Finding Jesus Among

Muslims FRIENDSHIPS WITH MUSLIMS MAKES ME A BETTER CATHOLIC

FR. CARL CHUDY, SX

Inspiration Outside of

Familiar Territory

The Basilica of San Marco in Venice, Italy

I was thoroughly inspired by this beautiful

church in several visits, including the

pilgrimage we made with many friends

from the USA Province on the occasion

of the beatification of our founder, St.

Guido Maria Conforti.

A very ancient edifice, first build in 828 CE

combines style and beauty from the east

and the west, and the inspiration of

eastern and western Catholicism.

Periodically I would

travel through Dubai

when traveling

between the

Philippines and Rome.

While visiting a

beautiful mosque

there, the feelings of

awe & mystery I felt at

San Marco I also

experienced here.

Recognizing the

omnipresence of God

beyond what we know

to be familiar. God is

the God of all.

In the Philippines,

priests and

imams gather in

dialogue

➢ Although the Philippines is predominately Catholic, particularly in the southern part of the country there are regular encounters between priests and imams

➢ The Bishop-Ulama Conference (BUC) works to initiate dialogue aimed at improving understanding between Muslims and Christians.

Supporting Landless Farmer Seeking

Justice

The Widows of Killed Farmers Leads Hunger StrikeWorking together with an Imam from Philippine University, we partnered to bring solace and comfort 15 days into the

hunger strike.

Pope Francis on Dialogue with Muslims

Our relationship with the followers of Islam has taken on

great importance, since they are now significantly present

in many traditionally Christian countries, where they can

freely worship and become fully a part of society. We

must never forget that they “profess to hold the faith of

Abraham, and together with us they adore the one,

merciful God, who will judge humanity on the last day.

Joy of the Gospel 252

Dialogue: A Fundamental Aspect of Being Christian

The Catholic Church teaches that

interfaith dialogue is part of our vocation

as Christians. Pope St. Paul II instead that

dialogue is “fundamental” to the

church’s mission, a duty from which no

person or parish is exempt.

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND

Why are we called to interfaith

dialogue?

➢ God dialogues with us. God reveals his

love for us in countless ways and we

are called to imitate that same

dialogue with each other.

➢ The end goal of interfaith dialogue for

all Christians is to grow closer to God

by seeking God together. We help

each other respond to God’s call.

➢ We have something important to

share and to learn.

For Catholics, dialogue is

an attitude

More than an event, it is an open, friendly spirit that we bring to an encounter with someone from another faith in our multi-faith world.

The dialogue of life: We participate in dialogue anytime we approach someone of another faith with hospitality and love. It happens at the supermarket, dentist office, school hallway, etc…

The dialogue of religious experience: faith sharing, prayer, worship, scripture sharing…

Dialogue of Common Action: common efforts for justice and peace

Dialogue of theological exchange: To listen to each other.

Proclamation of Christ & Interfaith Dialogue

The Catholic Church encourages the proclamation with the hopes helping others commit their lives to Christ and the Church.

Interfaith is a separate commitment and proclamation and dialogue are two parts of a wider mission that brings us in engagement with all humanity.

Mary and the God of Mercy

“Truly, [God] has chosen you [Mary] above all women everywhere.” Qur’an 3:42

Muslims revere Mary as the virgin mother of Jesus with striking similarities to the Gospel of Luke. “How shall I bear a son if no man has known me.” Qur’an 3:47.

Both Christians and Muslims are pilgrims to these shrines in Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel-Palestine.

Dialogue first

seeks our

similarities

The Catholic Church rejects

nothing that is true and holy in

these religions. She regards with

sincere reverence those ways of

conduct and of life, those

precepts and teachings which,

though differing in many aspects

from the ones she holds and sets

forth, nonetheless often reflect a

ray of that Truth which enlightens

all. Nostra Aetate 2

What we

have in

common

draws us to

fellowship

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, who has

spoken to men; ... They also honor Mary, His

virgin Mother; at times they even call on her

with devotion. In addition, they await the day

of judgment when God will render their deserts

to all those who have been raised up from the

dead. Finally, they value the moral life and

worship God especially through prayer,

almsgiving and fasting. Nostra Aetate, 2.

Differences: Jesus & Muhammad

For Christians Jesus is not the bearer of

the Word of God in the way

Muhammad is for Muslims. Rather he is

that Word, the embodiment of that

Word.

Muslim faith does not claim that

Muhammad is the Word, but rather

than he is the human channel through

whom the Word entered the world.

Muhammad is parallel to Mary in the

Christian sense.

Jesus in Islam Jesus, Mary, and the angel Gabriel are all

in the Quran (as are Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and a bunch of other Bible characters).

