Pope explains why he is going to Assisi-III

[TrueLight]

Well my friend it is what it is. I married her and I love her and she loves me, and it’s been 23 years and in fact I’ve known her for 34 years (college sweetheart).

The level of maturity when we married is different from what it is now. Somehow we manage to make it work. Never felt any pressure to convert. And vice-versa. But I did feel pressure to regain my faith when I lost it for a good number of years. Not to convert to hers, but to regain mine. Which I did. In short, it worked out pretty well.

The Church does allow us to marry Protestants and I don’t think she expects us to convert them. That’s good enough for me, and I don’t think it is fair game to make your statement on a thread on which a Catholic married to a Protestant have a pretty good marriage. In fact it is rather insulting, like criticizing Brother Roger and Taizé.

I seriously thought you were a woman. It must be th feminine word “labora”.

 

[OraLabora]

I seriously thought you were a woman. It must be th feminine word “labora”.

It’s Latin for “work”. Ora et Labora is the motto of the Benedictines: it means prayer and work.

 

[TrueLight]

It’s Latin for “work”. Ora et Labora is the motto of the Benedictines: it means prayer and work.

I know what it means, but my brain still hears it as feminine.

I love the motto, by the way.

 

[Julia_Mae]

One of the great doctors of the Franciscan Order, Lawrence of Brindisi, once said that those who choose to be scandalized are more guilty than those who inadvertently scandalize. The former are choosing a wrong, the latter have no malicious intent. The problem with those who choose to be scandalized is that they spread scandal…

… We cannot tell people that they are going to hell, because we have no way of knowing who goes to hell. We know what grave sin is, but we don’t know what happens at the subjective level.

…
The reason that Assisi was chosen for these gatherings was because of Francis deep compassion and respect for people of all faiths and his desire for peace between Christians and Muslims. … Francis’ command to the friars was to preach the Gospel through humility, kindness, poverty, obedience, and fraternity toward all and let God do the rest. They were to serve the material needs of all men, the spiritual needs of Christians and to invite others to the Gospel, but to avoid all conflicts. He gave them very strict orders to avoid all kinds of arguments over religion at the risk of being dismissed from the order.

… Many Muslims still venerate Francis of Assisi as a Sufi. According to Islam, a Sufi is “one whose objective is the reparation of the heart and turning it away from all else but God. The Sufi knows how to travel into the presence of the Divine, purify one’s inner self from filth, and beautify it with a variety of virtues.”

The one thing that many people may not know about Assisi and about the Franciscans is that Assisi, since the erection of the Franciscan Order has become a Mecca of sorts for people of many faiths. The friars have made it a point of being welcoming and not interfering in the religious beliefs of the pilgrims who come to venerate and honor Francis. In fact, during WW II, the friars violated only God knows how many Church laws, to hide Jews in Assisi. They did everything from writing false baptism and ordination certificates for Jews, to hiding men and women in monasteries that had papal enclosures. According to Canon Law, you are excommunicated for violating a papal enclosure. The friars did it without asking for permission. Non-Christians who observed their courage and their compassion have great respect for them and trust them.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

I edited.

It is, IMO, impossible for the participants in this thread to read Br. JR’s post too many times.

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

In short, only God can know truly who is saved and who is damned. It therefore behooves us to treat men and women of good will, from all faith backgrounds, with dignity, respect, and courtesy and indeed to bestow upon them our Christian love and charity.

So true.

However, continued Maximilian, their understanding of the nature of God and the attributes that they assign to the Godhead are exactly the same as those that Jews and Christians belief. Therefore, it is the same God. They don’t misunderstand the attributes of the Godhead, his role in human history nor do they misunderstand man’s ultimate goal. They don’t possess the post Apostolic revelations and the the few that they posess, they misunderstand and explain in such a manner that they are deformed.

An excellent and admirably succinct explanation, Brother.

In essence, St. Max concludes, Allah is God.

And people today have no excuse not to acknowledge this, as it’s actually a mere tautology. “Allah” is not a name but is simply the Arabic word for “the God.” Saying Allah is not God is utter nonsense, pure stupid drivel. It’s literally saying, “God isn’t God.” It’s not merely false; it also has literally no more meaning than “a square isn’t a square.”

The layman is saying, “The real God would not say those things; therefore, this is a false god.”

The Francsiscan scholar says, “The real God would not say those things: therefore, he never said it. This is a false conclusion on the part of the writer.” The failure is on the part of the writer, not on the part of God, which stands to reason, since these are not divinely inspired books, even though they contain SOME divine inspired truths.

And praise God for the Franciscan scholar for that crucial insight.

