Cardinal Burke: Christians and Muslims Do Not Worship The Same God

Catholic Cardinal Raymond Burke, an American and former head of the highest court at the Vatican, said that Christians and Muslims do not worship the same God because the Islamic god “is a governor,” and Islam is Sharia, the law “which comes from Allah” and which “must dominate every man eventually.”

“I hear people saying to me, well, we’re all worshipping the same God, we all believe in love,” said Cardinal Burke in an August teleconference about his latest book, as reported by EWTN’s National Catholic Register.

“But I say stop a minute and let’s examine carefully what Islam is, and what our Christian faith teaches us both,” he said.

The cardinal, who is an archbishop and the patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, explained that in Christianity God is the creator of reason and the “giver of revelation,” and His law is written “on our hearts” and “we’re given a divine grace to live according to that law.”

“I don’t believe it’s true that we’re all worshipping the same God, because the God of Islam is a governor,” he said. “In other words, fundamentally Islam is, Sharia is their law, and that law, which comes from Allah, must dominate every man eventually.”

“And it’s not a law that’s founded on love,” said Burke. “To say that we all believe in love is simply not correct.”

“And while our experience with individual Muslims may be one of people who are gentle and kind and so forth, we have to understand that in the end what they believe most deeply, that to which they ascribe in their hearts, demands that they govern the world,” he said.

“Whereas, in the Christian faith we’re taught that by the development of right reason, by sound metaphysics, and then that which leads to faith and to the light and strength that’s given by faith, we make our contribution to society also in terms of its governance,” he said.

“But the Church makes no pretense that it’s to govern the world,” said Cardinal Burke. “But rather that it’s to inspire and assist those who govern the world to act justly and rightly toward the citizens.”

If we follow the relativistic idea that there is no real difference between Christian teachings and Islam, if we think we are all worshipping the same God, said Cardinal Burke, “ultimately it will be the end of Christianity.”

Our Catholic ancestors “had to fight to save Christianity,” said Cardinal Burke, “[b]ecause they saw that Islam was attacking sacred truths, including the sacred places of our redemption.”

“We have to have a profound respect for right reason, for the natural law which God has written in every human heart,” said the cardinal. “I think most people don’t realize that there is no natural law doctrine in Islam and neither is there an ocean of conscience -- everything is dictates of the laws that are given by either in their sacred text or by those who are entrusted with interpreting the law.”

Cardinal Raymond Burke, 68, is the former bishop of LaCrosse, Wisc., and former archbishop of St. Louis, Mo. Between 2008 and 2014, he was the Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, the head of the highest court at the Vatican. He is an expert on Canon law, the law that governs the Catholic Church and its teachings. He also is a member of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of the Saints.

“...they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.” CCC 841”

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The Church and non-Christians

839 “Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways.”325

The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People,326 “the first to hear the Word of God.”327 The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God’s revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews “belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ”,328 “for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.”329

840 And when one considers the future, God’s People of the Old Covenant and the new People of God tend towards similar goals: expectation of the coming (or the return) of the Messiah. But one awaits the return of the Messiah who died and rose from the dead and is recognized as Lord and Son of God; the other awaits the coming of a Messiah, whose features remain hidden till the end of time; and the latter waiting is accompanied by the drama of not knowing or of misunderstanding Christ Jesus.

841 The Church’s relationship with the Muslims. “The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.”330

842 The Church’s bond with non-Christian religions is in the first place the common origin and end of the human race:

All nations form but one community. This is so because all stem from the one stock which God created to people the entire earth, and also because all share a common destiny, namely God. His providence, evident goodness, and saving designs extend to all against the day when the elect are gathered together in the holy city. . .331
843 The Catholic Church recognizes in other religions that search, among shadows and images, for the God who is unknown yet near since he gives life and breath and all things and wants all men to be saved. Thus, the Church considers all goodness and truth found in these religions as “a preparation for the Gospel and given by him who enlightens all men that they may at length have life.”332

844 In their religious behavior, however, men also display the limits and errors that disfigure the image of God in them:

Very often, deceived by the Evil One, men have become vain in their reasonings, and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and served the creature rather than the Creator. Or else, living and dying in this world without God, they are exposed to ultimate despair.333
845 To reunite all his children, scattered and led astray by sin, the Father willed to call the whole of humanity together into his Son’s Church. The Church is the place where humanity must rediscover its unity and salvation. The Church is “the world reconciled.” She is that bark which “in the full sail of the Lord’s cross, by the breath of the Holy Spirit, navigates safely in this world.” According to another image dear to the Church Fathers, she is prefigured by Noah’s ark, which alone saves from the flood.334

“Outside the Church there is no salvation”

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?335 Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.336
847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.337
848 “Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men.”338

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