Muslims believe that Jesus (called "Isa" in Arabic) was a prophet of God, was born to a virgin (Mary), and will return to Earth before the Day of Judgment to restore justice and to defeat al-Masih ad-Dajjal ("the false messiah"), also known as the Antichrist. All of which may sound pretty familiar to many Christians.

Just as with all the other prophets, including Mohammed, Muslims recite, "Peace be upon him" every time they refer to Jesus.

Muslims believe that Jesus performed miracles: The Quran discusses several of Jesus's miracles, including giving sight to the blind, healing lepers, raising the dead, and breathing life into clay birds.

The story of Jesus's birth as told in the Quran is also the story of his first miracle, when he spoke as an infant in the cradle and declared himself to be a prophet of God.

Prayer and salah My first encounters with Muslim

prayer was in Sierra Leone, where the Xaverian Missionaries have worked since the early 1950’s.

While studying with Muslim friends, I have come to know their utter devotion and faithfulness to prayer.

Their prayer helps me to see the extraordinary value of our own diverse, Catholic prayer traditions.

The spiritual efforts of Muslim brothers and sisters do not leave the hearts of their Christian brothers and sisters unmoved since they stand together before one God.

Look Around: The “Ayat” of God

Dialogue is a vigil for God and for the good, for everything that is good, noble, inspiring, and beautiful on another’s faith.

Ali al-Khawas: “The universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely.” The mystical meaning of our natural world.

“Have you not seen…will you not realize…have they not held the heavens above them…have you in mind God’s grace toward you…”

The 99 Attributes of God

The 99 attributes of God and this remembrance or “dhikr” has calmed me many a time in my attempt to

The entirely merciful, the always merciful, the king, the possessor, the holy, the pure, the source of peace, the generous, the loving, the affectionate, the first, the last, the always patient and persistent, the just, the gentle, the subtly kind…

After St. Francis met with sultan Malik al-Kamil in Egypt in the 13th century, he wrote this prayer:

You are holy, Lord, the only God, and your deeds are wonderful. You are strong. You are great. You are the Most Hight. You are almighty. You, holy Father, are King of heaven and earth…You are beauty. You are gentleness. You are our protector. You are our guardian and defender….Great and wonderful Lord, God almighty, merciful Savior.

My Missionary Life Transformed my Curiosity and Questions To see my Catholic faith that is deepened and

strengthened through my curiosity and questions about God in a pluralistic world, seeing his traces everywhere.

My renewed appreciation of the Liturgy of the Hours is by way of Muslim friends and their faithfulness to the hours of prayer.

It helps me not to take for granted my faith and our tradition.

“…the beliefs and moral values of the followers of other religions should challenge Christians to respond more fully and generously to the demands of their own Christian faith.” Redemptoris Missio

A Joint Prayer for Christians and

Muslims

Merciful and Compassionate God,

Who created humanity in unity and diversity;

Help us to be peacemakers

And inspire us to repel evil with good.

Help us to love our neighbors,

To welcome the stranger,

And to turn enemies into friends.

Guide us as one community

As we strive on the path of justice, peace, and understanding. Amen.

Challenges for Catholics in a Multi-Faith World

The Proclamation of Christ & Catholic Interfaith Leadership

Interfaith Literacy

Interfaith Relationships

Intra-faith discernment

Strengthening our Catholic Identity

Strengthening our contribution to civic good

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY

Resources for Interfaith Dialogue

Check out the many

resources on the website

of the Xaverian

Missionaries

Worldcatholic.us , or,

Xaverianmissionaries.org

Click the Interfaith

Dialogue page on the top

menu

Join us in our interfaith

dialogue activity. See Fr.

Carl for details.

What we Fear,

and Who Gets

Hurt

ANTI-MUSLIM

PREJUDICE AND

HOW WE, AS

CHRISTIANS, ARE

CONNECTED TO IT

What We Fear, Who Gets Hurt

“We cannot truly pray to God the Father of all if we treat any people as other than sisters and brothers, for all are created in the image of God.” Nostra Aetate, 5

Blame for extremist ferment focused on local Muslims became the object of investigation, intimidation, and assaults of many different types.

The Runnymede Trust’s 1997 report defined Islamophobia as “dread or hatred of Islam” an as unfounded hostility towards all Muslims and the Islamic faith.

Anti-Catholic Bias in the

United States

In 1884, several Catholic Churches were set on fire in Philadelphia. Anti-Catholic bias was present in the US since its founding, but especially in the 19th century when Catholic immigrants from Ireland and Germany inflamed prejudice. Catholic Church was the Whore of Babylon in the Book of Revelation.

The Protestant majority of that time feted that Catholics were coming to the US to change its culture and way of life. Catholics were religious outsiders more loyal to the Pope than to the US Constitution..

