The Papacy and Islam

Bearean Beacon ^ | Richard Bennett and Robert J. Nicholson

[dangus]

I went to your direct link, and the source of the article makes it very clear that not only was it Iranian TV, and not the Catholic News, that was making the assertion, but that Iranian TV was lying (as if it were at all necessary to make clear that Iranian TV WAS lying).

[Gamecock]

Diet of Speyer in 1529

And a very nice city....

[GoLightly]

Citing the source for the claim as Zenit, not mentioning Zenit's source (Iranian TV) is disingenuous.

From the article: To quote a Catholic news organization, “Our Lady of Fatima is really Fatima, daughter of the Prophet Mohammed

Why no mention of Iranian TV, where the claim about the Lady of Fatima was made? Muslims claim one thing about her, while Catholics another.

[GCC Catholic]

Iranian TV: Our Lady of Fatima is Really Fatima, Daughter of the Prophet Mohammed

Note the "Iranian TV" part. The headline itself (that you posted) makes in very clear that 1) it was not the Church, but rather Iranian TV that makes this rather novel claim and that 2) Bennett could not have misinterpreted it, but rather twisted it to serve his own erroneous claims.

I looked around on his site a bit... I knew he was anti-Catholic, but I had forgotten that his ministry's sole purpose in being is to deceive Catholics and to malign the Catholic Church.

[GoLightly]

I was wondering if Europeons was intentional.

[mockingbyrd]

Really? Really? You don’t see how deceptive this (whole) article is? You found the quote yourself!

So the author, while talking about the growing “closeness” between Rome and Mecca, and as an example of this purports that “To quote a Catholic News organization.....” and then reports some rubbish about Fatima.

Yes, Zenit did have those words in it’s article. But only as explaining what IRANIAN tv was saying. Not as representative of what any Christian believes. And the author knew that. And the author choose to present the quote in such a way that people would think that this is what Catholics think. And that is a violation of the eigth commandment “Thou shalt not bear false witness against they neighbor.”

Think about it. We all worship Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We all desire to serve Him as best we know. We might disagree as to the best way to serve Him, but I believe that all the Christians who post on the religion forum do so out of a love for Our Savior.

Why isn’t at least half the energy that is spent tearing down those who worship Christ is a way that someone thinks is unfit, spent sharing the good news with those who do not know to call God,Father,and Jesus, Lord and Savior? No one comes to the Father except through Christ, how many people are out there who are so lost? Why attack those who do know their Lord and Savior, why not reach out to those children of God who are so lost?

It is a lot harder to lift up than it is to tear down. I can’t understand for the life of me the glee various Christians have at attacking other Christians. And think of the glee of Satan when Christians lie and misrepresent what other Christians believe.

[dangus]

After these authors were exposed for being the horrific liars they are, I was about to post how fascinating it was that no-one made the simple argument, "Oops, I didn't recognize that the authors had, in their zeal, made one error," and then try to hone in on a specific general point.

Instead, the Calvinists have defended the statement with the zeal of Catholics defending an ecumenical council or one of the very few actual infallible proclamations of the Pope. In fact, I was going to make that exact comparison, so I figured I would just check out who these servants of the Father of lies were. I only had to focus my thoughts on the word, "Berean,"; I didn't have to click. I remembered who they are:

A while ago, I had asked if there was a single prominent Protestant who had been a convert from Catholicism. I was directed to Richard Bennett's Berean Ministries. Bennett claims to be a Catholic, and his ministry promotes heavily the anecdotes of supposed former priests and nuns.

That's what is so special about Richard Bennett! Since Jack Chick's freind, Alberto Rivera, has been exposed as not a priest at all, but a con artist guilty of fraud, credit card theft, and passing off bad checks, there's been no source for radical Calvinists to invent stories about saving priests from the hellfire that thay imagine Catholicism leads to.

Sure enough, his web site is full of nonsense about Catholics killing 50 million people, etc.

[Alex Murphy]

Really? Really? You don’t see how deceptive this (whole) article is? You found the quote yourself!

