Author: David Kustra
All members of the human race share a common origin and a common destiny, and the bridge which links the two is Christ our Redeemer. In these three stages of human salvation history—creation, redemption, and beatitude—we see a creature whom God has truly blessed above all other creatures on earth. In the following, I will show how the dignity of the human person is evident in man’s origin, in his redemption, and in his destiny in God.
Pope John Paul II wrote that the dignity of the human person is manifested in a person’s origin and destiny, that we are “created by God in his image and likeness as well as redeemed by the most precious blood of Christ . . . destined for the eternal life of blessed communion with God.”1 Pope John Paul II, Christifideles laici (1988), 37. Because we share a common origin and destiny, the dignity of each human person “constitutes the foundation of the equality of all people among themselves.”2 Ibid., 37. As we encounter this commonality in our daily lives, we become aware of an interdependence among individuals and social structures, a connection with our fellow wayfarers that should give birth to a genuine sense of duty toward others in society. To discharge this duty effectively we are called to adopt a moral and social attitude which Pope John Paul II referred to as the virtue of solidarity: “a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.”3 Pope John Paul II, Sollicitudo rei socialis (1987), 38; see Pope John Paul II, Evangelium vitae (1995), 8, for a commentary on Cain’s question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
1. Our common origin. The concept of human dignity first appears in Genesis 1:26-30, where we read that God created man and woman in His image, setting them apart from the rest of creation. Unlike other animals, man was given a rational intellect and a free will, he was made “capable of knowing and loving his Creator, and was appointed by Him as master of all earthly creatures that he might subdue them and use
them to God’s glory.”4 Vatican Council II, Gaudium et spes (1965), 12. The Psalmist celebrates human dignity, boldly proclaiming that we were made just a “little less than God” and crowned with glory and honor. (Ps 8:5) “No living being on earth except man was created ‘in the image and likeness of God’”.5 Pope John Paul II, Gratissimam sane (1994), 6. Of all earthly creatures, only man is able to contemplate eternal truths and to will his actions as means to attain his good end in accord with the divine law.6 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, 74, 7. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that we resemble God in several ways: (1) man proceeds from man, as God proceeds from God in the Trinity, (2) the human soul is present in every part of his body, as God is present throughout His universe, (3) man possesses a natural desire to know and love God, as God knows and loves Himself, and (4) the intellect begets ideas which the will causes to be put into action, as the Father begets the Son, Who together spirate the Holy Spirit.7 Summa theologiae, I, Q. 93, AA. 3, 4, 6.
Along with our unique rational faculty comes the responsibility to act in accord with the divine law, to be responsible stewards of creation, to perform acts which are suitable means to leading to our good end, and to work toward the common good of all mankind in solidarity and in Christian charity. That we possess human dignity means that we are “beings endowed with reason and free will and therefore privileged to bear personal responsibility.”8 Vatican Council II, Dignitatis humanae (1965), 2. “By creating man free, God imprinted on him his own image and likeness.”9 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Libertatis conscientia (1986), 28. Because of our ability to freely choose suitable means to an end, human dignity consists not only in being an image of the Creator but in doing what the Creator wills. “The dignity of the human person implies and requires uprightness of moral conscience.”10 Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992), 1780. God built into the human person the habit of synderesis, which enables us to grasp those moral principles which will lead us to our good end, to our ultimate happiness in beatitude: “In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, . . . a law written by God; to obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged.”11 Gaudium et spes, 16; on the duty of conscience to seek truth see Dignitatis humanae, 3. We should live our “whole lives in accord with the demands of truth,”12 Dignitatis humanae, 2; see Vatican Council II, Apostolicam actuositatem (1965), 6. and be “fellow workers in the truth” (3 Jn 1:8), yet the Word of God so honored our freedom that He “refused to impose the truth by force on those who spoke against it.”13 Dignitatis humanae, 11. God honors us and confirms our human dignity by allowing each one of us the personal freedom to act as we choose: “Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions.”14 Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1782. Freedom, therefore, becomes a natural manifestation of human dignity.15 Pope John XXIII, Pacem in terris (1963), 34, 48; Evangelium vitae, 74. It sets us apart from the rest of creation. Unlike any other earthly creature, God invites us to cooperate in achieving our proper and good end by use of our free will. Freedom is “an essential part of that creaturely image which is the basis of the dignity of the person,”16 Pope John Paul II, Veritatis splendor (1993), 86; cf. Pont. Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004), 197. it is “an exceptional sign of the divine image within man. For God has willed that man remain ‘under the control of his own decisions,’ so that he can seek his Creator spontaneously, and come freely to utter and blissful perfection through loyalty to Him.”17 Gaudium et spes, 17, quoting Sir 15:14. In fact, “man’s dignity demands that he act according to a knowing and free choice that is personally motivated and prompted from within.”182. Our redemption in Jesus Christ. “Man set himself against God and sought to attain his goal apart from God.”19 Gaudium et spes, 13; see Veritatis splendor, 86. Like our primordial parents, we at times turn away from (abversio) God, and turn toward (conversio) creatures and ephemeral goods in a disordered way: “Sin sets itself against God’s love for us and turns our hearts away from it. Like the first sin, it is disobedience, a revolt against God through the will to become ‘like gods,’ knowing and determining good and evil.”20 Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1850. Sin diminishes human dignity: “the choice of certain ways of acting is radically incompatible with the love of God and with the dignity of the person created in his image.”21 Evangelium vitae, 75. God desires our happiness, but the disorder of sin leads us away from happiness by making us less human. It is perhaps because man has one foot in each world–in the divine world inasmuch as he bears the image of God, and in the material world because he is a creature–that he is torn between the two. St. Augustine wrote, “Two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord.”22 St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, 14, 28.
Because sin tarnishes the divine image in us, and disrupts solidarity among people, our image requires a refurbishing: not the sort that applies a fresh patina to distressed metal, but one that strengthens our mettle, that regenerates us from within, that penetrates to the heart, as God promised through Jeremiah: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts.” (Jer 31:33) For this purpose, the Father sent His Son to redeem us, to remove the stain of sin (macula peccati) that has tarnished our image and to heal our corrupted human nature (corruptio boni naturae). Man is “the only creature on earth which God willed for itself.”23 Gaudium et spes, 24; see Gratissimam sane, 11, Catechism of the Catholic Church, 356, 1703. Because God bestowed such tremendous dignity upon us, it is no wonder “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16) Moreover, God trusts us to cooperate instrumentally in our own spiritual regeneration. St. Augustine wrote, “God created us without us: but he did not will to save us without us.”24 St. Augustine, Sermo 169, 11, 13. God honors us by giving us a pivotal role in our own salvation, by dignifying us with the gift of freedom to chose our destiny. To help us in this, He gave us His Spirit, His grace, the virtues, the gifts, and the sacraments, particularly Baptism and Reconciliation. St. Augustine noted that after Baptism “the character of the actual man does not at once undergo a total change,” but rather our regeneration is ongoing, our conversion is “a process of renewal, which increases day by day, until the entire old nature is so renovated that the very weakness of the natural body attains to the strength and incorruptibility of the spiritual body.”25 St. Augustine, De Peccatorum Meritis et Remissione, 2, 27, from Retractions, 2, 23. The work He had begun, He entrusted to us to complete.
3. Our common destiny. In the process of renewal and regeneration, we seek reconciliation with our brothers and sisters, and we make firm commitments to work for the common good, that we might undo the structures of sin that arise when we act against human nature and spurn the divine law. These structures “impede the full realization of those who are in any way oppressed by them.”26 Pope John Paul II, Centesimus annus (1991), 38. To bring about a structural change in the social order, “It is necessary that all participate, each according to his position and role, in promoting the common good. This obligation is inherent in the dignity of the human person.”27 Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1913. We read in Genesis that we are social creatures: “It is not good that the man should be alone.” (Gn 2:18) Man “cannot find fulfillment in himself, that is, apart from the fact that he exists ‘with’ others and ‘for’ others.”28 Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004), 165. We have a duty to work toward the common good, and when we work together in solidarity, we can change our common destiny: “Man receives from God his essential dignity and with it the capacity to transcend every social order so as to move towards truth and goodness.”29 Centesimus annus, 38.
