What to do with a Muslim friend?

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Yehuda_Dion said:
Despite being raised in a deeply Muslim country I have been a devout practicing Catholic since youth. I am worried about one of my best friends who is a Muslim despite going to school in a Roman Catholic college in his youth (his father is Catholic, his mother Muslim) is a devout Muslim. While I have no doubts that Islam is a genuine religion and some devout Muslims including their prophet Mohammed are now in Heaven, I worry about my friend as I have heard some prophecies of Our Lady’s that people who get sufficient exposure of Christianity must follow it or be condemned to hell after death. I am more than sure that he has had more than his share (he went to Saint Mary’s college and remember, his father is a Catholic) and am as a consequence deeply worried about his soul. Can anyone suggest to me effective prayers for his conversion, maybe a specific prayer or a specific saint? Thank you very much in advance and God bless you all.
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It seems to me that you are as much in need of prayer and proper catechisis as your friend. No offense…😊
 
Yehuda_Dion said:
While I won’t argue with you that Islam follows certain principles that are incompatible with mainline Christianity, I have to object to your opinion that devout Muslims are all heathen who will be condemned by God no matter what. Islam has more than its share of miracles, and living in a Muslim country I’ve witnessed some of them, including a corpse of an Imam exuding a pleasant odor a week after his death. I think that our God is first and foremost a God of mercy and kindness who won’t condemn Muslims just because they are Muslims on three conditions: one, they are devout practitioners; two, they are ignorant of Christianity and three, like the poster above says, they don’t reject Catholicism merely for the sake of rejecting it. I’m merely concerned for my friend because in my opinion he could in no way be construed as ignorant of Christianity. God bless you. 🙂
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I take a more open interpretation on ignorance of the Catholic faith. He may know in his head what he was taught, but not in his heart. I don’t think we are to assume that anyone else cannot get into Heaven or is automatically condemned.

Maybe this is a bad analogy but I did caculus and analytic geometry. By the Grace of God I passed. I have no idea what it is or how I got there, only that I had to “know” it to get my degree. I have no understanding and I am ignorant of higher math, but I took 3 higher level courses and cannot tell you a thing about it. So, I cannot know if your friend “knows” Catholicism any more than I know what a derivative is. Knowing is more than someone telling you “this is this.” He has to come to feel it and still reject it.

Let’s say we studied Buddhism together – are we rejecting Buddhism if we don’t “get” it?

Maybe it’s a poor example, but it’s seeing something from another point of view.

Be open to opportunities with your friend to discuss, not force, your faith upon him.
 
I wanted to add something. I read somewhere that the Catholic Church teaches the only person we can know who is condemned to Hell is Judas – and I’m not even so sure about him since had he not fulfilled his role, the prophecy could not have been fulfilled. He repented and hung himself. Even suicides are not automatically assumed to be condemned because we don’t know what drives one to do it – so I wonder about Judas. Hitler on the other hand would be another matter, but we do not judge – God does.

If you friend a a good person, faithful to his faith, you cannot assume that he is condemned despite his exposure to Catholicism. You did not say what his father’s role was in his life, whether his father practiced, or how his father allowed him to be raised Muslim. The answer is not for me – God knows the answers.
 
Kyrie_eleison_9 said:
Back in September, Pope Benedict XVI visited the monastery where Martin Luther studied before splitting from the Catholic Church. While there, the Pope took part in an Ecumenical service with the Lutherans and in a private meeting he praised Luther for his** “deep passion and driving force” **in his beliefs.

Bishop Nikolaus Schneider, Germany’s top Protestant bishop, was so elated by the Pope’s words on Benedict that he told journalists that Luther had, in effect, been rehabilitated.“Luther has experienced a de facto rehabilitation today through this appreciation of his work,” Schneider, who also heads the Evangelical Church in Germany, said, according to Reuters.