Yes - I found the quote, and I didn't even have to look that hard. I even provided a direct link to it. At least three Catholics (you included) have accused the authors of fabricating the quote, and of outright lying. It was one such accusation that prompted me to locate the quote in the first place. But that didn't stop the accusations from continuing.

The overall thesis of the article is found in this paragraph:

It is clear from this official recognition that the Church of Rome’s estimation of Islam has experienced a fundamental change. The Biblical commandment not to venerate any strange god has been broken by Rome in order to credit Islam and its adherents with holding to the faith of Abraham. Patently, this novel re-assessment of the Muslim faith represents a major shift in the political policy of the Vatican. These official statements are carefully constructed religious discourse. They are aimed at engendering a new mood of respectful rapprochement and mutual understanding between the Papacy and Islam. As a device of diplomatic exchange, they show clearly that a new interfaith-ecumenicity is being propounded by Rome with the singular objective of embracing Islam and its peoples within a new international community of religious life and faith, a community incidentally, in which Rome enjoys priority as founder and senior partner.

. That said, and within the more immediate context of an "ecumenism of the Papacy with Islam", the article introduces and expounds on the Zenit article in dispute. Here's the quote within the greater context:

On an highly emotional spiritual level there has been a great common-ground meeting place between Rome and Mecca in the town of Fatima in Portugal. To quote a Catholic news organization, "Our Lady of Fatima is really Fatima, daughter of the Prophet Mohammed." On October 23, 1995, Iranian television began running stories that the apparitions in Fatima, Portugal in 1917 were religious phenomena of Muslim origin.”17 Islam teaches that men can achieve favor with God by what a person does. On the Fatima site in Portugal May 13th 2000, the Pope proclaimed a message that could be readily accepted by both Muslims and Catholics. “‘Pray, pray much and make sacrifices for sinners; many souls go to hell because they have no one to pray and make sacrifices for them’....”18

I don't read the Zenit mention as alleging that Zenit was making the disputed claim - indeed, the very next sentence expounds on it, acknowledging that the Zenit article was referring to Iranian TV coverage. The Berean Beacon's criticism wasn't lobbed against Zenit, but rather against JPII, for giving an ecumenically fuzzy message to the city of Fatima, presumably towards the goal of improving relations with Muslims, despite the earlier Zenit coverage.

I don't see any deception on the authors' part. Shoddy writing, maybe - allowing for hostile audiences to misread and misinterpret it's meaning - but not deception.

[vladimir998]

You wrote: “If so, then you have just committed yourself to the claim that Jews do not worship the God that Catholics worship.”

Jews and Christians and Muslims and Samaritans all claim to worship the God of Abraham. I see no reason to doubt the claim, but I do see reason to say that only Christians have it truly right. That is not to say Jews don’t worship the same God. It is to say they know Him only deficiently compared to Christians. I recently read a book by Yoel Nathan who made a claim (somewhat tendentious) that ancient Jews knew of more than one person in the Godhead, but that knowledge was lost in the intertestimal centuries. Maybe.

“And that commits you either to the claim that the Jews throughout the diaspora switched from worshipping YHWH to worshipping some other being around the time Jesus made the New Covenant, or to the Marcionite heresy. Which is it?”

Neither. 1) I believe the Jews worshipped Yahweh. I just don’t believe knowing only Yahweh gives a man anything but an incomplete understanding of the Trinity. 2) Jesus was always orthodox. I do not assume Jews other than Him automatically were. What the body of Judaism may have believed may not only have been untrue by Jesus’ time, but may in fact have been contrary to previous belief (as per Nathan’s thesis). 3) Your premise is faulty.

[wmfights]

And I thought Rome never changed ---- so much for Tradition.

It's worse. It's embracing evil.

[GCC Catholic]

To quote a Catholic news organization, "Our Lady of Fatima is really Fatima, daughter of the Prophet Mohammed."

