A Clash of culture, faith (latina conversions to islam)

CNN ^

[The Lion Roars]

Every morning, Jackie Avelar wakes up to a predicament. On one side of her bed is a clock that sounds the Islamic call to prayer five times a day. On the other side is a statue of Mary. As a Muslim, she wants to remove it. As a Latina, she can't.

Her father, who is a Catholic from El Salvador, wants the statue to stay.

Photos Embracing a New Faith A growing number of Latinos are redefining themselves through Islam, attracted by a devoutness, simiplicity and way of treating women that they prefer to the machismo culture they were raised in.

"I have to respect him," Avelar said.

So she has found a comfortable balance: She covers the statue with a photo of her family.

Avelar, 31, constantly struggles to find balance within her family, within the outside world, within herself. Growing up, she was a beach-going, tank top-wearing, salsa-dancing girl. Now, she's a devout Muslim who favors Islamic garments and avoids socializing with men.

Across the nation, thousands of Latino immigrants are redefining themselves through Islam, including a few hundred in the Washington region, according to national Islamic groups and community leaders. Precise numbers are not available, but estimates range from 40,000 to 70,000.

[Charles Martel]

...Latino women find what most westerners rarely see -- a respect for women, unlike, some converts say, the machismo culture in which they were raised.

...and then they convert to Islam, which we all know fosters great respect for women. /sarc

I don't buy the "Islam is easy!" explanation, nor the "tight-knit/family oriented" load of bull. These women arrive here and find "respect" - but what they evidently feel most comfortable with is subservience.

[EBH]

As far as Catholic preaching goes, I am Catholic, there are few and far between that can rise to the occasion.

And I guess my question becomes, why is that? Is it because our modern society has 'shamed' too many Catholics/Christians into silence? Is it because they have lost sight of saving hearts and souls?

Are we not our brother's keeper? When harvest time comes will we be the one who risked and provided a return on God's investment or will be the one who buried the gift and while didn't lose any, didn't gain any either?

[The Lion Roars]

I have already sent a private mail to Free Baptist. Let us all concentrate on the real threat here -I-S-L-A-M

[Theoden]

I agree

[VeniVidiVici]

This is like the third or fourth different article I've seen about Hispanics converting to Islam.

Wonder what the motive of the MSM is in this? Must be a slow news year.

[Steve_Seattle]

"As a Latina she can't remove the statue. This means then that just being Latino/Latina is equivalent to being loyal to the Roman Catholic system, does it not? That would be the impression."

This is a family and a cultural matter, not a matter of Catholic teaching. No Catholic - Latino or otherwise - is required to have a statue of Mary, or to seek the intercession of Mary. The Catholic veneration of the saints - including Mary - is not essentially different from the Protestant practice of intercessary prayer. If one Protestant asks another Protestant to pray for - say - his sick wife - it is basically the same thing that Catholics are doing when they pray to Mary or one of the other saints.

[Steve_Seattle]

"You gotta love the tolerance for other religions in Islam or for that matter Catholicism. It's either OUR way or the highway."

Intolerance and chauvinism in varying degrees - at different historical moments - has been found in any religion you can name, including Protestantism, Hinduism, Buddhism (yes, Buddhism), Judaism, and Taoism. Comparatively few of today's Catholics believe that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church, and practically no Catholic at all believes in forced conversions.

[TradicalRC]

Women have worked hard to move ahead in the work place and suddenly you have women that want to turn the clock back 100 years.

Yeah, these women won't be Truly Enlightened until they are legally allowed to kill their own children and star in porn films.

[Thorin]

>>>>>>>They don't care, as long as the proper gifts are made to the church (or personally to the priests).

I have had the privilege of knowing several Filipino priests; your slanders are disgusting. I have found them all to be gentlemen and wonderful priests.

There is also a priest in residence right now at the cathedral in Cleveland, because he was threatened with death by Moslem terrorists for defending Catholics on Mindanao.

[Coleus]

Many Hispanics finding faith in Islam

[Mrs. Don-o]

"In business after business in the Philippines you can see, hanging on the walls, god shelves, where BOTH Roman Catholic idols and Buddhist idols are placed together, and incense is burning there."

Let me make one large point, and one larger point.

The large point: no Christians ---and this includes Catholics, Orthoidox, and Protestants--- use representational art (photographs, paintings, statues, mosaics, etc.) as idols. We use them as memorials to show remembrance, respect, honor, love.

• If a young woman in love kisses the photograph of her fiance, it shows the impetuousness of her feelings and the ongoing nature of her commitment.
• If a mother of a slain soldier displays her dead son's medal on the mantel with a candle or a flower arrangement next to it, she is showing solemn respect.
• If a patriot places his hand over his heart and addresses a symbol of his country ("I pledge allegiance to the flag...") he is showing loyalty and honor.

  Neither this, nor any other handling of a symbolic object by a Christian, is idolatrous.