All of these men who worked on this for so many centuries, collectively, are much smarter than we are. Therefore, their conclusion is worthy of belief. Once the Church takes an official stand on this, it is no longer up for discussion. It’s certainly inappropriate for Catholics to say that an official position of the Church is wrong, because we know better than the Church. We don’t want to go there. That puts us in conflict with our own Church and it’s a conflict that we’re going to lose.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. I will be so bold as to say that it’s not simply irrational for Catholics to deny that Muslims and Christians worship the same God (no matter that Muslims misunderstand certain things about Him), it’s even arrogant.

I am not sure if living among them is going to make a difference.

It seems to have worked quite well for the Franciscans for 800 years.

So I think conversion is definitely necessary.

I agree. And the Franciscan method is actually more effective than the in-your-face method. The in-your-face, convert-or-burn-in-hell method simply causes anger and bloodshed by Islamic extremists.

I think you are ignoring what I said.

Islam is not using violence as an excuse for political gain. It so happens that their religion allows for violence under certain interpretations of the Koran … If you think I am lying and making all this up, come visit Pakistan and then tell me that you still think its all just for political gain.

That’s why Assisi is so important.

It is, IMO, impossible for the participants in this thread to read Br. JR’s post too many times.

You said it!

 

[At_Trent]

The in-your-face, convert-or-burn-in-hell method simply causes anger and bloodshed by Islamic extremists.

True. The extremists prefer the convert or lose your head method.

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

True. The extremists prefer the convert or lose your head method.

They do indeed, and we Catholic Christians must live with greater morality and charity than they do.

 

[JReducation]

I think you are ignoring what I said.

Islam is not using violence as an excuse for political gain. It so happens that their religion allows for violence under certain interpretations of the Koran. You can tell them that is wrong because according to Catholicism, it is wrong.

But according to their superiors (Imams), who they treat like their Bishops (or even Popes) violence is allowed. For you to tell them that it is a wrong interpretation is not going to help. They don’t question their superiors like you don’t question yours.

So either you tell them why their entire faith is not reasonable and Christianity is the true faith or you aren’t really accomplishing anything by asking us to get along with them. They are as religious as you and me. Their religion just happens to command them with a duty to use even violence to convert infidels.

If you think I am lying and making all this up, come visit Pakistan and then tell me that you still think its all just for political gain.

I understand what they claim, but the claim is wrong. However, we can’t clobber them for it, because that would be wrong too. The most that we can do is to continue to repeat the message that religion and violence are not compliments and that it’s immoral to hurt innocent people who are not doing you any harm. We need to coninue to teach proportionality. One man’s response has to be proportionate to the other’s actions. If the other says a word that offends you, you correct him with language, not with terror. If he threatens you, you have the right to defend yourself, but you don’t have the right to attack when there is no evident threat.

The friars have been very successful in those places where they live, because eventually people start noticing that there is a difference and that life is more peaceful. There was an article, about four or five years ago, about the Franciscan Friars and the Comboni Sisters in Israel and Jordan, where they are more heavily concentrated. It said that in the neighborhoods where these men and women lived it was very interesting to see Christians, Jews and Muslims interact as neighbors and cooperate in projects and programs that are mutually beneficial. The writer attributed it to this presence of centuries. These religious have never advocated “in your face” proselytism and have never been deterred by threats.

I have no idea how many of the non-Christian become Christians. We know that many have. The numbers are never going to be made public as long as there are laws that prohibit conversions.

As difficult as it is, the truth is that neither Christians nor Muslims are going to convert each other by force. Both have tried and both have failed. They have only succeeded in hurting each other. The only thing that seems to have helped has been finding common needs. Unfortunately, there are not enough friars and Comboni sisters or enough good intentioned Muslims who want to give it a try. It’s going to take prayer and time. However, I do not lose hope that it will happen.

I believe that the Holy Father has an angle that deserves to be tried. It’s not been tried before the 20th century. If you can bring the religious leaders of the world to accept that it’s important for their people to live in peace and to commit to pushing this idea in their respective communities, they may have more influence than the military and the state. The military and the state have a very narrow vision of how to achieve peace. Their idea is to conquer and control in order to achieve peace; but this has never worked.

When something does not work, you try something else, until you find what does work.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[pnewton]

It is not encouraged to marry a non-Catholic. Why? Because it doesn’t work most of the time…Your case was an exception that it worked out. In general, it doesn’t work out for most people.