Beecher's well-known Plea for the West (1835) urged Protestants to exclude Catholics from western settlements. The Catholic Church's official silence on the subject of slavery also garnered the enmity of northern Protestants. Intolerance became more than an attitude on August 11, 1834, when a mob set fire to an Ursuline convent in Charlestown, Massachusetts.

The resulting "nativist" movement, which achieved prominence in the 1840s, was whipped into a frenzy over anti-Catholicism that led to mob violence, the burning of Catholic property, and the killing of Catholics. This violence was fed by claims that Catholics were destroying the culture of the United States

Anti-Catholic & Anti-Muslim Bias

Today, down the street from St. Michael’s Church in Philadelphia, sits the Al-Asqra Islamic Society. In December of 2015, a severed pig’s head was thrown at the entrance to the mosque, and the leadership received hateful phone message.

The resemblance of anti-Muslim to anti-Catholic bias shows up in common characteristics: they are foreign, dangerous, subversion of American values.

Consequences of Fear

Muslim parents come home to find their houses vandalized or dotted with bullets.

A mother in North Carolina was injured when an unknown perpetrator shot in her home while her family was sleeping.

In 2015, Yusor Abu-Salha, her husband and her sister were killed in their home at Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

That year the FBI documented the highest numbers of hate crimes since 9/11.

Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin was attacked because they perpetrator through they were Muslim.

Rana Singh Sodhi of Gilbert, whose brother, Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh, who was shot and killed during a hate crime outside his gasoline.

The Trauma of Islamophobia

Islamophobia is any distinction, exclusion, or restriction towards, or preference against, Muslims (or those perceived to be Muslims) that has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.

One of Many Hate Groups

in the USA

ACT for America: Brigitte Gabriel’s ACT for

America is an anti-Islam hate group, as defined

by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Brigitte

Gabriel believes that, “America is at stage two

Islamic Cancer.” She also argues that “every

practicing Muslim is a radical Muslim,” a Muslim

“cannot be a loyal citizen of the United States,”

and that Arabs “have no soul.”

ACT is linked to white supremacist and anti-

government groups such as the Oath Keepers,

Identity Evorpa and Vanguard America. ACT

hosted these groups at sanctioned anti-Islam

rallies in 2017.

The Church & Islamophobia

Bishop Madden, former head of the Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs Committee of the US Catholic Bishops Conference thinks US Catholics should step forward in a special way to respond to anti-Muslim prejudice and it collateral political effects: ““It’s part of our DNA,” Bishop Madden suggests, "and I think during this year of mercy that we should be especially sensitive to this.”

Catholic Muslim Dialogue with the Bishops

From 1996 to 2015 the USCCB maintained

regional dialogues with important Islamic

organizations that represent a large

number of Muslims from the Mid-Atlantic,

Midwest and West Coast regions (i.e., the

Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA),

the Islamic Society of North America

(ISNA), the Islamic Shura Council of

Southern California and the Islamic

Educational Center of Orange County).

National Catholic Muslim Dialogue

"As the national conversation around Islam grows increasingly fraught, coarse and driven by fear and often willful misinformation, the Catholic Church must help to model real dialogue and good will. “Our current dialogues have advanced the goals of greater understanding, mutual esteem and collaboration between Muslims and Catholics, and the members have established lasting ties of friendship and a deep sense of trust."

Dialogue and Danger: Report on American Catholic

Public Opinion & Portrayals of Islam

When asked about their overall impression of Muslims, three in ten Catholics admit to having unfavorable views. Only 14% of Catholics say they have favorable views. 45% have “neither favorable nor unfavorable” views. 11% are unsure.

A majority of Catholics correctly identify prayer and fasting as important parts of Muslim life, but also incorrectly believe that Muslims worship the Prophet Muhammad.

A majority of Catholics correctly identify prayer and fasting as important parts of Muslim life, but also incorrectly believe that Muslims worship the Prophet Muhammad.

Those surveyed who consume content from Catholic media outlets have more unfavorable views of Muslims than those who don’t.

The Catholic Bishops Respond to the Report

“The findings demonstrate the urgent need to cultivate positive dialogue with members of other faith traditions, something that was strongly advocated by the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council in their document Nostra Aetate.

Experience has shown that when people of different faith traditions build personal relationships and engage in dialogue to learn about one another; they develop the capacity to work together; and they come to appreciate the positive elements in one another's traditions.

This diminishes all of us, as we face increasing incidents of religious intolerance across the globe.”

Challenges for Catholics in a Multi-Faith World

The Proclamation of Christ & Catholic Interfaith Leadership

Interfaith Literacy

Interfaith Relationships

Intra-faith discernment

Strengthening our Catholic Identity

Strengthening our contribution to civic good

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY