo-Platonist, language to explicate the Faith to those whose thought was shaped by such categories. But to speak your language: We should love people as God does, which includes respecting the freedom of their conscience, which He made free–and preaching by word and example the Truth that ought (ideally) to inform their consciences. The rest we leave to Grace.
Sam, the document of to which I referred is not an encyclical of Paul VI, but a declaration of an ecumenical council, confirmed by a pope, signed by all but four bishops at the Council, and affirmed by every subsequent pope. That gives it MORE weight, I think theologians would agree, than an encyclical. So you need to take it seriously, pray about it, and be challenged by it to do more than look for loopholes.
AT, you so consistently misread what I write here that I am torn between attributing it to poor comprehension or malice. In my last article, you managed to suggest that those who support the Free Market and home-schooling were somehow complicit in clerical sex abuse by Fr. Maciel. This despite the fact that I have written, ON THIS WEBSITE, some of the most searching criticisms of precisely that religious order.
This time, you took a rueful, self-deprecating moment in which I fessed up to the very mistake I’m condemning here, and used it as evidence for… something or other. (Sorry, my own comprehension begins to fail when I wade through arrant nonsense.) You’ve managed to conflate my own position with that of the neocons, who believe almost the exact OPPOSITE of what I’ve written here, thinking as they do that “moderate” Muslims are everywhere, waiting only for U.S. bombs and planes to set them free. I opposed the Iraq war before it even started, and consistently throughout, significantly hurting my career in conservative circles, as a quick Google search would confirm.
You’re making a fool of yourself.
Dear Mr Zmirak,
The libertarians (in the American sense) are outside the Natural Law (or the Tao of CS Lewis) hence a contradiction in your idea of “minimalistic libertarian state” and ” the State can defend the natural law” (the “can” needs to be “should”) unless by libertarian you mean something other that what is usually meant.
The Muslims, on the other hand, are well within the Natural Law and Catholics have long flourished in the Muslim-dominated lands. Americans forget or do not know the wonderful diversity of all ancient Muslim lands.
I hold that the concept of Natural Law or Tao is useful while Tolerance as such is vague as it implies equal tolerance for a Muslim and a voodoo or Tantric.
Your concept of good and bad Muslim I would also dispute. I suppose you define good Muslim as a Jihadi, hereby accepting the Jihadi self-definition.
Yet the Muslim lands were historically populated by non-Jihadis and quite devout Muslims. The Jihadi insurgence needs to be fought but not by exporting Western vices.
American law combined a Lockean emphasis on individual rights with a broadly accepted Natural Law basis for (especially local) legislation for the first 150 years of our history. Judicial activism undermined that, but that can be reversed. My next article will examine the extent to which we WANT the State enforcing Natural Law.
I don’t know what you mean by Muslims being “within the Natural Law.” They reject the concept entirely, not even accepting that human reason can predict natural events, much less reason by analogy about the Divine Nature. That was the burden of Pope Benedict’s comments at Regensburg.
And I disagree on your final point. I hope that Western vices undermine Islamic faith entirely. Sin is far less dangerous than false religion, which cloaks the will to power in the false vestments of faith.
They may not accept the formal concept but since the Natural Law (or Natural Order or Tao) is real, they are either bound to be either inside or outside it. Since they believe in God, marriage, private property, respect for Age etc, I say they are inside the Tao. After all, Muslim tradition and societies have proved to be longlasting.
Whereas the Libertarians and Progressive Left, having rejected God, marriage, respect for Age etc fall outside of Tao and societies ruled by these ethos are not expected to last. I would say that the Modern West is the first society ever that has ventured outside the Tao and outside the Tao there is no standing.
I prefer this Tao concept to the discourse of Left and Right. The Left and Right may indicate the specific divergences from the Tao but the more important question now is being in Tao or not.
I really wonder that you seem to wish the spread of Abortion and Gay marriage to the Other Lands? Do you have no pity for the families that would be ravaged in that event? Muslims can be our best friends. In India earlier this year, the judicial attempted decriminalization of homosexuality as halted by Muslim clerics.