Everything I have seen shows the Catholic divorce rate is not much better than the non-Catholic. If one’s premise is wrong, then the conclusion can not be trusted.

religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm

Barna report: Variation in divorce rates among Christian faith groups:

Denomination (in order of decreasing divorce rate)****% who have been divorced

Non-denominational **34%
Baptists29%
Mainline Protestants25%
Mormons24%
Catholics21%
Lutherans21%

 

[pnewton]

Have to agree. Marrying someone from a different belief is considered problematic for a valid reason.

We all have different beliefs, to varying degrees. I submit that a committed Catholic to a committed non-Catholic Christian than he does a lapsed Catholic. The love for Jesus, especially a passionate love, is not small matter and the single most importatnt common ground. If Jesus is lifted up, He will draw all to Himiself.

 

[passer_by]

Everything I have seen shows the Catholic divorce rate is not much better than the non-Catholic. If one’s premise is wrong, then the conclusion can not be trusted.

religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm

Barna report: Variation in divorce rates among Christian faith groups:

Denomination (in order of decreasing divorce rate)****% who have been divorced

You seem to have misread the claim.

The original thing I stated was that “marriages between a Catholic AND a non-Catholic” have a higher rate of not working out.

That is not just a result proven for Catholicism either. It is a well known result for ‘mixed marriages’…

So this was never about divorce rates been higher in non-Christian groups. That is a different matter.

 

[passer_by]

I understand what they claim, but the claim is wrong. However, we can’t clobber them for it, because that would be wrong too. The most that we can do is to continue to repeat the message that religion and violence are not compliments and that it’s immoral to hurt innocent people who are not doing you any harm. We need to coninue to teach proportionality. One man’s response has to be proportionate to the other’s actions. ** If the other says a word that offends you, you correct him with language, not with terror. If he threatens you, you have the right to defend yourself, but you don’t have the right to attack when there is no evident threat.**

I don’t understand. You make it sound as if the only two options are

1. Try to get along with them
2. Clobber them over the heads with fear of damnation

But both of the above are not what I said.

I am saying approach them and give them reason. There is no need to make it look like religion is just something you feel attracted to. That would be walking pretty close to modernism.

What is happening today is you ask us to get and do no work whatsoever in those countries to discuss the validity of Islam using reason.

Then when we get attacked you say that it is wrong. Wrong according to who? You? Catholicism? Because that doesn’t matter for the follower of Islam. Their Imam (who is like a Bishop or Pope) has taught it for them and they follow it just like you follow your superiors.

 

[baylee]

It’s actually quite logical.

Muslims intend to direct their prayers and worship to the same God that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendents worship. Therefore, the being receiving their worship and prayers is that God.

Do they misunderstand certain critically important things about Him? Yes, of course. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have the same God.

When the Qur’an states that God has no Son, it’s simply wrong. What is not true is that the God of Islam is clearly a different god because the Qur’an says He has no Son. Rather, the Qur’an is wrong about God on that matter.

See? It all comes down to the fact that Muslims explicitly and overtly intend that their worship and prayers go to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Jews don’t believe in the Trinity or the Incarnation either. Does that mean that they have a different god than we do? Of course not.

I’m still not convinced that just because they intend to pray to the same God that that means they actually are. This is much like the assertion that a Protestant minister intends to convect the Body and Blood of our Lord…and since he intends, it must be so. But we know that the bread and the wine that he intends to be the Body and Blood of our Lord is NOT the Body and Blood of our Lord. He may believe so, but it is not.

 

[pnewton]

The original thing I stated was that “marriages between a Catholic AND a non-Catholic” have a higher rate of not working out.

That is not just a result proven for Catholicism either. It is a well known result for ‘mixed marriages’…r.

Then show the data upon which you base this claim.

 

[passer_by]

Then show the data upon which you base this claim.

Pnewton,

I am not here to debate the failure rate of mixed marriages compared to normal marriages. I stated a fact that I know.

If you are engaged in a mixed marriage, please don’t take it personally. The statement was a general result. You might be the exception.

On another note, I would think it common sense to see how a mixed marriage would just introduce another conflict to the couple in the form of religion.

In any case, I have no intent to convince you. I merely agreed with another poster that his view was correct regarding marriages between different religions.

 

[baylee]

But JReducation can simply produce evidence to support his claim that one cannot disagree with this type of decision by the Holy father. No need to ban anyone I would think.

I dont see why it would be a big deal to criticize too. Assissi seems like a policy decision. This sort of criticism happens all the time. Some people complain that the Pope doesn’t do enough to prevent sex abuse scandals or that the Pope doesn’t visit their country that much or pope doesn’t do enough to stop persecution of Christians in Islamic countries bla bla bla.

So why is assissi policy so special? Its not like people who don’t like assissi are disagreeing to something the Pope is teaching.