  Now here's the larger point. The Catholic faith forbids the worship of idols, or of any creature, or of any putative "god" except for the True God, the Most Blessed Trinity. Do some confused Catholics tolerate the syncretistic worship of Buddha, Shiva or whatever? You could probably find some --- and not only in the Philippines.

  But a well-instructed Catholic would not do such a thing, any more than a well-instructed Baptist would. I wish all Baptists and all Catholics were better Christians. If you wish the same, then we're in fundmental agreement.

[Mrs. Don-o]

And if you ... ask a Filipino Roman Catholic whether he is worshipping that statue of Mary, he will answer with the Tagalog equivalent of "What's wrong with you, Man, of Course I am!!"

I don't know the Tagalog language, but I would caution you against jumping to the conclusion that the man was actually adoring a statue; you may well have run into some ambiguity in the definution of the word "worship."

It's a problem that certainly comes up in English.

"Worship" causes semantic complications because in the 19th century and before, it commonly meant the kind of "high honor" that is not exclusive to God. In the Anglican wedding ceremony written by Cranmer we find the words, addressed by the bride and groom to each other: "With this Ring I thee wed, with my Body I thee worship, and with all my worldly Goods I thee endow..."

"His/Her Worship" is an honorific prefix for mayors, Justices of the Peace and magistrates in Commonwealth Realms. In spoken address, these officials are referred to as "Your Worship."

The style "Worshipful" is also prefixed to the names of certain corporate entities in London, eg.: The Worshipful Company of Grocers. It simply means eminent, honorable, or venerable.

I'm explaining this, not in order to be pedantic, but to illustrate how easy it would be for us to misunderstand one another, based on an English word which has decisively changed its connotations in the space of only 100 years. How much more likely are misunderstandings based on discussions involving Tagalog - English translation!

Having said that, let me say emphatically that you are quite right: anybody who "worships" a statue is disobeying the First Commandment and is in extremely serious error.

This is something that Catholics and Baptists strongly agree on.

[plck]

If we pray ROSARY, God can either bless us, give peace between us and other people and many more. Unfortunately, me and all of you seldom or didn't pray at all. We allow the Devil to penetrate into our live such confusion, decieve, lie and others. We found the the lie like the thruth. We failed to do duty for God.

[AlaninSA]

"Oops! I forgot. Roman Catholicism itself is idolatrous."

---

That statement - like every other time it has been posted - is deeply rooted in complete ignorance of Catholic religious doctrine.

[AlaninSA]

"Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord? Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you reformed Baptist Church of God? Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915? Or did you simply break away and make up your own?"

---

Funny, that reminds me of a joke.

Two guys meet on what had appeared to be a deserted island.

The get to talking and the first guy asks the other if he's a Christian.

The second guy says, "yes - I am."

"Are you a Baptist, Lutheran, Catholic, Methodist...?"

"Baptist."

"Southern Baptist, Free Baptist or Baptist Church of God"

"Baptist Church of God."

"Sit down, brother!"

"Original or Reformed?"

"Reformed."

"Brother! Have a coconut! Reformation of 1879 or 1915?

"1879."

"DIE, HERETIC!"

[Yank_In_A_Tank]

hahaha, brilliant response

[Free Baptist]

Nope, the Filipino Catholics are idolatrous, and they don't care if anyone thinks of them that way.

[Free Baptist]

Again, you're only comenting based on what you see of Roman Catholicism as practiced by Americans, and in a country where there has been more open Bible preaching and teaching than in any other country on earth in the history of the world. Roman Catholicism has an entirely different face and color in the Philippines and other such nations.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Again, you're only comenting based on what you see of Roman Catholicism as practiced by Americans...

Not at all. I'm commenting on Catholic doctrine: what the Catholic Church actually teaches, and what she promotes as a holy way of life. If there are Catholics who worship idols, they are doing it in ignorance of, or in defiance of, Catholicism --- and not because of it.

[Free Baptist]

"Not at all. I'm commenting on Catholic doctrine: what the Catholic Church actually teaches, and what she promotes as a holy way of life. If there are Catholics who worship idols, they are doing it in ignorance of, or in defiance of, Catholicism --- and not because of it."

Well, the priests there are not interested in correcting it. I spent a few weeks over full six years in the Philippines without any furlough (1998 to 2004), and my advisers were educated Filipinos (airline pilots, business executives, military officers, others), and we were kept alerted to nuances of meaning as we labored among Filipinos. (20 years in East Asia thus far, and our work in the Philippines continues)

Don't get upset as if it is only Catholicism I am looking at. I just wrote two letters to fairly prominent Baptist pastors in the United States who spend a lot of money in the Philippines. They are intelligent men and highly educated. They tend to believe that people in the Philippines who use their money and claim to be a part of the same movement actually believe and practice the same things that Americans in their movement believe and practice. Well, it just ain't so, and I am tasked to inform them.

Now, your movement, if you will, Catholicism, is not even based in America, but in the Vatican, Rome, Italy. The doctrine may read on paper the same from country to country, but practices are sure not the same once you actually cross the borders, I guarantee you.