Dear Dr Zmirak,
Sorry, truly, this is the way I read it. Perhaps, as someone rather simple minded, some of the more subtle allusions escaped me. Thank you for the clarification.
Peace
AT
PS Sam, please don
Unfortunately, I think you are exactly correct regarding our fallen human nature. Fortunately, we have a Faith that calls us back from this fallen human nature. Perhaps through Grace we one day will be content with those things you describe.
I would ask those who know better if mid-eastern Islam has been damaged (perhaps fatally?) by the same sort of false-bookish neo-Calvinism or neo-Gnosticism as (perhaps fatally?) American Catholicism.
As regards the disestablishment of religious freedom — as too many churches have found out, their own establishment is all too quickly replaced by razing and extermination: all too often.
Sorry again, Dr Zmirak,
Read the statement you just made:
I’m no fan of Abp. Lefebvre, but the general criticism of Dignitatis Humanae is a serious one. It does not run, after all, that Vatican II’s teaching (which, by the way, Paul VI himself claimed invoked no extraordinary magisterium) is opposed to the essentially univocal teaching of the Church, in head AND members, for over 1500 years. Any proponent of Dignitatis Humanae who concedes that premise is conceding either that his reading of the council is wrong or that the council itself is wrong (something which, because it exercised only an ordinary magisterium, lies within the realm of possibility). Fr. Brian Harrison has tried to harmonize Vatican II with the previous Magisterium, and he may well have done so (though also noting that the religious concern of the state extends, by the council’s own teaching, beyond that of merely preserving public order).
Rather than argue against Dignitatis Humanae, which question seems to remain open to me for the reasons adduced above, I would merely offer these two problems with most of contemporary Catholic thought on the subject. Most Catholics, in my experience, assume:
1) it is perfectly okay if VII contradicts everything that came before it and,
2) VII happened to lay out of vision of religious liberty entirely coextensive with the American model (as I’ve said, the document gives three causes for which the state can act, while you give only one).
It does not run that VII is opposed to the encyclical of several popes but rather that is it opposed ot the essentially univocal teaching of the Church . . .
There was a time when there might have been someone who wrote about the Catholic Church in much the same way Dr. Z writes here. He says as much, as there was a time when the Church taught that error had no rights, and in concert with the state sometimes enforced this in harmful ways.
Perhaps because we have come around in our thinking as Catholics, and for instance no longer take our sacred texts absolutely literally…that reason and cooler heads in the Spirit have prevailed, more or less over time, I admit….perhaps we can see our way to hanging in there until there are cooler heads leading Islam. Bear with me, I know this is anathema to many.
I know many think what I have to say here is foolish, or Pollyanna; but if we can come around, why can’t they? There was a time when there might have been someone writing something very similar to what we have here…that the only good Catholic is a bad Catholic, and we should get black marketers to import whiskey so they do not push their agenda further. Those damned, intolerant Catholics…
Instead, today, we have a teacher thinking out loud that it might be better to have “bad” muslims who are drunkards as that would be better than the agitated extremist types we hear so much about in the news but really none (or damn few) of us KNOW. (Yes, I do know there are extremists, but I think the threat is overstated…go ahead, write me off as a whackjob liberal, but I stand by this).
Yes, I know there are Imams and Muftis, and all kinds of clerics out there trying to drum up support for violence in the name of Allah, but there are also a hell of a lot more cool headed muslims, many tired of all the death, who might be “bad muslims” in the eyes of the current heads of the faith, but who will probably be looked upon as pioneers who brought about a transition in Islam that can interface with the West and the rest of the world.
Why is it that we do not work for peace with this — I am sure — rather large silent, scared majority of Muslims? Why are we so constantly ready to be about the business of fear, and arming ourselves for conflict?
I am not saying dont arm yourself. I am not saying there is no threat. What I am saying, is that there is more hope than people allow themselves to have when it comes to this issue. And Hope is a VIRTUE sorely lacking in our culture of Catholics today.