I hear ya. I think it’s quite unfortunate. I would still like to see writings from the Pope explainiing why/how Assissi does not fall under the scope of the teachings in MA.
Even when some Catholics disagree, we are ultimately searching for the truth.

 

[pnewton]

Pnewton,

I am not here to debate the failure rate of mixed marriages compared to normal marriages. I stated a fact that I know.

I do not believe it. I have had my signature up for a more than a month. Now you know why. Mixed marriages is not really the issue here. However, I do believe that a lot of assumption and misinformation lead to an unjust condemnation of ecumenical efforts today. When I read what you wrote about mixed marriages, it reminded me of an excellent teaching on ecumenism by one of the sharpest Catholic minds today. I read the book, but the audio presentation is here.

peterkreeft.com/audio/03_ecumenism.htm

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

I believe that the Holy Father has an angle that deserves to be tried. It’s not been tried before the 20th century.

When something does not work, you try something else, until you find what does work.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

Precisely.

I’m still not convinced that just because they intend to pray to the same God that that means they actually are.

Islamic doctrine teaches the following: there is one eternal, infinite, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent God. They believe He is pure spirit. They believe in what philosophers call divine simplicity. They also believe that this God happens to be the same God who revealed himself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

When they worship, they intend to give glory to that God. When they ask God for something, they believe that it is that God - the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - who hears them.

Because of God’s omniscience, I’m going to presume that you, baylee, believe that God is at least aware of their prayers and is also aware that He is the one to whom they intend them to go.

In what sense do they not worship and pray to the same God that we do? It’s self-evident that they do based on the above. To deny this is not only absolutely indefensible but is also an open contravention of authoritative Catholic teaching, which definitively asserts that Muslims “together with us adore the one, merciful God” (CCC 841; LG 16; cf. NA 3.).

In short, it is simply incorrect to deny that Muslims and Christians share the same God. We do.

This is much like the assertion that a Protestant minister intends to convect the Body and Blood of our Lord…and since he intends, it must be so. But we know that the bread and the wine that he intends to be the Body and Blood of our Lord is NOT the Body and Blood of our Lord. He may believe so, but it is not.

A bad comparison, for two reasons:

(a) Most Protestant ministers do not believe in the Real Presence or the Mass and do not intend for bread and wine (or grape juice, in many Protestant churches) to transform into anything, let alone the Body and Blood of the Lord.

(b) We have a specific reason for disbelieving that those few churches that do intend this - Lutherans and most Anglicans/Episcopalians - actually fail to do so: lack of valid ministers due to a break in apostolic succession. By contrast, what specific reason is there to disbelieve that Muslims have the same God as Christians? Celebrating the Eucharist is not like praying. You need a valid minister, form, intent, and matter in order to have the Mass/Divine Liturgy. But anyone can pray, and God can hear them. Even the Athenian pagans in Acts were worshiping the True God according to Saint Paul, and they probably didn’t even know who Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were!

 

[passer_by]

I do not believe it. I have had my signature up for a more than a month. Now you know why. Mixed marriages is not really the issue here. However, I do believe that a lot of assumption and misinformation lead to an unjust condemnation of ecumenical efforts today. When I read what you wrote about mixed marriages, it reminded me of an excellent teaching on ecumenism by one of the sharpest Catholic minds today. I read the book, but the audio presentation is here.

peterkreeft.com/audio/03_ecumenism.htm

Um… the problem with mixed marriages have nothing to do with ecumenism This is an issue not just reserved for Catholics.

In any case, to get a better understanding, I recommend you read the Catechism section titled “Mixed marriages and disparity of cult”

 

[passer_by]

I hear ya. I think it’s quite unfortunate. I would still like to see writings from the Pope explainiing why/how Assissi does not fall under the scope of the teachings in MA.
Even when some Catholics disagree, we are ultimately searching for the truth.

As I was explaining in another thread, I think the point to realize is that MA contains the mention of dangers of such gatherings and a **disciplinary ban **against such events.

Now the ban can be reversed because it is a matter of discipline. It in-fact had been reversed in the 80’s I believe. So there is nothing that makes holding Assissi problematic in this sense.

But the dangers outlined in MA may well be true today. I honestly think they are. Now this is just a matter of doing what is reasonable though. For me, given the dangers are true, I would rather not hold Assissi. But the Pope and the Bishops, can simply decide otherwise. They might say we stand to gain more than the risk. Now it could be that I was right and they were wrong and it was a bad idea because the dangers did come true. HOWEVER, it does not mean that the Pope and Bishops sinned.

They would have just made a bad call.

Apart from the dangers highlighted in MA, I have concern with other dangers like the ones I was pointing out to JReducation regarding some policies.