While each of us looks to the heavens for our own personal fulfillment in union with God, we also seek temporal happiness on earth by striving together, each one doing his part for the common good, as St. Paul wrote, “There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; . . . To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” (1 Cor 12:4, 7) When we work in solidarity with one another we fulfill our duty as responsible stewards of creation, as benevolent caretakers of one another, with special preference for the “least of these.” (Mt 25:45) “God’s plan for the world is that men should work together to renew and constantly perfect the temporal order.”30 Apostolicam actuositatem, 7. Jesus called for the sort of evangelization whereby we together build “a city of man that is more human because it is in greater conformity with the Kingdom of God.”31 Ibid., 63. He said of his Apostles, and of us as well: “As thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” (Jn 17:18) Our glorious end in God begins here and now.
David – common origin and destiny are basis of our dignity as persons, but in contemporary culture people sharply vary in their perception of the origin and hence of the destiny of man. What could be a basis of a possible dialogue with someone outside of our theological / philosophical outlook?
By human reason alone we can discern certain basic principles, while other things are known to us only by divine revelation. For example, by human reason alone can know “that” God is, as the Greeks have shown, but we cannot by the light of human reason alone know exactly “what” God is (STh I, 12, 12, ad 1). Moreover, through the use of inductive reasoning, some things about a cause can be known by observing its effects (Ibid., ad 2; I, 32, 1). In this way, by observing creatures, indeed the whole created universe, we come to know certain truths about the Creator (theology proper) and His effects upon creation (divine economy). Many Church Fathers used Greek philosophy as a tool to defend Christianity. Justin Martyr (d. ca. 162-68) saw no incompatibility between philosophy and Christianity, but rather, he regarded human reason as a divine gift and he used philosophy an apologetic weapon. Justin found that some aspects of Platonic metaphysics and Stoic ethics support Christianity and he even suggested that morally upright pagan philosophers obtained some revealed truths be reading the Old Testament. Athenagoras of Athens (fl. 177) used Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics to defend monotheism. In his Apologia addressed to Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Athenagoras defended Christianity against the charge of atheism, asserting the God’s existence can be proven by rational demonstration. Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria (d. ca, 211-15), and Origen (d. ca. 254) found Platonism conducive to monotheism and the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Clement of Alexandria asserted that all truth comes from God, wherever one finds it. In our day, the fathers of Vatican II acknowleded the diversity of theological opinion among Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus and Moslems. The Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in various religions, realizing that God enlightens us in a variety of ways (Nostra aetate 2). I suggest that one way to begin dialogue amidst such diversity is to focus on those philosophical and theological concepts that can be demonstrated by human reason inductively from effect to cause.
I wrote a paper on the idea of dialogue with Muslims for Dr. Toolin’s class last semester. I’ve reprinted it below. It’ll be published in slightly redacted form in Social Justice Review’s next issue.
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To approach dialogue with Islam in such a way as to increase understanding and enrich relationships, one must first enter into an authentic relationship with Muslims through an understanding of their faith and its traditions. While the varieties of Islamic belief differ according to these traditions, the essence of the faith entails a common profession in the oneness of God and the prophethood of Mohammed. Our encounter with that profession is the starting point of our dialogue, for it gives us an opportunity to demonstrate an awareness of the faith we are addressing if not also of the person(s) with whom we are speaking. When we do enter into dialogue, furthermore, it happens not only because of our awareness of the faith traditions of the Muslims, but also because of our awareness of our own faith tradition, for no true dialogue exists between partners unequally versed in the essential elements about which they are speaking. We Catholics must, consequently, know ourselves before we can authentically engage another, and we must know Islam sufficiently to understand the terms on which we would naturally speak equivocally.
