Posted on 05/09/2009 4:08:27 PM PDT by americanophile
AMMAN, Jordan, May 9 (UPI) -- Pope Benedict XVI prayed Saturday at the King Hussein Mosque in the Jordanian capital Amman, Vatican officials said.
The trip to the mosque, the largest in Jordan, marked the second day of the pope's visit to the Middle East, the BBC reported.
Afterwards, Benedict addressed local Muslim leaders, observers said. Earlier in the day he visited Mount Nebo, which, according to the Bible, is where Moses saw the Promised Land before he died.
Vatican analysts said the pope is anxious to mend relations with Muslims and Jews on his eight-day sojourn to Israel and the West Bank, his first to the region as pontiff.
On Sunday, he is scheduled to celebrate an open-air mass at Wadi Kharrar on the east bank of the River Jordan -- the place where Christians believe Jesus was baptized. The next day, Benedict will go to Tel Aviv to begin four days in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, the BBC reported.
Excuse me: those "books" are Sifrei Torah (Torah Scrolls)--hand written copies of the first five books of the Bible written in a very strictly prescribed manner so that they are exactly the same as the First Torah Scroll and the one written by Moses.
The Talmud is not a commentary, it is not written on scrolls (it is printed in books), and it is not kept behind the curtain of the Ark with the Torah Scrolls.
I have read that in the old days before the reformation or modern liberalism the new Pope would pass the synagogue in Rome and the Rabbis would bring out a Sefer Torah for him to venerate. Whether this is true or not I don't know.
I was not aware that St. Peter prayed in a mosque. As for the synagogue, I believe Pope's stopped going to synagogue soon after Peter.
St. Peter went to a synagogue. So did the other 1st century Popes...
But what about the 2nd and 3rd and 4th and 5th and 6th and 7th and 8th and 9th and 10th and 11th and 12th and 13th and 14th and 15th and 16th and 17th and 18th and 19th centuries?
...and?
That would be another poor use of symbolsim. Instead Moses utterly destroyed the Calf.
And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which [are] in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring [them] unto me. And all the people brake off the golden earrings which [were] in their ears, and brought [them] unto Aaron. And he received [them] at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These [be] thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
And when Aaron saw [it], he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow [is] a feast to the LORD. - Exodus 32:1-5
To God be the glory, not man, never man.
Yes, I've been in plenty...including mosques in Egypt, Morocco, and the great moseques of Turkey. I've also visited dozens of Buddhist shrines all over Asia. I didn't go to any of them to pray to my God...I went, observed the art, architecture and ceremony, and left. I'm not saying that a prayer offered to God there could not ascend to heaven, I'm saying that symbolically, it sends a very poor message for the head of the Catholic Church to have done so (which he gratefully did not). Since perhaps the central theme of Islam is the idea of submission to Allah, can you not see how, symbolically, the Pope's praying in a mosque under current world conditions would have looked like submission to, or at very least recognition of Allah? Praying in a place whose very walls are adorned with script proclaiming that there is no God but Allah and Muhammed is his prophet!
Instinctively you know I'm right, you just don't want to admit it.
Actually, he didn’t pray there.
Armchair heroes are the children of the Internet. Even their blood is virtual.
So did St. Paul, but that was different than today. First, nowhere in the NT is there any indication that anyone prayed to Jesus before or after the Resurrection. The followers of Christ were Jews, religiously and otherwise. Christianity was an offshoot of Judaism the way Samaritan form of Judaism is to this day.
But, by the end of the first century, Judaism and Christianity became irreconcilably divergent and separate religions. This was not the case before or immediately after the Crucifixion.
After Jamnia, in the '90s of the first century, Jews added a daily prayer known as Birkat Ha Minim (against heretics), which is euphemistically called the "12th blessing"—basically a curse of the sectarians, specifically the Gnostics and the Nazarenes, or Christians).
The Pope, or any Christian, has no business praying in a place where Jesus' followers are cursed daily, and where God is implored to destroy them. Ironically, the Muslims show more reverence for Jesus (as a prophet) and even his blessed Mother, for whom they have very deep affection.
geesh...it’s what he does...prays.
He will NEVER go wobbly...NEVER.
You really sound a tad CYNICAL.
He didn’t pray there, gratefully. The story was wrong.
Bingo
Think whatever you like. Symbolism matters. It’s particularly important in religion.
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