Furthermore, when writing as Cardinal Ratzinger, Benedict made it clear that he does not consider Protestantism to be a heresy:

“The difficulty in the way of giving an answer is a profound one. Ultimately it is due to the fact that there is no appropriate category in Catholic thought for the phenomenon of Protestantism today (one could say the same of the relationship to the separated churches of the East).** It is obvious that the old category of ‘heresy’ is no longer of any value.** Heresy, for Scripture and the early Church, includes the idea of a personal decision against the unity of the Church, and heresy’s characteristic is pertinacia, the obstinacy of him who persists in his own private way. This, however, cannot be regarded as an appropriate description of the spiritual situation of the Protestant Christian. In the course of a now centuries-old history, Protestantism has made an important contribution to the realization of Christian faith, fulfilling a positive function in the development of the Christian message and, above all, often giving rise to a sincere and profound faith in the individual non-Catholic Christian, whose separation from the Catholic affirmation has nothing to do with the pertinacia characteristic of heresy. Perhaps we may here invert a saying of St. Augustine’s: that an old schism becomes a heresy. The very passage of time alters the character of a division, so that an old division is something essentially different from a new one. Something that was once rightly condemned as heresy cannot later simply become true, but it can gradually develop its own positive ecclesial nature, with which the individual is presented as his church and in which he lives as a believer, not as a heretic. This organization of one group, however, ultimately has an effect on the whole. The conclusion is inescapable, then: Protestantism today is something different from heresy in the traditional sense, a phenomenon whose true theological place has not yet been determined.”- Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, The Meaning of Christian Brotherhood, pp. 87-88.

So you see, the Post Vatican II Popes are leading us to a wonderful one world Ecumenical religion where there will be no division between Catholic and Protestant or even Christian and non-Christians. Haven’t you seen both Blessed John Paul II The Great and Benedict XVI praying in Mosques with Muslims and having Ecumenical services such as Assisi with the practitioners of all the great religions of the world such as the Animists and Vodouisants? We should not be so narrow in our thinking, we need to broaden our perspectives of what religion is as our recent Holy Fathers have demonstrated to us.
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The point being: if there is a perfect system in place, Catholicism, then the other systems are varying degrees of imperfect, in the first place of which, is mohammedanism, for it takes the cake on twisting Christianity. If you notice, I don’t condemn individual mohammedan subscribers, for I DO NOT know each and every one, nor their condition. I would HOPE that the mercy of God extends to those ignorant people who never have a chance to know anything different. The reality is, given the internet in almost every country, even third world, this is generally not the case- particularly for any mohammedan in the West. The tiny village of Dupak Chagar in some little mountain pass whose collective numbers have never heard a single word about deity not related to the koran, I have hope for.

The system of mohammedanism is utterly evil: allah, shariah, mohammed, et al = evil.

That’s it. Once that is established, the semantic bull-wrangling of anything or anyone else is doesn’t negate this, for even Scripture states mohammed is a type of anti-Christ and brought a false gospel, based on earlier false gospels and pagan systems.

This is historical and inarguable, and woefully forgotten in the West in lieu of propaganda.

I love muslims, but I’ll fight mohammedanism til I die. If that means eventually I fight muslims when they try to take over via various means, so be it. Same goes for well-meaning Marxists and Marxism.
 
Leegal said:
I take a more open interpretation on ignorance of the Catholic faith. He may know in his head what he was taught, but not in his heart. I don’t think we are to assume that anyone else cannot get into Heaven or is automatically condemned.

Maybe this is a bad analogy but I did caculus and analytic geometry. By the Grace of God I passed. I have no idea what it is or how I got there, only that I had to “know” it to get my degree. I have no understanding and I am ignorant of higher math, but I took 3 higher level courses and cannot tell you a thing about it. So, I cannot know if your friend “knows” Catholicism any more than I know what a derivative is. Knowing is more than someone telling you “this is this.” He has to come to feel it and still reject it.

Let’s say we studied Buddhism together – are we rejecting Buddhism if we don’t “get” it?

Maybe it’s a poor example, but it’s seeing something from another point of view.

