What she’s probably thinking of is the Pope preaching just as God loves all we must love all and recognizes the relationship non-Catholics have with God. ‘Accepting’ is a word that can be easily misconstrued and many Christians believe that being of one Faith, One Church means doom to some in the protestant beliefs as they drawn on their apocalypse theories…Oh I know that people really go wild with this horrible idea … To Catholics we know that it’s something that is in Gods will, to be reconciled with Him (as on Noahs ark) those who were saved by water (baptism). I mean just read Ephesians 4 about the unity of the body of Christ.
Remember it is Jesus Christ who saves but the Church is on a missionary path to bring the good news into the world to those who don’t know it. So unless we speak to those who don’t know the gospel, how would they be brought to Christ? I’ve been in dialogue with so many who believe that those of the Islamic faith are hopeless, or lost, or the enemy. Well Jesus says LOVE your enemies and pray for them. If Jesus were to abandon all that didn’t believe in Him, that wouldn’t be love, that would be another day in the life of the uncaring. WE are never supposed to Give up hope on people… The Lord works in mysterious ways! I personally think many people of the Islamic belief are more religious and righteous than alot of Christians I know and that accounts for something in Gods eyes that they are searching for the truth. I also believe thats why people of the Islamic faith can have a dialogue with Catholics, because we’re both 'religious and try our best to be ‘righteous’ by God. I read an article from a Catholic University which talks about this and why there are many Muslims who attend Catholic schools feeling a sense of commonness and peace there. That may be a topic for another discussion though…
From the Catechism.
841 The Church’s relationship with the Muslims. "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; 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."330
843 The Catholic Church recognizes in other religions that search, among shadows and images, for the God who is unknown yet near since he gives life and breath and all things and wants all men to be saved. Thus, the Church considers all goodness and truth found in these religions as "a preparation for the Gospel and given by him who enlightens all men that they may at length have life."332
844 In their religious behavior, however, men also display the limits and errors that disfigure the image of God in them:
Very often, deceived by the Evil One, men have become vain in their reasonings, and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and served the creature rather than the Creator. Or else, living and dying in this world without God, they are exposed to ultimate despair.333
845 To reunite all his children, scattered and led astray by sin, the Father willed to call the whole of humanity together into his Son’s Church. The Church is the place where humanity must rediscover its unity and salvation. The Church is “the world reconciled.” She is that bark which “in the full sail of the Lord’s cross, by the breath of the Holy Spirit, navigates safely in this world.” According to another image dear to the Church Fathers, she is prefigured by Noah’s ark, which alone saves from the flood.334
853 On her pilgrimage, the Church has also experienced the "discrepancy existing between the message she proclaims and the human weakness of those to whom the Gospel has been entrusted."348 Only by taking the “way of penance and renewal,” the “narrow way of the cross,” can the People of God extend Christ’s reign.349 For "just as Christ carried out the work of redemption in poverty and oppression, so the Church is called to follow the same path if she is to communicate the fruits of salvation to men."350
855 The Church’s mission stimulates efforts towards Christian unity.357 Indeed, "divisions among Christians prevent the Church from realizing in practice the fullness of catholicity proper to her in those of her sons who, though joined to her by Baptism, are yet separated from full communion with her. Furthermore, the Church herself finds it more difficult to express in actual life her full catholicity in all its aspects."358
856 **The missionary task implies a respectful dialogue with those who do not yet accept the Gospel.**359 Believers can profit from this dialogue by learning to appreciate better "those elements of truth and grace which are found among peoples, and which are, as it were, a secret presence of God."360 They proclaim the Good News to those who do not know it, in order to consolidate, complete, and raise up the truth and the goodness that God has distributed among men and nations, and to purify them from error and evil "for the glory of God, the confusion of the demon, and the happiness of man."361