A long, protracted, civilation war with Islam is not a prescription for this problem. Even if many of their leaders desire this, most of the muslims who get used by these leaders are educated only to die for the faith, and not at all representative of the larger masses of Muslims who almost assuredly do NOT desire war.
We are educated and free here, and I still find it distasteful that we cater so easily to fear.
Should we tolerate intolerance? Yes. The world tolerated it when we were doing it. Hell, they have put up with quite a bit from Catholics. We can have some patience with Islam. Careful, measured, vigilant, loving patience.
Rich,
The Church – univocally – never took Everything in Holy Writ as literal.
The earliest Church fathers can attest to that.
Literalism is a paper tiger, straw man and red herring all wrapped into one little mantrap of a specious argument.
Now, perhaps you meant to say that Holy Writ is not “inerrant” – which is a fight worth having.
JOB
I’m with Cord. “Tolerance” is not a useful term nowadays.
Having spent 9 years since September 11, 2001, reading and studying up on Islam, sharia, jihad doctrines, life of Mo, etc, I find it depressing how ostensibly devout Catholics will twist themselves into a pretzel proposing this phantasm of a “moderate Islam”. As the late Ayatollah of Iran, the PM of Turkey, Mr. Erdogan, and countless Muslims and former Muslims have said: there may be moderate Muslims but Islam is not moderate.
I approach Islam with one thing in mind always: my firm belief that there was indeed an angel in that cave with Mohammed 1400 years ago and that the Quaran are indeed the whispers of this “angel”. Now this angel called himself “Gabriel”. I believe he was lying about that. Gee, an angel who would lie and would whisper foul things about Jews, Jesus, Christians, women, girls, puppy dogs (THAT really ticks me off). Okay, let’s put on our thinking caps, er, thinking mitres, birettas and chapel veils and ask ourselves: WHO was that angel? And if you answer that questions correctly, you’ll end up being more RC than PC. No more twisting yourselves into multiculti approved pretzels and…your backs will thank you for it.
And there are many who call the RC the whore of Babylon and that we have all been taken in by the “devil.”
If anyone is twisting like pretzels, it is you, thinking that all muslims are following Satan. You go ahead and keep reading.
I dont know why I bother with this website sometimes.
Either:
Jesus was who He said He was
OR
Mohammed was who he said he was and what he said about Jesus (just a prophet) was true
OR
Both were lying.
Islamic doctrine cannot be one of the ways, one of the multiple choice truths and one of the paths to Life. The doctrinal teachings are contradictory. The very lives of Jesus and Mo are contradictory.
There are some particularly excellent comments here!
I really liked Aaron‘s and AvantiBev‘s.
I found Gian‘s commet thoughtful (except for the casual dismissal of the conservative right in America that I inferred), but I side with Dr. Zmirak’s argument (thanks Dr. Z for the correction btw).
@AT, I accept your gracious yet tempestuous apology and I give you a hug.
It’s easy to tell that you have a big heart, but I do still disagree with you 
Oh, and I did not know that English isn’t your first language; I apologize for any unnecessary rudeness.
@Rich Browner, you certainly seem to be a well-intentioned person but your “I’m an Enlightened Moderate” mindset is merely an anti-intellectual cocoon you’ve sealed yourself into. And as a Catholic I 100% disagree with your equivocations between the error of Islam and the Spotless Bride.
“There was a time when there might have been someone who wrote about the Catholic Church in much the same way Dr. Z writes here. He says as much, as there was a time when the Church taught that error had no rights, and in concert with the state sometimes enforced this in harmful ways.”
This idea that Islam is 500 years younger than Christianity and that if we just wait, someday they will be just like us, is far too simplistic. It ignores the basic structure of Islam (state and faith are combined) and the literalist interpretation of their sacred texts.
“Yes, I know there are Imams and Muftis, and all kinds of clerics out there trying to drum up support for violence in the name of Allah, but there are also a hell of a lot more cool headed muslims, many tired of all the death, who might be “bad muslims” in the eyes of the current heads of the faith, but who will probably be looked upon as pioneers who brought about a transition in Islam that can interface with the West and the rest of the world.”