Be open to opportunities with your friend to discuss, not force, your faith upon him.
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Thank you for the kind words and encouragement. I sure hope you are right. It won’t be an easy task for anyone to try to convert my friend to Catholicism - he’s very strong willed and in love with Islam. I do believe he is a good person and that he’s intelligent enough not to reject the truth if he ever gets sufficient proof of it, but in the meantime I take pains not to discuss Catholicism whenever I’m with him in fear of telling him more than he ought to know for the doctrine of ignorance to apply to him. Thanks again for your kind words and openmindedness to other faiths though. I’m a devout Catholic who am convinced of the truth of our faith and will never apostasize till I die, but somehow I find it refreshing.
 
jonbhorton said:
The point being: if there is a perfect system in place, Catholicism, then the other systems are varying degrees of imperfect, in the first place of which, is mohammedanism, for it takes the cake on twisting Christianity. If you notice, I don’t condemn individual mohammedan subscribers, for I DO NOT know each and every one, nor their condition. I would HOPE that the mercy of God extends to those ignorant people who never have a chance to know anything different. The reality is, given the internet in almost every country, even third world, this is generally not the case- particularly for any mohammedan in the West. The tiny village of Dupak Chagar in some little mountain pass whose collective numbers have never heard a single word about deity not related to the koran, I have hope for.

The system of mohammedanism is utterly evil: allah, shariah, mohammed, et al = evil.

That’s it. Once that is established, the semantic bull-wrangling of anything or anyone else is doesn’t negate this, for even Scripture states mohammed is a type of anti-Christ and brought a false gospel, based on earlier false gospels and pagan systems.

This is historical and inarguable, and woefully forgotten in the West in lieu of propaganda.

I love muslims, but I’ll fight mohammedanism til I die. If that means eventually I fight muslims when they try to take over via various means, so be it. Same goes for well-meaning Marxists and Marxism.
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Just one question my friend. We as Catholics believe that nothing ever happens without God’s permission for it to happen, do we not? (Note that I’m not contesting free will, but merely stating my faith that NOTHING happens that he doesn’t ALLOW TO HAPPEN, not PERMIT TO HAPPEN as in the case of sins, though he hates sin with all his heart). I wasn’t there, so I cannot know for sure, but I had some Islamic education in my youth and by all accounts I studied their prophet Mohammed was a very pious and righteous man. Doesn’t the Bible state that the footsteps of righteous men are ordered by the Lord? Do you think our kind, merciful God would allow Mohammed, by all accounts a righteous man, to fall to the devil’s deception so deeply and disseminate a religion which he foreknows will lead billions to hell? I don’t believe Islam on the same level as I believe in my religion, but I will not and cannot believe that our God has not made provision for a good man and his plethora of well-meaning followers. Muhammad was a good man throughout this life. Do you make him to be a greater deceiver than Antichrist, who will initially look pious but then turn even more satanic than Hitler? Well? I await your answer and God bless you.
 
jonbhorton said:
The point being: if there is a perfect system in place, Catholicism, then the other systems are varying degrees of imperfect, in the first place of which, is mohammedanism, for it takes the cake on twisting Christianity. If you notice, I don’t condemn individual mohammedan subscribers, for I DO NOT know each and every one, nor their condition. I would HOPE that the mercy of God extends to those ignorant people who never have a chance to know anything different. The reality is, given the internet in almost every country, even third world, this is generally not the case- particularly for any mohammedan in the West. The tiny village of Dupak Chagar in some little mountain pass whose collective numbers have never heard a single word about deity not related to the koran, I have hope for.

The system of mohammedanism is utterly evil: allah, shariah, mohammed, et al = evil.

That’s it. Once that is established, the semantic bull-wrangling of anything or anyone else is doesn’t negate this, for even Scripture states mohammed is a type of anti-Christ and brought a false gospel, based on earlier false gospels and pagan systems.

This is historical and inarguable, and woefully forgotten in the West in lieu of propaganda.