This sentence is deceptive, and I would suggest intentionally so. If Bennett is not able to make the distinction after 6 (and more likely 8 or more) years of seminary training, plus whatever training he had after his apostasy from the Catholic Church, then he should not have a written/online ministry at all. "Shoddy writing" is no excuse. The sentence would be correct if it read:

"To quote an Iranian television program, "Our Lady of Fatima is really Fatima, daughter of the Prophet Mohammed." or "To quote a Catholic news organization quoting Iranian televison, "Our Lady of Fatima is really Fatima, daughter of the Prophet Mohammed."

As a side note, the message that Pope John Paul proclaimed on 13 October 2000 is a direct quote from Our Lady of Fatima, and I am curious of the claim that it is "readily acceptable to both Muslims and Catholics" because I'm not sure that Muslims believe in making sacrifices to obtain graces for sinners.

[mockingbyrd]

show me where I ever accused the author of fabircating the quote.....I said said he delibertly misrepresented the context. Which he did.

Do not accuse me of saying things I didn’t say.

[adiaireton8]

Ok. But then your claim in #64: "It does when laid side-by-side with the correct understanding of God by the Church sent by Him" is not true.

You can't have it both ways. Logically, either your statement in #64 is false, or what I said in #83 is true.

-A8

[Alexius]

+BXVI is unlike any pope for something more than 1000 years. His theology is thoroughly patristic. He is not so much a man of the 20-21st centuries as he is a true Father of the Church whose words, whether we agree with them or not, are “timeless”. Orthodoxy has been blessed over the past 1000+ years with men who likely will one day be viewed as Fathers. But the overwhelming majority of them are known only to a few Orthodox, even fewer Western Christians. +BXVI, however, is the Pope of Rome. Everyone knows about him. If God gives him the years, he will transform the Christian world. That’s something +JPII never even came close to accomplishing.

Excellent post. I feel the same way. I think JPII was a good man but not a great Pope. BXVI could do great things if God blesses us with time for his Papacy.

[adiaireton8]

protstants worship a God who lies. we don’t.

I think what kawaii means to say (and should instead say) is that Protestant theology has as one of its implications that God lied. That is quite different than saying that Protestants worship a different being (i.e. one who lies) than do Catholics and Orthodox.

-A8

[adiaireton8]

Alex,

GCC Catholic is absolutely correct on this point. Bennett's "To quote a Catholic news organization ..." is extremely deceptive, misleading, and dishonestly opportunistic.

-A8

[P-Marlowe]

I think what kawaii means to say...

I think you are trying to put words in kawaii's mouth. Kawaii was not speaking esoterically about having a difference of opinion about what God said, but rather he is accusing protestants of worshipping a wholly different God, i.e., an idol of their own making.

I knew exactly what kawaii was saying and the sentiment that went with it. He does not believe that Protestants and Catholics worship the same God. Yet he does not seem to condemn the idea that Catholics and Muslims worship the same God. I know that they don't, but there appear to be a number of Catholics (and even Popes) who are woefully ignorant of that fact.

[Alex Murphy]

We'll have to agree to disagree. I spelled out my argument in post #128. I'll continue to entertain all others, but I'm still not swayed.

Did anybody else notice that we've been moved to the Smokey Back Room?

[adiaireton8]

If kawaii wants to insist that Protestants worship a different being than do Catholics and Orthodoxy, instead of saying that the Protestant *concept* of God is different than the Orthodox concept of God, then so be it. I'm trying to inject some charity here. When we disagree about the *concept* of God, we don't have to jump to the conclusion that the other person is an idolator (i.e. worshipping some other being besides the one true God). We can grant that the other person is still worshippping the one true God, but with misconceptions about the nature of that one true God, or misconceptions about how the one true God should be worshipped, etc.

-A8

[Iscool]

I knew exactly what kawaii was saying and the sentiment that went with it. He does not believe that Protestants and Catholics worship the same God. Yet he does not seem to condemn the idea that Catholics and Muslims worship the same God.

Knowing that they (Catholics) sing to the tune of another gospel, kawaii may know more about this than we assume...Seems his argument would be more with other Catholics, not us...