Where are these pioneers? I am sure people like the ones you describe exist, but how can they compete with the fundamentalist view of Islam the Saudis are financing? Are you aware of any significant Muslim religious leaders who advocate freedom of religion in Muslim countries?
“A long, protracted, civilation war with Islam is not a prescription for this problem. Even if many of their leaders desire this, most of the muslims who get used by these leaders are educated only to die for the faith, and not at all representative of the larger masses of Muslims who almost assuredly do NOT desire war.”
The 9-11 hijackers were all educated men, not ignorant peasants. The larger masses of Muslims who want peace have to make themselves known and heard. Silence is no longer an option.
One of the problems with with Islam is the same problem that Protestism has–there is no Magisterium. No one has final say over what the Quran means, as we do in the Catholic Church. Granted, the Pope and Magisterium is often ignored, and people go off half-cocked and interpret various Biblical passages and other Church documents wrong or uncharitably and we all end up arguing.
Deep down, however, I suspect most Catholics do in fact know that There is Someone in Rome that We Ought to be Paying Attention To, or else they wouldn’t make ridiculous statements like “Well the Church officially teaches that X, but we live in the modern world and….”
Because there is no final say, religious leaders have pretty much free reign to teach as they choose, with no one having a better claim to authority over another–unless that authority comes from the barrel gun and bribes for food and protection.
Qur’an 4:171: “O People of the Scripture! Do not exaggerate in your religion nor utter aught concerning Allah save the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a messenger of Allah, and His word which He conveyed unto Mary, and a spirit from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers, and say not “Three” – Cease! (it is) better for you! – Allah is only One Allah. Far is it removed from His Transcendent Majesty that He should have a son. His is all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth. And Allah is sufficient as Defender.”
So Brian, Dr Z et al.
I have questions:
Do you interact with people of other faiths, Muslims in particular, either as clients, students, professional colleagues or friends?
If yes, how do you deal with them?
If not, why not? what do you advise those that do, eg. stone them? throw insults? ignore? or what?
Third question, what is better: engage with a Muslim on say a common cause, like a pro-life campaign, or assume he/she an apostate fanatic, and snidely ignore that person?
Do you have any sympathy for the 10s if not 100s of thousands of dead in our hands since 911? Or was that not enough to avenge the small hand full of fanatics that did “us” wrong?
Lets stop talking about abstract this and that, lets hear specifics.
And as for that passage of the Qur’an, so what, what is the big point? In fact many have a strong worship of Mary. If a Muslim prays to Mary, sincerely, do you think Mary will not listen to the petition, ’cause Dr Z said so”?
This has nothing to do with following or not the Magisterium.
And yes, we should insist that Christian minorities are treated fairly, like the Copts in Egypt. I think we will achieve this through franc dialogue (like both Popes did), and not treating people like they are all evil fanatics (or only worth talking if we lead them into “sin”, like was suggested. The mind boggles at what people can write, even if without typos…).
Peace.
AT
Someone needs to explain this section of DH:
“Religious freedom, in turn, which men demand as necessary to fulfill their duty to worship God, has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society. Therefore it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.”
What is left untouched? That is, what is the traditional Catholic doctrine of which it speaks? This claim of DH, along with the plain fact that some aspects of some religions are intolerable (and do not at all correspond to what is meant by “duty to worship God”–which is a very Christian and Western construal of the “need”)seems to indicate that DH, more than overturning something forever, is trying to thread the eye of a theological needle presented by contemporary circumstances. That is, contingencies make this specification (DH) necessary and possible.
Additionally ,if I understand the council as “pastoral” and not dogmatic (though I have to admit, I have never been able to wrap my head around that one),then DH as a document responding with permanent principles to current contingencies appears to be the best explanation.
An additional wrinkle: the term “civil society”. This is the sphere in which one is immune for coercion. Does the use of this term have any precedent in papal documents? Is its introduction (if it is novel)a way to nuance but not overthrow earlier teaching? “State” and “civil society” are not the same at the very least. Is room for the confessional state indeed foreseen in DH?