I love muslims, but I’ll fight mohammedanism til I die. If that means eventually I fight muslims when they try to take over via various means, so be it. Same goes for well-meaning Marxists and Marxism.
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I believe that Catholicism is the perfect faith. However, the Koran is not utterly evil. Originally Mohammed dictated the Koran with love and acts of charity. He was trying to stablize nomadic and tribal societies with some laws and rules and guidelines. It’s the first religious book to actually write in rights of inheritance for women. However, it was not met with great regard and so Mohammed took on a more violent and strident tone in his dictation after he was chased from Mecca to Medina. Like any man, he could not get why his message was not getting across to the people and he became angry and that’s when you get to conversion by force and all the self-interpretation. It’s as though there are two Korans if taken as one being written before his fleeing and the one written after his flight to Medina.

It’s interesting to note that the first part written in Mecca was more spiritual and spoke to ethics and equality. The second part dictated in Medina, became the social and moral groundwork. Islam has 5 pillars – like commandments. Interestingly, the 6th pillar does not appear in Mohammed’s dictations, and most Muslims would say the 6th pillar does not exist (Sunnis hold to only 5 pillars).

That 6th pillar is “Jihad.” For those that believe in a 6th pillar, it’s self-interpretative and would be the equivalent of me saying there are now 11 Commandments. Even if it were to exist it would be a personal struggle not a call to killing. Some traditionalist Muslims would say that believing in a 6th pillar in Islam is a “sin” – I would imagine it would be the equivalent to heresy for a traditionalist.

The schism between Shi’ite and Sunni – all man made schisms over the true heir to Mohammed. If anything, Mohammed started out with a good idea that went bad because he was human and subject to the human frailty and let anger take over.

Also, men created the schisms after his death and fundamentalists created that 6th pillar or Jihad which does not exist in mainstream Islam, but is the one thing that Westeners most closely identify with Islam. Hardly anyone will tell you about the acts of charity that a good Muslim must perform and that women could not be denied an inheritance from their father – but everyone knows and reacts to “Jihad.”
 
Muslims acknowledge the Creator, but their understanding of the Creator is wrong. I believe that there are good and bad people from ALL backgrounds and nobody is perfect. I believe that those muslims who are peaceful, respectful, do good things, and seek God, will eventually be led to Him. God gave us the choice to make. If you do not know Jesus through no fault of your own, salvation might still be possible. If you reject Jesus willingly, there is no salvation.

Here is what we do know:
Islam rejects Jesus as being the Son of God. Islam rejects the Holy Trinity. Islam rejects that Jesus died on the Cross for our sins.

Again, muslims acknowledge the Creator, but their understanding of Him is wrong.

"Jesus saith to him: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me." John 14:6 Douay-Rheims Bible
 
Mickey said:
No they don’t. The Creator is Christ.
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Wow, the lack of religious tolerance of some here astounds me. As Roman Catholics we are supposed to be the cream of Christianity, the epitome of God’s love to all his elect children (according to the Gospel of John, the elect being ALL who can love, even Muslims). Why the extreme antipathy towards Islam? Our religion is ours, their religion is theirs. If all Muslims were to go to hell it would be their business and frankly more grounds for our pity than our hatred. There is no call for the aggressive demeanor some here are displaying. It’s appalling.
 
Fine. Bow (even in your words which I read in the OP) to Mecca all you want if you think it’s such a great religion and mohammed was a real prophet of any spiritual entity but Satan himself. Just don’t call yourself Catholic while doing it.

Catholics defending this filth:

You’re gonna ecumenically drive yourself to dhimmitude and subjugation.

The Byzantines didn’t meet the challenge and called on the West; there will be no West to call on this time. Nor East. Just the hope of a quick death.

Look up “muslim persecution of Christians”, actually read the koran, actually read the hadith. It’s sick. All of it. Out of context it can be pretty, depending. In context it’s absolute filth.

I’m done here. Nothing to be gained.
mohammed brought a different gospel; he is a type of anti-Christ. All the “peace and love” and “but what about the ‘peaceful’ verses?” is ignorant liberalism (in the modern/American usage for you liberal-sticklers).

