Syncretistic prayers with Muslims... any advice?

[TMC]

No, it doesn’t. It says those that acknowledge the Creator. Muslims do not acknowledge Jesus, through whom all things are made. Jesus is God, He is the Creator.

So what does it mean when it says that Muslims “along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.” That is a plain and straight forward statement that Muslims and Catholic worship the same God; it can have no other meaning.

 

[TMC]

Where is your source?
In other words…you are not sure of the source.

My understanding is that Vatican II was a pastoral Council…therefore the only “binding” teachings are those dogmas that are being affirmed from past Roman Catholic Councils.

There is no binding teaching directive from that Council that claims faithful Roman Catholics are required to believe that the muslim god is the same as the Christian God.

No, in other words I 'm tired of running down authoritative sources for someone that believes its OK to simply deny facts, history and Church teaching to hold on to his own preferred version of Catholic teaching. I understand that you are not Roman Catholic, but it is clear that you have no understanding of the role of authoritative teaching in the Church. Vatican II was not some kind of non-authoritative quasi-council and the teachings of Lumen Gentium are authoritative. If you have an authoritative source that says otherwise, I’d like to see it.

 

[jam070406]

So what does it mean when it says that Muslims “along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.” That is a plain and straight forward statement that Muslims and Catholic worship the same God; it can have no other meaning.

It means Muslims that acknowledge Jesus and profess that Jesus is the God of Abraham adore the one true God, the just judge, along with us.

 

[jam070406]

No, in other words I 'm tired of running down authoritative sources for someone that believes its OK to simply deny facts, history and Church teaching to hold on to his own preferred version of Catholic teaching. I understand that you are not Roman Catholic, but it is clear that you have no understanding of the role of authoritative teaching in the Church. Vatican II was not some kind of non-authoritative quasi-council and the teachings of Lumen Gentium are authoritative. If you have an authoritative source that says otherwise, I’d like to see it.

It’s Nostra Aetate.

 

[TMC]

It means Muslims that acknowledge Jesus and profess that Jesus is the God of Abraham adore the one true God, the just judge, along with us.

That is a completely nonsensical reading of the text. Muslims do not profess that Jesus is God, and nothing in the document gives any reason to think the council was referring to this nonexistent religion. The document expressly addresses Muslims, not Muslim converts to Christianity.

 

[TMC]

It’s Nostra Aetate.

Nostra Aetate does not say that Vatican II is not an authoritative council, or that Lumen Gentium is an “optional” teaching.

Nostra Aetate also recognizes that Muslims worship the one true God:

The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth,(5) who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God.

 

[jam070406]

That is a completely nonsensical reading of the text. Muslims do not profess that Jesus is God

Bingo. Therefore they do not acknowledge the Creator, Jesus Christ.

 

[jam070406]

Nostra Aetate does not say that Vatican II is not an authoritative council, or that Lumen Gentium is an “optional” teaching.

Nostra Aetate discusses Muslims. I thought that is what you were talking about.

 

[TMC]

Nostra Aetate discusses Muslims. I thought that is what you were talking about.

See my edit to that post - Nostra Aetate also recognizes that Muslims worship the one true God.

 

[jam070406]

See my edit to that post - Nostra Aetate also recognizes that Muslims worship the one true God.

Are they saved?

 

[Mickey]

No, in other words I 'm tired of running down authoritative sources for someone that believes its OK to simply deny facts, history and Church teaching to hold on to his own preferred version of Catholic teaching.

I say it is not all binding. You cannot show otherwise.

Vatican II was not some kind of non-authoritative quasi-council and the teachings of Lumen Gentium are authoritative.

I did not say that…don’t put words in my mouth. I said it was a pastoral council and not everything was/is binding…especially the muslim stuff.

If you have an authoritative source that says otherwise, I’d like to see it.

The burden of proof is on you.

 

[Mickey]

---

2John 1:9
Whosoever revolteth, and continueth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God.

 

[jam070406]

---

2John 1:9
Whosoever revolteth, and continueth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God.

The question to be asked is: Do Muslims acknowledge the Creator?
In order to answer in the affirmative you must deny Jesus. I will not do this. Therefore the answer from my standpoint is NO!
Those that answer yes, besides denying Jesus, must also admit, based on that text, that Muslims will obtain salvation without Jesus because they “adore the one TRUE God” along side us.

