Visiting a mosque on the second day of his closely watched first visit to the Holy Land, Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday denounced the “ideological manipulation of religion” and called for greater understanding between the Christian and Muslim faiths.
Speaking outside Al-Hussein bin-Talal mosque in Amman, Benedict said that because of “the burden of our common history so often marked by misunderstanding,” Christians and Muslims alike should “strive to be seen” as faithful worshipers of God.
In a speech that also touched on a central theme of his papacy and thought, the tension between faith and reason, Benedict said that “the ideological manipulation of religion, sometimes for political ends,” was often “the real catalyst for tension and division, and at times even violence in society.”
Relations between the Vatican and Muslims were strained in 2006 when, in a speech in Regensburg, Germany, Benedict quoted a Byzantine emperor who said Islam had brought things “evil and inhuman.”
I’m surprised that the Pope would state that Catholic Christians and Muslims worship a common God. I doubt the Muslims would agree and I KNOW I don’t! The God I worship is the Triune God–Father, Son, Holy Spirit. The Muslim god–Allah–does not acknowledge Jesus as God.
Historically Islam began as a pseudo-Christian heresy. In that context the Pope’s comments have some validity and I believe may be excused. From a theological perspective of course we do not in fact worship the same God. But that can be said of many who claim the name of Christians as well.
How many people recite the Creed of the Council of Lyons with the filioque? How many deny the OEcumenical Councils? I could say of all these that they do not worship the same God as I. But I find that in most cases saying as much is a bit like sticking your finger in someone’s face. It serves little purpose other than to antagonize. Better if the Holy Father had simply met with these people on neutral ground and exchanged the customary pleasantries with an appeal to live and let live in a diverse world.
Christ is risen!
John
I don’t think that the Pope remembers too much from history. It seems that much of North Africa, Middle East was once Christian. He should ask to open a church with a cross in Saudi Arabia. There is no way that Christians worship the same God as the Muslims.
He can’t win. The Muslim Brotherhood wanted him to apologize again, according to news reports, claiming that Islam did not spread by the sword because it’s a religion of tolerance and peace. I do find that many Muslims have no objective sense of their history. I had an otherwise pleasant visit with my landlord recently in which he told me that the Copts had never been pressured in any way to convert and were completely free at all times. That’s nonsense, of course.
I think this argument that Muslims do not worship God is counterproductive. There is only one God. They do not worship Satan; they worship God, whose name in Arabic is Allah, a name which Arabic Christians also use. The Muslim understanding of God and what he commands is faulty and confused. We will not make any converts by telling Muslims that God is not God. We need rather to emphasize that God loves them so much that he emptied himself into his own creation in order to reach them and save them.
Did I miss the phrase in that article “same God”? I read that Muslims and Christians should “strive to be seen” as worshipers of God. Did he say “same God” elsewhere? I agree with Katherine and to some degree with Ad Orientem – as long as the Being one is worshiping is thought to be the One God of the universe, then He can in some senses be called the same God, and to make an issue of this would be counter – productive.
It is a most oddly-written article, with for example, a shift from the Prince’s praise of the Pope’s inter-faith initiative to a passing mention of the old Latin Mass (the ‘Extraordinary Form’) which then mentions the prayer for the conversion of the Jews. Did the Prince praise the Pope for bringing back the old Mass? Really? And if he mentioned it, what did he say? And did the journalist really have to drop in the obligatory reminder about that prayer? So sad to find this kind of tut-tutting and dazed reporting in a journal of repute.
Who is the author of this report? I generally don’t click on NY Times links because I don’t consider it a “journal of repute” any more and don’t want to give them the traffic. However, they have a decent religion reporter sometimes. It does seem unlikely, Terry Tee, that the Jordanian prince would concern himself too much with what Mass form Catholics are using. Perhaps an editor has garbled an otherwise sensible piece of writing?
Katherine #4: “The Muslim understanding of God and what he commands is faulty and confused. We will not make any converts by telling Muslims that God is not God. We need rather to emphasize that God loves them so much that he emptied himself into his own creation in order to reach them and save them”.
Thank you very much for this comment.
First, I didn’t understand why the Pope/s said that. You hve convinced me that it’s the best option. Thanks again.