It is a fragment of a larger statement that the haters use to try and divide the Body of Christ. Will you let them succeed?
They are correct. I have, like you, been exposed to some of the best thinking and writing of Rome, including the Summa, various important encyclicals, etc. I accept what is good. I reject what cannot be reconciled with Scripture. There is nothing Abrahamic about kissing the Black Stone (aka meteor) in Mecca.
Your contested language:
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.”
I am curious why you bolded the phrase "
these profess to hold the faith of Abraham." The claim to be derived from the Abrahamic faith is a fraud. Mormons espouse a Gnostic form of polytheism, but also claim to share in the Abrahamic faith. Such claims are easily exposed by those not hell bent on ecumenism at any price. Should I or any Christian let those false claims succeed?
But as if that were not enough, the writer also makes another egregiously false statement, which you can verify against your own Bible. Jesus draws a line in the sand:
Joh 5:22-23 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: (23) That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him.
Those who reject Jesus reject God. Muslims give Him lip service as a prophet while at the same time rejecting everything He taught about Himself. In making this judgment against Jesus' teachings, they have in fact rejected Jesus Himself, and therefore reject the Father. This is why they follow in the murderous ways of their true father, Satan.
Am I now to believe the Roman church teaches that followers of an essentially Satanic religion, complete with ongoing human sacrifice, are in "first place" in acknowledging the Creator, or that they have any prospect of salvation while wholy enslaved to Satan??? Hogwash! The souls of Muslims are just as precious to the true God as any of us, and it does them a great injustice to lie to them and tell them they are in any way reverent of the true God, when their religion is in fact based on a profound Satanic lie. It is trading "ecumenical progress" for eternally lost souls. It is outrageous, and no credit to the writers you are here trying to protect in their grevious error.
No, your contrary correspondents have read the text correctly. However, their correctness should not lead to the dividing of Christ's body, but rather unifying it in redoubling our effort to evangelize lost Muslims.
Peace,
SR
am curious why you bolded the phrase "these profess to hold the faith of Abraham." Because that is used to try to read "profess into "together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day,” but which simply is no there. Rather it plainly affirms Muslims adore the one merciful God together with RCs.
Others see this but as seen in another thread, they try to make it mean "They shoot their arrow in the right direction (toward the “God of Abraham”), but they do not understand the target and their bow is too weak because their bow lacks the power of grace." Or they say the mag. cannot be authoritative about what Muslims teach/believe" in any definitive sense.
Desperate defend-Rome-at-any-cost (DRAAC) .