 

[TMC]

I say it is not all binding. You cannot show otherwise.
I did not say that…don’t put words in my mouth. I said it was a pastoral council and not everything was/is binding…especially the muslim stuff.
The burden of proof is on you.

You certainly did say that Lumen Gentium is not authoritative, and I have not burden to prove that the teaching of an ecumenical council is not optional.

More broadly, I think I need to step out of this conversation while I can remain charitable. It has come down to two posters that insist on denying the plain language of Church documents and twisting even obvious historical facts in order to cling to their own personal beliefs in the face of all teaching and evidence to the contrary. I don’t think reason and argument is particular helpful in this kind of circumstance. Peace to all.

 

[Mickey]

You certainly did say that Lumen Gentium is not authoritative, and I have not burden to prove that the teaching of an ecumenical council is not optional.

You say everything from VII is binding…including language about muslims and Christians having the same God. Prove it.

It has come down to two posters that insist on denying the plain language of Church documents and twisting even obvious historical facts in order to cling to their own personal beliefs in the face of all teaching and evidence to the contrary.

It is my belief that it is** you** who are trying to spin the facts.

**From Second Vatican Council: **
“In view of the conciliar practice and the pastoral purpose of the present Council, this sacred Synod defines matters of faith or morals as binding on the Church only when the Synod itself openly declares so.”

Did the Synod openly declare in this Council that it is binding on the Church to believe that the god of Islam is the same as the God of Christians?

Answer: No.

 

[Mickey]

Pope Eugene IV:
“Moreover, we trust that with God’s help another benefit will accrue to the Christian commonwealth; because from this union, once it is established, there is hope that very many from the abominable sect of Mahomet will be converted to the Catholic faith.”

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

Then my understanding is that it is not binding on Latin Catholics to believe that muslims have the same God.

But there is no doctrinal infallible teaching in said council about the God of muslims. What are the ramifications?

In the Catholic understanding, certain teachings of the Church can be binding on all the faithful - i.e. obligate them to offer submission of intellect and will - without being considered infallible.

I’m pretty sure the documents of Vatican II are authoritative in this sense - and if not all of them, certainly the four dogmatic constitutions. Lumen Gentium - from which we get this disputed claim about Muslims - even overtly explains earlier on that when the Magisterium teaches authoritatively, Catholics can be bound to submit in good faith even if infallibility is not invoked.

The only infallible teachings are when (a) the ordinary and universal Magisterium is invoked, but this is nigh impossible to pin down, since it basically means what the bishops have always all taught as a unit, (b) when an ecumenical council invokes the extraordinary Magisterium, or when (c) a pope invokes the extraordinary Magisterium (otherwise known as “papal infallibility”).

I have not dismissed a teaching of an ecumenical council. Please stop trying to paint me as a dissenter, it is uncharitable and I don’t appreciate it.

It is not uncharitable for me to point out what is demonstrably true: the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church teaches that Muslims and Christians have the same God.

So you are saying that there are non-infallible binding teachings…and infallible binding teachigs? Are there non-infallible non-binding teachings? Where do you find your information about this non-infalible binding teaching?

From Lumen Gentium, one of Vatican II’s dogmatic constitutions. It says Catholics can be bound to assent in good faith to the Church’s teachings even if infallibility is not explicitly invoked.

Furthermore, there were Popes prior to Vatican II who taught the opposite regarding Islam…

None of the quotes you’ve provided constitute the opposite teaching: that Muslims and Christians have the same God does not in any way exonerate the nasty, repressive, false aspects of the Islamic religion - or its status as non-salvific. As I said, Blessed Pope John Paul II himself called Islam “a religion without redemption.”

So there’s certainly continuity here.

That’s unfortunate. I remember as an Eastern Catholic being treated as a second class Catholic by some of the Latins.

That is deeply unfortunate. We still have a long way to go. I’ve read horror stories from plenty of eastern Catholics even on this forum.

Yes Lumen Gentium reaffirms that those Muslims that acknowledge the Creator, Jesus, and profess the Faith of Abraham, the Christian Faith, are included in the plan of salvation and will adore the just judge, Jesus, along with us.

Read in light of Tradition no problem.

What it doesn’t say is that Catholics and Muslins worship the same God.

