Sure he did...Otherwise the woman wouldn't have married him because your religion convinced her it wouldn't be a valid marriage without him becoming a Catholic...You know that...
I said,
“He got the ‘holy water treatment’ and now he’s a Catholic Crhistian...What an insult to Jesus Christ...He’s no more a Christian than Osama Bin Laden...”
You said,
Maybe he isn’t, but others are.
But that's the point...He claims to be a Catholic Christian and you guys accept him into your fold as one of you...Maybe none of you are Christians...(Birds of a feather flock together, don't they?)
And, in fact, you do not know the heart of Magdi Allam and are in no position to judge his faith. You never even heard of him until you saw this article or one like it, right?
It's called a testimony...Did this muzlim ever claim to become a follower of Jesus, a disciple of Jesus Christ??? Did Jesus become his Savior, or did he just say he is joining the Catholic religion???
It's not true. Anyone who told her that is wrong. I suspect you made the whole thing up.
You're drenched in hate for Catholics and Catholicism.
You are way out of line. Do all of us a favor, yourself included, and clear off this thread.
Wow. I'm glad Jesus is more accepting than you.
I feel sorry for you. The evil that is in your heart is a cancer. You consider yourself a Christian but your heart is sick with bigotry and hate. The fire in your heart is not the fire of the Holy Spirit, which is love, it is the fire of hate which leads away from the Holy Spirit. You need to take a good hard look at yourself and pray for the grace to change the hardness of your heart... the sooner the better.
I "know" nothing of the sort. My mother was Catholic and my father was Lutheran. They had a Catholic wedding and the marriage was perfectly valid in the eyes of the Church. A non-Catholic is not required to become a Catholic in order for a marriage to be valid in the eyes of the Church.
Iscool:
Well leave it to you to turn, what should be a joyous occasion of a Muslim being baptized into the Most Holy Trinity, into a polemic on who is a Christian and who is not, and a debate on Baptism. In all of your posts, there is your typical attack on the Catholic Church. Well, sorry if I don’t accept the “infallible interpretations” of Rev. Iscool. The Scriptures and all the Early Church does not support your “personal infallible interpretation” as once again, you make the point that in my opinion, “Sola Scriptura” is really nothing more than “Sola Meo.”
The Sacred Scriptures clearly teach the doctrine that Baptism is the normative means through which God gives humanity Grace, which saves us. Numerous passages support this doctrinal point (e.g., see Acts 2:38, 22:16; Rom. 6:1–4; 1 Cor. 6:11, 12:13; Gal. 3:26–27; Eph. 5:25-27; Col. 2:11–12; Titus 3:5; 1 Pet. 3:18–22). These passages all point to a being baptized into Christ’s passion, death and resurrection, and thus a communion with God.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in paragraph 628, summarizes this point nicely:
“Baptism, the original and full sign of which is immersion, efficaciously signifies the descent into the tomb by the Christian who dies to sin with Christ in order to live a new life. “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life (c.f. Rom 6:4).”
The Church Fathers are clear in the view that Baptism is the means of new birth and the means through which Grace is communicated to each person: For example,
St. Ignatius of Antioch writes:
“Let none of you turn deserter. Let your baptism be your armor; your faith, your helmet; your love, your spear; your patient endurance, your panoply” (Letter to Polycarp 6 [A.D. 110]).
St. Justin Martyr writes
“Whoever are convinced and believe that what they are taught and told by us is the truth, and professes to be able to live accordingly, are instructed to pray and to beseech God in fasting for the remission of their former sins, while we pray and fast with them. Then they are led by us to a place where there is water, and they are reborn in the same kind of rebirth in which we ourselves were reborn: ‘In the name of God, the Lord and Father of all, and of our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit,’ they receive the washing of water. For Christ said, ‘Unless you be reborn, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven’” (First Apology 61:14–17 [A.D. 151]).
St. Clement of Alexandria writes:
“When we are baptized, we are enlightened. Being enlightened, we are adopted as sons. Adopted as sons, we are made perfect. Made perfect, we become immortal . . . ‘and sons of the Most High’ [Ps. 82:6]. This work is variously called grace, illumination, perfection, and washing. It is a washing by which we are cleansed of sins, a gift of grace by which the punishments due our sins are remitted, an illumination by which we behold that holy light of salvation” (The Instructor of Children 1:6:26:1 [A.D. 191]).
St, Cyprian of Carthage writes:
“While I was lying in darkness . . . I thought it indeed difficult and hard to believe . . . that divine mercy was promised for my salvation, so that anyone might be born again and quickened unto a new life by the laver of the saving water, he might put off what he had been before, and, although the structure of the body remained, he might change himself in soul and mind. . . . But afterwards, when the stain of my past life had been washed away by means of the water of rebirth, a light from above poured itself upon my chastened and now pure heart; afterwards, through the Spirit which is breathed from heaven, a second birth made of me a new man” (To Donatus 3–4 [A.D. 246]).
St. Cyril of Jerusalem writes:
“If any man does not receive baptism, he does not have salvation. The only exception is the martyrs, who, even without water, will receive baptism, for the Savior calls martyrdom a baptism [Mark 10:38]. . . . Bearing your sins, you go down into the water; but the calling down of grace seals your soul and does not permit that you afterwards be swallowed up by the fearsome dragon. You go down dead in your sins, and you come up made alive in righteousness” (Catechetical Lectures 3:10, 12 [A.D. 350]).
St. Basil the Great writes:
“For prisoners, baptism is ransom, forgiveness of debts, the death of sin, regeneration of the soul, a resplendent garment, an unbreakable seal, a chariot to heaven, a royal protector, a gift of adoption” (Sermons on Moral and Practical Subjects 13:5 [A.D. 379]).
