Posted on 05/14/2004 10:17:14 AM PDT by Campion
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican (news - web sites) warned Catholic women on Friday to think hard before marrying a Muslim and urged Muslims to show more respect for human rights, gender equality and democracy.
Calling women "the least protected member of the Muslim family," it spoke of the "bitter experience" western Catholics had with Muslim husbands, especially if they married outside the Islamic world and later moved to his country of origin.
The comments in a document about migrants around the world were preceded by remarks about points of agreement between Christians and Muslims but they seemed likely to fuel mistrust between the world's two largest religions.
The document said the Church discouraged marriages between believers in traditionally Catholic countries and non-Christian migrants.
It hoped Muslims would show "a growing awareness that fundamental liberties, the inviolable rights of the person, the equal dignity of man and woman, the democratic principle of government and the healthy lay character of the state are principles that cannot be surrendered."
When a Catholic woman and Muslim man wanted to marry, it said, "bitter experience teaches us that a particularly careful and in-depth preparation is called for."
It said one possible problem was with Muslim in-laws and advised future mothers that they must insist on Church policy that children born of a mixed marriage be baptized and brought up as Catholics.
If the marriage is registered in the consulate of a Muslim country, the document said, the Catholic must be careful not to sign a document or swear an oath including the shahada, the Islamic profession of faith, which would amount to converting.
DIFFERENT APPROACHES
The document highlighted the contrasting approaches the Vatican has taken in recent years toward Islam, which has emerged as a strong rival for souls, especially in Africa.
Pope John Paul (news - web sites) has broken ground in dialogue with Muslims and even prayed in a mosque in Damascus. He won plaudits in the Muslim world for his strong opposition to the Iraq (news - web sites) war.
But Vatican officials and leading Catholic prelates have expressed increasingly critical views about the spread of Islam and the challenge this poses for Catholicism.
The Vatican's top theologian, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, said earlier this week the West "no longer loves itself" and so was unable to respond to the challenge of Islam, which was growing because it expressed "greater spiritual energy."
The migration document also discouraged churches from letting non-Christians use their places of worship.
This issue arose last month when Muslims in Spain asked to be able to pray in Cordoba cathedral, which was once a mosque. A senior Vatican official said this would be "problematic."
Pinging the People of God ...
Vatican Warns Catholics Against Marrying Muslims ("Put Down the Burqa and Back Away SLOWLY...!")
Thanks for pinging me. Yes, I was getting a little tired "dissing" the RCC on the other thread. I might as well do it here. I look at you Catholics as my mission field (or my cross to bear). Please feel free to consider me the babbling heretic. :O)
I'm so glad that the RCC has "...expressed increasingly critical views about the spread of Islam and the challenge this poses for Catholicism." Of course the article neglects to include any of these quotes. Perhaps a Catholic could find such a quote? But, once again the article did manage to throw in Cardinal Ratzinger quote that the West "no longer loves itself" . Tsk, tsk.
I'm glad the RCC is making such a strong statement of why Catholic women shouldn't marry Muslim men. But rather than saying they would have a hard life wouldn't it had been more appropriate to have used the Bible and said not to be unequally yoked with a non-believer. Of course why use the Bible when you have tradition.
I'm not impressed.
Would the Pope say that marriage to a Muslim was being unequally yoked to an unbeliever? That it was bringing Christ into fellowship with Belial?
Are there any spiritual reasons for not marrying a Muslim?
Go find another cross to bear and another mission field. My mission field is inside my own heart; maybe you ought to work on yours.
The traditional Catholic teaching is don't marry outside the faith, period. I, personally, was at one point mildly rebuked in the confessional for marrying an Episcopalian. I have a very conservative (but 20th century) catechism at home which insists that a person "seriously keeping company" with a non-Catholic must mention it in confession.
Oh, you're right. Thanks for the tip.
Rather a blanket statement. If by "nothing good to say" about abortion, divorce, homosexuality then you're wrong. If by "nothing good to say" about its stance on Muslims then you're correct. Trouble is you feel we need to agree with everything coming from Rome.
As long as both of you are Christians, then that's OK.
It is NOT scriptural for a Christian to marry a non-Christian.
I must have missed those posts.
Trouble is you feel we need to agree with everything coming from Rome.
No, not everything. Only the things you have to agree with, to be a Catholic. :-)
Plenty of people call themselves "Christians" who would qualify as "unbelievers" in St. Paul's mind.
This is an example of the pope not being in control anymore. Some Vatican departments are advocating peace with Muslims while other departments are taking a hard line and the pope isn't doing anything to clarify these contradictions.
If the Pope is acting on God's authority one can only assume that God has decided to destroy the RCC.
The Catholic Church permits interfaith marriages as long as the Catholic spouse agrees that the children will be raised Catholic.
"permits" and "condones" aren't the same thing.
Don't diss Pablo.
What's up with that?
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