The nature of inculturation and evangelization
Inculturation is the appropriate adaptation of the Gospel message to the community within which it is being preached, resulting in the incarnation of the message “in the culture and the spiritual tradition of those addressed, so that the message is not only intelligible to them, but is conceived as responding to their deepest aspirations, as truly the Good News they have been longing for.” Evangelization would be forced, otherwise, and result in a form of proselytism that denies the rights of the Other, be they Muslims or adherents to another faith, to freely embrace Christianity. Dignitatis humanae is rather emphatic on the necessity to distinguish between evangelization and proselytism in its assertion that
“in spreading religious faith and in introducing religious practices everyone ought at all times to refrain from any manner of action which might seem to carry a hint of coercion or of a kind of persuasion that would be dishonorable or unworthy, especially when dealing with poor or uneducated people. Such a manner of action would have to be considered an abuse of one’s right [to preach] and a violation of the right of others.”
That religion is a matter of conscience and conscious assent is a point of agreement in the Islamic tradition, too, as written in Sura 2:256 of the Koran: “[t]here is no compulsion in religion, for the right way is clearly from the wrong way.” The missionary endeavor, consequently, requires patience to work within a different set of cultural values. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, furthermore, that evangelization “must involve a process of inculturation if the Gospel is to take flesh in each people’s culture,” and this implies a “respectful dialogue with those who do not yet accept the Gospel.” While the purpose of such a dialogue is the act of proclamation of the Gospel message, the process is not, of course, aimed at proselytizing as a more fruitful exchange and authentic encounter will be had without it.
Inculturation, as the process through which dialogue and proclamation are enacted so that the Gospel message may be revealed within any non-Christian community, is ontologically grounded, with recognition of the Truth on the part of the Catholic, but is epistemologically expressed, through finding opportunities to engage the Muslim community in the kind of dialogue that allows us to proclaim without coercion the fullness of faith in Christ. Because it is a dialogue, the Catholic must be open to a greater understanding of the faith of the Muslim to whom he or she is proclaiming the truth of Christ. That openness will not only facilitate the discussion, but it will likely provide opportunities for further explication of the Catholic faith. Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, has explained in Dominus Iesus that the Church, “guided by charity and respect for freedom, must be primarily committed to proclaiming to all people the truth definitively revealed by the Lord, and to announcing the necessity of conversion to Jesus Christ and of adherence to the Church through Baptism and the other sacraments, in order to participate fully in communion with God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” The charity and respect for freedom that guides this kind of a conversation will lead the Muslim to understand that being Catholic is not a renunciation of his or her faith but a fuller expression of it. Part of the truth, then, is understood to already exist within the Muslim faith. After all, all men, Aristotle writes in his Metaphysics, desire to know, so they all pursue the Truth, even though some stop short of their goal whenever they think they have found it.
Because so many people stop short of realizing the Truth in spite of their quest for it, we Catholics, who have the Truth, are obliged to share it with them. This obligation is a part of our teaching apostolate, and all Catholics should learn their faith sufficiently to be able to carry it out. According to the Catechism, we “proclaim the Good News to those who do not know it, in order to consolidate, complete, and raise up the truth and the goodness that God has distributed among men and nations, and to purify them from error and evil.” That error and evil lies in the denial of Christ’s divinity precisely because it is a denial of the true nature of God who is relationship and who became incarnate to us in a special act of inculturation in order to reveal to us our true selves. For this reason, the obligation we have to proclaim the good news of Christ necessarily reaches beyond the surface. “What matters is to evangelize man’s culture and cultures (not in a purely decorative way, as it were, by applying a thin veneer, but in a vital way, in depth and right to their very roots), in the wide and rich sense which these terms have in Gaudium et spes, always taking the person as one’s starting-point and always coming back to the relationships of people among themselves and with God.” We get to that starting point by first coming to know the person with whom we are starting. The incarnation of the Truth brought forth in such a way is the heart of inculturation, for it enables the proclamation of the Word to make equals in doctrine persons who are already equals in dignity.
