But, consider, if we as Catholics, in our Church, have the truth,
The truth isn’t the sort of thing that one “has” in the way that one can “have” a physical possession. Rather, the truth is something to which one is united through faith and love. Christians believe that the truth is found in Jesus Christ. Catholics believe further that the truth has been entrusted as a gift to that body of Christians in communion with Rome. But as I understand the Catholic position, this does not deny that Catholics always need to live more deeply into the fullness of this gift which they have received and which they can never fully possess as one possesses a house or a chair.
then what is this new ecumenism all about?
Humility, charity, recognizing that the gift of the truth does not mean that there is nothing to learn from others, because human beings are always sinful and limited in the waay they understand the truth with which they have been entrusted. And with regard to *ecumenism *in particular (which is not generally taken to apply to Muslims, though it may in some sense apply to Jews), it means furthermore that those who are in a covenant relationship with God, however imperfect, share in the “sensus fidelium.”
I was terribly disturbed recently at the Pope’s remarks on his trip in May this year to the Holy Land when he referred to Islam as that"noble religion".
Non sequitur. You have not shown any reason to think that the gift of the truth to the Catholic Church excludes the possibility that other religions may possess qualities of nobility. Indeed, Lumen Gentium clearly teaches that it does not exclude this.
Your poor Pope really can’t get it right, can he? Some folks think he’s a nasty-minded ultra-conservative bigot, and some think he’s a wishy-washy ecumenist.
From where I stand, that means that he may just be getting it about as right as anyone can.
Edwin