Is Pope Francis the first Pope EVER to pray inside a mosque?
This Catholic would like to know; real question.
Pope BXVI had a silent moment of reflection when he visited the mosque after the press and the liberals in the Vatican lost it over the Regensburg address, thereby whipping up riots and attacks on Christians which the Pope obviously hoped would be diminished by this gesture.
Francis was supposed to do the same, and then he turned to the imam or mufti or whatever and said, “Why don’t we pray together?”
The problem is that the Islamic concept of God is entirely different, and Pope Francis thinks of it as sort of a Unitarian or deist concept, based on Christianity. But Islam, while it grew out of a syncretist heresy that did involve bits of Judaism, bits of Christianity, and lots of paganism, basically became its own thing, a total rejection of the Christian conception of God (as good and loving), along with things such as the concept of reason, creation in the Image of God, etc.
The only question in my mind is if Francis intends to do these things, or if he’s so infatuated with his own press image that he just always does what he thinks will bring him a little more “progressive” adulation (since “progressives” are in love with Islam).