The Catholic dialogue with Islam since 1997
The foundation for the Catholic dialogue with Islam since Vatican II can be found in Nostra aetate, which is the declaration on the relation of the Church to non-Christian religions. In this document, Pope Paul VI announced that “[t]he Church regards with esteem also the Moslems,” and he gave the following reasons for the purpose of building up the elements of their faith that are consonant with those of Christianity:
“They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.”
If inculturation is the process by which “[e]ach people . . . make the revealed message penetrate into their own culture, and express the salvific truth with their own language,” as Pope Benedict XVI has explained, then Islam, as the first major schismatic movement away from Christianity, already has within it the capacity to be converted back to the true faith.
Between the years 1997 and 2009, moreover, the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue has published an annual letter to Muslims on the occasion of Ramadan, the month-long period of fasting and abstinence similar to Catholic Lenten practices. In these letters, the Council has identified a number of other similarities on which to establish a basis for dialogue, including the following as summarized:
• We define ourselves as believers and see in Abraham a model for our faith.
• Every authentic believer, Muslim and Christian, shows respect for each human person.
• Christians and Muslims are God seekers, which is a sign of hope, something that enables us to perceive the good that exists in our world.
• We show love through almsgiving, care for orphans, the aged, the sick, for strangers. We promote human dignity and are in favor of human rights. We have a considerable degree of agreement with regard to effectively showing mercy to our neighbors and a great convergence in condemning offenses against the love of our neighbors.
• We think that all people, but especially Muslims, can share with us the values that we have received from Jesus: total obedience to the will of God, witness given to the truth, humility in behaviour, control of one’s speech, justice in one’s actions, mercy shown in deeds, love towards all, pardon granted for wrong done, maintaining peace with all brothers and sisters.
• Fasting is one of the ways in which both Christians and Muslims give worship to God, come to the help of the poor and strengthen family ties and the bonds of friendship.
• Christians and Muslims both believe in the importance of education for promoting understanding, cooperation and mutual respect.
• Christians and Muslims believe that peace is above all a gift from God. This is why our two communities pray for peace; it is something they are always called to do.
• Both Christians and Muslims consider the child to be a blessing from God.
• Our two religions give great importance to love, compassion and solidarity.
• We embrace a poverty which is simple and essential, avoiding waste and respecting the environment and the goodness of creation.
The salient message within these thirteen years of letters to the Muslims is that of love, for God is love, which, when expressed by man becomes an orientation to the will of God and a fruitful participation in his work. The list, furthermore, accomplishes an important goal of inculturation, and that is the finding of commonalities upon which to ground the dialogue. “In the light of the Gospel,” the General Directory for Catechesis directs, “the Church must appropriate all the positive values of culture and of cultures and reject those elements which impede development of the true potential of persons and peoples.” This emphasis on appropriation means that we are dealing with the substance of what is already present in the society within which we are evangelizing. We cannot penetrate it for the purpose of improving it otherwise. An example from the Far East is instructive on this point, too, for when “[t]he Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples . . . sent missionaries to Asia (the far East)[, it] gave them clear instructions in 1659 to respect the cultures of the new peoples who receive the Gospel and to change only what is incompatible with the Gospel.” The Gospel of Christ, likewise, may change a great deal about the Muslim who responds to the proclamation of the Word, but a solid foundation in points of common interest is already laid bare for it. Such is the nature of these commonalities that it is also obvious to us, to quote one of John Paul II’s maxims, that what unites us is far greater than what divides us, and that is a realization that fosters a great deal of hope in the fruitfulness of the exchange.