Okay, now you’re just lying, and it’s making me mad. Here are the exact words from Lumen Gentium; my source is the Vatican’s own website:

But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohammedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind. - Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church

Please note:

• Muslims acknowledge the Creator
• They profess to hold the faith of Abraham; it does not claim that they actually do
• They do, however, “along with us adore the one and merciful God”

So please stop spreading falsehoods about Church teaching. The Catholic Church disagrees with you, as the universally binding teaching of a dogmatic constitution of an ecumenical council proves.

In this respect I beg to differ. Allah is not, in the first instance, an Arabic word, its origin being Assyrian. It is a contraction of *el and *ilah i.e. “god”****It was used in pre Islamic times to mean “a higher god” by the Arabic people. Mohammed took this name and loaded it with new meaning from borrowed pre-Islamic ideas, and also from the Old and New Testament thus introducing Allah as a “high god”. The koran itself testifies that the worship of “al-ilah” was an integral part of the worship system of the pre-Islamic pantheon.

It is an Arabic word today, and it does indeed mean “God” today. Otherwise why would Arabic-speaking Christians use it?
boleyn2010;8838439:

For my part when I use the term or word “Allah” I am referring to the name used in the koran and not to the name used by Christians to mean “God”.

… They are the same word, though. They have the same meaning - which is “God” according to the philosophical concept that identifies him as the only true and transcendent God.

Muslims believe that the koran is the inerrant word of Allah. So if there is a lie in the koran who is responsible? God cannot lie. So the koran is not inspired by God. To worship the god of the koran and to pray to him is not to worship God or to pray to Him.

Actually, I totally agree. Of course the Qur’an is not inspired by God; that would be ridiculous. It teaches blatant falsehoods.

God is not “the god of the koran,” because the Qur’an teaches falsehoods about him.

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

In my understanding the view is that Muslims indeed do believe in there being only one true God, which is in reality a truth. … But the question is begged. Is the god they claim to be the one true God in reality The One True God?

He has to be, since “the god they claim to be the one true God” is, according to their own claims, the God of Abraham. So the only way it is possible for the god they claim to be the one true God not to be the One True God is if the God of Abraham is not the One True God.

But He is the One True God. That doesn’t change the fact that we know Him in a way they can’t even imagine, because we know the Son and they do not. But they do at least pray to Him, and He is the intended object of their worship.

Are they saved?

How could they be? John Paul II was perfectly correct to call it “a religion with redemption.” That’s not the issue under discussion.

You say everything from VII is binding…including language about muslims and Christians having the same God. Prove it.
It is my belief that it is** you** who are trying to spin the facts.

**From Second Vatican Council: **
“In view of the conciliar practice and the pastoral purpose of the present Council, this sacred Synod defines matters of faith or morals as binding on the Church only when the Synod itself openly declares so.”

Did the Synod openly declare in this Council that it is binding on the Church to believe that the god of Islam is the same as the God of Christians?

Answer: No.

Mickey, this is not a bad point, but the bishops of Vatican II eschewed the proposition-defining and proposition-rejecting style of earlier synods in favor of a more pastoral style.

Plenty of things signal that Lumen Gentium is binding on Catholics, particularly its status as a dogmatic constitution, of which the Second Vatican Council issued only four. It is the highest authority of a Vatican II document.

 

[boleyn2010]

No, in other words I 'm tired of running down authoritative sources for someone that believes its OK to simply deny facts, history and Church teaching to hold on to his own preferred version of Catholic teaching. I understand that you are not Roman Catholic, but it is clear that you have no understanding of the role of authoritative teaching in the Church. Vatican II was not some kind of non-authoritative quasi-council and the teachings of Lumen Gentium are authoritative. If you have an authoritative source that says otherwise, I’d like to see it.

**
SOURCE Sansar | Atlas - Virtual Reality Directory

Although it clearly follows from the circumstances that the Pope can err at times and command things which must not be done, that we are not to be simply obedient to him in all things, that does not show that he must not be obeyed by all when his commands are good. To know in what cases he is to be obeyed and in what not … it is said in the Acts of the Apostles. “One ought to obey God rather than man:” therefore, were the Pope to command anything against Holy Scripture, or the articles of faith, or the truths of the Sacraments, or the commands of natural or divine law, he ought not to be obeyed, but in such commands, to be passed over (despiciendus).** [as quoted in Turrencremata’s Summa de Eccles.]