St. Ambrose of Milan writes:
“The Lord was baptized, not to be cleansed himself but to cleanse the waters, so that those waters, cleansed by the flesh of Christ which knew no sin, might have the power of baptism. Whoever comes, therefore, to the washing of Christ lays aside his sins” (Commentary on Luke 2:83 [A.D. 389]).
St. Augustine writes:
“It is an excellent thing that the Punic [North African] Christians call baptism salvation and the sacrament of Christ’s body nothing else than life. Whence does this derive, except from an ancient and, as I suppose, apostolic tradition, by which the churches of Christ hold inherently that without baptism and participation at the table of the Lord it is impossible for any man to attain either to the kingdom of God or to salvation and life eternal? This is the witness of Scripture too” (Forgiveness and the Just Deserts of Sin, and the Baptism of Infants 1:24:34 [A.D. 412]).
“The sacrament of baptism is most assuredly the sacrament of regeneration” (ibid., 2:27:43).
“Baptism washes away all, absolutely all, our sins, whether of deed, word, or thought, whether sins original or added, whether knowingly or unknowingly contracted” (Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 3:3:5 [A.D. 420]).
“This is the meaning of the great sacrament of baptism, which is celebrated among us: all who attain to this grace die thereby to sin—as he himself [Jesus] is said to have died to sin because he died in the flesh (that is, ‘in the likeness of sin’)—and they are thereby alive by being reborn in the baptismal font, just as he rose again from the sepulcher. This is the case no matter what the age of the body. For whether it be a newborn infant or a decrepit old man—since no one should be barred from baptism—just so, there is no one who does not die to sin in baptism. Infants die to original sin only; adults, to all those sins which they have added, through their evil living, to the burden they brought with them at birth” (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love 13[41] [A.D. 421]).
The Anglican-Protestant Church History Scholar, J. N. D. Kelly summarizes the numerous statements by the Early Church Fathers with respect to Baptism as he writes:
“From the beginning baptism was the universally accepted rite of admission to the Church. . . . As regards its significance, it was always held to convey the remission of sins . . . we descend into the water ‘dead’ and come out again ‘alive’; we receive a white robe which symbolizes the Spirit . . .the Spirit is God himself dwelling in the believer, and the resulting life is a re-creation. Prior to baptism . . . our heart was the abode of demons . . . [but] baptism supplies us with the weapons for our spiritual warfare” (Early Christian Doctrines, 193–4).
In summary, your attempts to discredit this man’s conversion is really sad, and furthermore, your attempts to turn this into a polemical attack on Catholicism says a lot.
As the Eastern Tradition says: Christ is risen, he is truly risen.
Good day
You wrote:
“Sure he did...Otherwise the woman wouldn’t have married him because your religion convinced her it wouldn’t be a valid marriage without him becoming a Catholic...You know that...”
Incorrect. It would have been a valid marriage even if he weren’t Catholic. Your story is unraveling by the minute here. And to think you add “You know that” as if you were getting right! What a crock!
Here’s some info for you on valid marraiges:
The Catholic Church considers a marriage to be valid when:
1) It is celebrated in a ceremony that is legally acceptable according to Catholic Church law;
2) Both parties are free to marry each other;
3) Each party intends, on the day of the wedding, to accept and fulfill the rights and obligations of marriage;
4) Each party has the physical and psychological ability to live out God’s plan for married life as taught by the Church.
And...
“For those who have been baptized, a valid marriage is also considered to be a sacrament. Although not every marriage is a sacrament, every marriage, including a marriage between two non-Catholics, whether baptized or not, is presumed to be a valid and binding union.”
http://www.dioceseofnashville.com/tribunal2.htm
So, even when the two people are not Catholic the marriage is considered perfectly valid!
“But that’s the point...He claims to be a Catholic Christian and you guys accept him into your fold as one of you...Maybe none of you are Christians...(Birds of a feather flock together, don’t they?)”
Look, so far you have presented two stories that demonstrate that this buddy of yours and his wife, and you, are clueless on the faith. If this guy converted only to make a marriage with a Catholic woman easier than who besides you knows that? Does his parish priest know that or did he give him the benefit of the doubt? How would you know? If your buddy would lie to God and His Church how would you even know he isn’t lying to you too? If I met a guy who says he was a Catholic I would assume he is one until proven otherwise. Wouldn’t you? Well, who knows that this guy has no attachment to the faith? Seriously, who besides you knows that? Does he run up and down the church aisles on Sunday screaming, “I’m only pretending to care about Jesus and the Catholic faith! I’m only pretending!”? I doubt it.
“It’s called a testimony...Did this muzlim ever claim to become a follower of Jesus, a disciple of Jesus Christ???”
Do you have evidence he didn’t? Also, why do you assume orthodox Christians act like Protestants with public testimonies that would satisfy you? He was baptized at great risk to his life. Could that be a quiet testimony?
“Did Jesus become his Savior, or did he just say he is joining the Catholic religion???”
The latter does not negate the former but brings it to fullness. You are assuming, as only an anti-Catholic would do, that one cannot join the Church for Christ, but must always look at the two as seperate. That is a modern, and exclusively latter day Protestant view. It is not the view in the NT where belief in Christ was always tied to becoming a member of the Church and the other way around. Only a modern day Protestant would actually try to seperate Christ from the Church as if that were even possible.
You might want to read this:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080323/wl_nm/pope_muslim_dc
Sounds like this man is a man of faith.
Happy Easter!