I’ll just let the Atheists sing me out:
(Douglas Murray)
youtube.com/watch?v=H9YEJ8pgxX8
(Christopher Hitchens)
youtube.com/watch?v=GBxj-uhKx4I
 
Yehuda_Dion said:
Wow, the lack of religious tolerance of some here astounds me. As Roman Catholics we are supposed to be the cream of Christianity, the epitome of God’s love to all his elect children (according to the Gospel of John, the elect being ALL who can love, even Muslims). Why the extreme antipathy towards Islam? Our religion is ours, their religion is theirs. If all Muslims were to go to hell it would be their business and frankly more grounds for our pity than our hatred. There is no call for the aggressive demeanor some here are displaying. It’s appalling.
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Settle down.

I’m not saying that anyone goes to hell. I am not the judge. I am saying that they reject Christ as God.

I pray for them.
 
jonbhorton said:
mohammed brought a different gospel; he is a type of anti-Christ.
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This is true.

“There is also the people-deceiving cult (threskeia) of the Ishmaelites, the forerunner of the Antichrist, which prevails until now.”
St John of Damascus
 
jonbhorton said:
Fine. Bow (even in your words which I read in the OP) to Mecca all you want if you think it’s such a great religion and mohammed was a real prophet of any spiritual entity but Satan himself. Just don’t call yourself Catholic while doing it.

Catholics defending this filth:

You’re gonna ecumenically drive yourself to dhimmitude and subjugation.

The Byzantines didn’t meet the challenge and called on the West; there will be no West to call on this time. Nor East. Just the hope of a quick death.

Look up “muslim persecution of Christians”, actually read the koran, actually read the hadith. It’s sick. All of it. Out of context it can be pretty, depending. In context it’s absolute filth.

I’m done here. Nothing to be gained.
mohammed brought a different gospel; he is a type of anti-Christ. All the “peace and love” and “but what about the ‘peaceful’ verses?” is ignorant liberalism (in the modern/American usage for you liberal-sticklers).

I’ll just let the Atheists sing me out:
(Douglas Murray)
youtube.com/watch?v=H9YEJ8pgxX8
(Christopher Hitchens)
youtube.com/watch?v=GBxj-uhKx4I
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Bow to MECCA? Bow. To. MECCA? You are way out of line here, sir. I have a mind to report you to a moderator. I have been a faithful Christian since my birth, a born and raised Catholic. I don’t need to take this dung from you. I demand an apology, or I will report this for mod action.
 
Mickey said:
Settle down.

I’m not saying that anyone goes to hell. I am not the judge. I am saying that they reject Christ as God.

I pray for them.
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If you have Muslim friends or acquaintances, do you discuss your faith with them as well? 😃
 
Yehuda_Dion said:
Just one question my friend. We as Catholics believe that nothing ever happens without God’s permission for it to happen, do we not? (Note that I’m not contesting free will, but merely stating my faith that NOTHING happens that he doesn’t ALLOW TO HAPPEN, not PERMIT TO HAPPEN as in the case of sins, though he hates sin with all his heart). I wasn’t there, so I cannot know for sure, but I had some Islamic education in my youth and by all accounts I studied their prophet Mohammed was a very pious and righteous man. Doesn’t the Bible state that the footsteps of righteous men are ordered by the Lord? Do you think our kind, merciful God would allow Mohammed, by all accounts a righteous man, to fall to the devil’s deception so deeply and disseminate a religion which he foreknows will lead billions to hell? I don’t believe Islam on the same level as I believe in my religion, but I will not and cannot believe that our God has not made provision for a good man and his plethora of well-meaning followers. Muhammad was a good man throughout this life. Do you make him to be a greater deceiver than Antichrist, who will initially look pious but then turn even more satanic than Hitler? Well? I await your answer and God bless you.
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Imam impression
“Ya, Muslim! Verily I say unto you, for you, knowing the words of Allah, should know that Allah is the greatest of deceivers.” :rolleyes:

Read Sura Ali-Imran: quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/koran/koran-idx?type=DIV0&byte=72808

It’s nothing but chronologically flawed, Gnostic-inspired, and outright blasphemy to boot.