It is lawful to resist him (the Pope) if he assaulted souls, or troubled the state, and much more if he strove to destroy the Church. It is lawful, I say, to resist him by not doing what he commands and hindering the execution of his will.* [Cardinal Saint Robert Bellarmine (de Rom. Pont.)]

One unfortunate effect of the dogma on infallibility is to give the impression that the Pope should be obeyed with docility only when speaking ex cathedra. Somewhat wary of this opening for abuse, Pope Pius IX, who later defined infallibility, issued a very strong, though not infallible, Letter, Tuas Libenter, in 1863, to the Archbishop of Munich, wherein he stressed the necessity of submission of conscience to even the ordiniary (non-ex cathedra) teaching authority of the Bishop of Rome and his Curial Congregatioins***. In this Letter Pius IX was careful to include the essential distinction that such ordinary teaching must obviously be “divinely revealed” and in “common and constant agreement” with the teaching of Catholic theologians over the past centuries***.

The decrees of Vatican II were never stamped with the note of infallibility, Pope Paul VI having personally requested that this council not he considered doctrinal, but only pastoral.

This grace given to the Vicar of Christ on earth does not guarantee that every time the Pope speaks on a matter of faith or morals he is engaginig infallibility. If such were the case, then there would be no need for distinguishing ex cathedra pronouncements from ordinary locutions, or the solemn from the ordinary magisterium. The following four criteria must be present in order for a papal teaching to be considered ex cathedra , that is, infallible.

1. The Pope must teach as supreme doctor (teacher) of the whole world. For, as Christ’s Vicar, he has the entire human race for his flock. He it is who, most eminently, must teach ”all nations.”* As supreme lawgiver, however, he can only bind the baptized. He does not legislate for non-Christians. Therefore, all separated Christians are required to obey the disciplinary, as well as the doctrinal, teaching of the Church in order to be saved. The grace of their baptism is working on them to accept the papal authority. The successor of Saint Peter is not infallible when he speaks merely as a private theologian, a simple priest, the Bishop of Rome, the Archbishop of the Roman province, the Primate of Italy, or the Patriarch of the West, all of which offices he holds.
2. The Pope must be defining a doctrine of faith or morals. No other subject matter pertains to our salvation. Note too, that infallibility is engaged only on such positive acts, not on any lack of action. The Supreme Pontiff can be infallible when he teaches with words not when he teaches by silence. Indeed, in the latter case, silence can be a grave scandal. Therefore, as we said before, infallibility is a different thing than inspiration. It is the guarantee of God’s protection from teaching error. Inspiration is a direct moving grace from God, not sanctifying the recipient, but enlightening him by a private revelation, or by infused knowledge, to communicate a divine message to men.
3. The Pope must make his intention known by clear words that he is defining a doctrine contained in the deposit of faith, and binding upon the consciences of men. Such ex cathedra introductions as “We declare,” “We define,” or “We pronounce,” are customarily prefixed to the actual definition.
   The deposit of faith (depositum fidei) is that body of revelation, containing truths to be believed (faith) and principles of conduct (morals), which was given by Our Savior to His Apostles, to be preserved by them and their successors, with the guarantee of the guidance and protection of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth, in the visible Church for all times and to the end of time.
4. The Pope must attach the sanction of anathema to the decree, either explicitly or implicitly. In other words, since obedience to superiors is necessary for salvation, the anathema means that the representative of Christ on earth intends to avail himself of the full height of his God-given authority and command our intellectual assent

 

[boleyn2010]

You certainly did say that Lumen Gentium is not authoritative, and I have not burden to prove that the teaching of an ecumenical council is not optional.

More broadly, I think I need to step out of this conversation while I can remain charitable. It has come down to two posters that insist on denying the plain language of Church documents and twisting even obvious historical facts in order to cling to their own personal beliefs in the face of all teaching and evidence to the contrary. I don’t think reason and argument is particular helpful in this kind of circumstance. Peace to all.

Exactly my reason for stepping out of this post. And I stand accused alongside the “two posters” who " insist on denying the plain language of Church documents and twisting even obvious historical facts in order to cling to their own personal beliefs in the face of all teaching and evidence to the contrary.
See my above post for evidence to contradict your part of the statement highlighted in red.
Is this idea that the god of the koran is the same as The God of Abraham in harmony with the teaching of our Church Fathers, and Popes, down the centuries?
Peace be with you.
Francis