All these are questions that need to be answered, I think. DH is indeed a cipher.
BTW, I agree, Dr. Zmirak, with your assessment of Islam itself, and I take it that your overall point is that under certain circumstances it is not to be tolerated, either by a truly open-handed secularist or by the traditionalist Catholic. Please tell me if this is correct. Best, RT
Yes.
Just like anyone else.
Muslims are natural allies for Catholics on many social issues. However, the Muslim refusal to tolerate true religious freedom, including the right for Muslims to convert, is a significant obstacle to any type of cooperation.
I feel sympathy for any Iraqi civilians accidentally killed during the fighting, the very few Iraqi civilians who were killed by criminal acts by US troops, the Iraqi civilans who were murdered by Baathist thugs, the Iraqi civilians who were murdered by jihadist thugs, and the Iraqi civilians who were murdered by sectarian militia thugs.
I am pretty certain Muslims do not pray to Mary.
The Muslim World’s reaction to B16′s frank dialogue was not very encouraging.
I’ll take my stand with Geert Wilders over the men who’ve issued fatwas against him.
Specifics please
So Brian, Dr Z et al.
I have questions:
Do you interact with people of other faiths, Muslims in particular, either as clients, students, professional colleagues or friends? yes
If yes, how do you deal with them? as fellow students and friends
If not, why not? what do you advise those that do, eg. stone them? throw insults? ignore? or what?I have told many of my closer non-Catholic friends that they will go to hell if they do not become Catholic. LoL, it’s all true! And we are all still good friends. (and I love tweaking moderates/centrists/liberals who think that any strongly held principle that excludes other possibilities is inherently divisive, wrong or unfair.) Interestingly enough, many of my dear friends arn’t even religious, much less Christian
Third question, what is better: engage with a Muslim on say a common cause, like a pro-life campaign, or assume he/she an apostate fanatic, and snidely ignore that person? “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is sometimes a very useful principle. I will accept any support that Muslims, Protestants, or any other non-Christian offers if it means defeating a presently more threatening evil (i.e. a killer asteroid, The Obama, when i’m lost in a foreign airport, etc.)
Do you have any sympathy for the 10s if not 100s of thousands of dead in our hands since 911? Insofar as war necessitates killing people and breaking things: I have no sympathy for them. (but I am saddened that many who die arn’t Catholic.) War is usually a sad necessity and is always started by the Bad Guys and has to be finished by the Good Guys. It is barbaric and can’t be otherwise. Deal with it cause it’ll never change. But war is certainly not an intrinsic evil and is often an opportunity for extraordinary virtue for individuals and nations. Concerning Iraq in particular, so far I am very happy with the results!Or was that not enough to avenge the small hand full of fanatics that did “us” wrong?not vengence, but justice.
Lets stop talking about abstract this and that, lets hear specifics.if you want more, ask!
And as for that passage of the Qur’an, so what, what is the big point? uhhh….that the supreme God of everything is in fact a Triune God. Blasphemy, whether intended or not, is always a grave matter. In fact many have a strong worship of Mary. If a Muslim prays to Mary, sincerely, do you think Mary will not listen to the petition, ’cause Dr Z said so”?I hate pepper, love salt. Dr Z told me one time that pepper is actually salt and vice versa. Now I say “pass the pepper”
This has nothing to do with following or not the Magisterium.
And yes, we should insist that Christian minorities are treated fairly,and that they are supplied with powerful weapons like the Copts in Egypt. I think we will achieve this through franc dialogue a Crusade would be better (like both Popes did), and not treating people like they are all evil fanatics but those who are evil fanatics need to be treated as such; usually there’s several options: convert or suffer (exile, death, imprisonment, fines, or general oppression or suppression) (or only worth talking if we lead them into “sin”, like was suggested. The mind boggles at what people can write, even if without typos…).
Peace.
AT
Pax!!
Dear Sam
So here you have it, we are both Catholic. I am making lofty statements about how our faith is one that is lived, one that is based on Christ