Do I think God would allow people to choose a flawed path when the Truth is right in front of them in the Catholic Church, of which is the only Church mohammed could have known? Of knowing the Catholic Church, mohammed was mainly exposed to heretical sects. His knowledge of Christianity and Judaism is haphazard and uneducated by even modern Sunday School standards.

Yeah, I think God allows millions of people to exercise free-will in rejecting Him for a false system. It is our choice after all.
 
Yehuda_Dion said:
I do believe he is a good person and that he’s intelligent enough not to reject the truth if he ever gets sufficient proof of it, but in the meantime I take pains not to discuss Catholicism whenever I’m with him in fear of telling him more than he ought to know for the doctrine of ignorance to apply to him.
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Please, be careful. I understand that you have only the best of intentions at heart for your friend’s soul, and that is commendable. But willfully witholding the truth from him as - what seems to me to be - a back-alley way to get saved? It’s entirely possible that were you to share the fullness of truth (the Catholic Church) with your friend in a loving way instead of withholding it that it could become much like a seed that will sprout and flourish in the future.

I would continue to pray for your friend and continue as you have been, but also pray for the Lord to give you the strength and courage to speak the truth and have faith that He will work with your friend afterwards.
 
Yehuda_Dion said:
Despite being raised in a deeply Muslim country I have been a devout practicing Catholic since youth. I am worried about one of my best friends who is a Muslim despite going to school in a Roman Catholic college in his youth (his father is Catholic, his mother Muslim) is a devout Muslim. While I have no doubts that Islam is a genuine religion and some devout Muslims including their prophet Mohammed are now in Heaven, I worry about my friend as I have heard some prophecies of Our Lady’s that people who get sufficient exposure of Christianity must follow it or be condemned to hell after death. I am more than sure that he has had more than his share (he went to Saint Mary’s college and remember, his father is a Catholic) and am as a consequence deeply worried about his soul. Can anyone suggest to me effective prayers for his conversion, maybe a specific prayer or a specific saint? Thank you very much in advance and God bless you all.
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Dear Yehuda, I am trying to analyze the sentence marked above. You say he is a devout muslim, so why are you worried? And than under what assumption do you feel that Mohammad and other muslims are already in heaven?

They do not consider Jesus as Son of God but as a prophet. They do not consider the greatest sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, but say that Jesus was replaced by someone at the end moment, and Jesus just vanished from the scene. Also they are still offering living sacrifices, when Jesus abolished them.

Also, was his father a practicing Catholic or after marriage he too embraced islam?
 
wwolverine said:
Dear Yehuda, I am trying to analyze the sentence marked above. You say he is a devout muslim, so why are you worried? And than under what assumption do you feel that Mohammad and other muslims are already in heaven?

They do not consider Jesus as Son of God but as a prophet. They do not consider the greatest sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, but say that Jesus was replaced by someone at the end moment, and Jesus just vanished from the scene. Also they are still offering living sacrifices, when Jesus abolished them.

Also, was his father a practicing Catholic or after marriage he too embraced islam?
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Like I said, I’ve read from reputable sources some prophecies of Our Lady’s that unless a person with “sufficient knowledge” of Catholicism chooses to follow it, he or she will be condemned to hell after death. If this is true (and Our Lady doesn’t lie) then his soul is in very grave danger. As for the reason of my belief that Mohammed is now in Heaven, it is for several: the first, some Islamic education in my youth that impressed upon me how pious Muhammad was. I do not believe that God would intentionally mislead a good man. Second, I actually have been graced by the friendship of Muslims. They are generally honest, good people whose discipline in conforming to their five times a day prayer is very admirable. I don’t think that God would condemn them to hell just for following what they think is right GIVEN that they are sufficiently ignorant of Christianity. Back to Mohammed, my guess is that God intended for the Islam religion to be founded and that Mohammed, while knowing about Christianity, enjoys some special grace towards the salvation of his soul. The Bible itself states, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, compassion on whom I will have compassion.” God doesn’t have to play by our, Catholic, rules that he set down for our edification and safety. He can save whom he wills to save, IF he wills. God bless you.
 
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