Aside from the basic tenets of love and social responsibility, areas of theological commonality also exist. Two such areas on which we might begin our dialogue have been identified by Archbishop Fulton Sheen and a convert from Islam, Daniel Ali. In the first case, Fulton Sheen proposed that Muslims “will eventually be converted to Christianity . . . not through the direct teaching of Christianity but through a summoning of [them] to a veneration of the Mother of God.” The Muslims, he explains, have a great interest and devotion already to Mary, whom they also recognize as having been born sinless in order to be the perfect vessel for Jesus Christ. Sheen adds that missionary focus on this point is itself a form of inculturation for “in any apologetic endeavor, it is always best to start with that which people already accept. Because the Moslems have a devotion to Mary, our missionaries should be satisfied merely to expand and to develop that devotion, with the full realization that Our Blessed Lady will carry the Moslems the rest of the way to her Divine Son . . . [for] as those who lose devotion to her lose belief in the Divinity of Christ, so those who intensify devotion to her gradually acquire that belief.”
The acts of charity that our missionaries have already performed, Sheen adds, need to be taken a step further in the demonstration that the nineteenth sura of the Koran, entitled “Mary,” was taken out of the Gospel of Luke, “that Mary could not be, even in their own eyes, the most blessed of all the women of Heaven if she had not also borne One Who was the Savior of the world.” Such a declaration is not only theologically correct, but it also makes logical sense. While logic is not intended to prove theological truths, it does ensure that such truths are not absurd, and Muslims, while sometimes accused of being unreasonable in their approach to their faith, have the same human capacity as we Catholics to connect the dots when they realize a pattern exists.
The story of successful conversions is often best told from the point of view of the convert, for he who converts from one faith to another has to justify that conversion not only to his former co-religionists but also to his new ones. Daniel Ali is such a convert from Islam, who has embraced his new Catholic faith with missionary zeal. Ali, speaking with Fr. Mitch Pacwa on the evangelization of the Muslim world, says that it is possible to evangelize the Muslims using a method similar to that advocated by Archbishop Sheen. “We depend on the Koran itself, from Mohammed’s tradition itself, to make the case, the Christian case,” he says, and identifies that as the reason for his conversion. He found an argument for the divinity of Christ, that is, within the Koran itself. He explains that “[i]t is within Mohammed’s tradition that there was [sic] only two souls that were sinless. That is, they sinned never. Not even Mohammed himself. So we have to understand and use these rather common concepts.” If only Mary and Jesus never sinned, then something special is present in those two that is not present in anyone else, not even in Mohammed, the Prophet. He makes the point on inculturation by saying, “Personally, from first hand experience, I see the failure of the missionary is, one of the main reasons, is that they start from the Bible, which is totally, automatically rejected by the Muslims. We don’t depend upon the bible to make our point. We depend on the Koran itself. They will listen to you because you’re going from his ground.” Starting from the ground of the Muslim, from the Koran itself, is the path to facilitating the Islamic acceptance of the Truth of the Holy Trinity and all that necessarily flows from it.
Embracing this Apostolate
The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue explained in its document Dialogue and Proclamation that a number of obstacles to dialogue exist. They include the following:
a) Insufficient grounding in one’s own faith.
b) Insufficient knowledge and understanding of the belief and practices of other religions, leading to a lack of appreciation for their significance and even at times to misrepresentation.
d) Socio-political factors or some burdens of the past.
e) Wrong understanding of the meaning of terms such as conversion, baptism, dialogue, etc.
f) Self-sufficiency, lack of openness leading to defensive or aggressive attitudes.
g) A lack of conviction with regard to the value of interreligious dialogue, which some may see as a task reserved to specialists, and others as a sign of weakness or even a betrayal of the faith.
h) Suspicion about the other’s motives in dialogue.
i) A polemical spirit when expressing religious convictions.
j) Intolerance, which is often aggravated by association with political, economic, racial and ethnic factors, a lack, of reciprocity in dialogue which can lead to frustration.
k) Certain features of the present religious climate, e.g., growing materialism, religious indifference, and the multiplication of religious sects which creates confusion and raises new problems.
If we Catholics can invest the time in removing some of these obstacles, and many are easily removed with appropriate instruction in the areas of study, prayer, and fasting, then our own efforts at authentically encountering the Muslim world will be fruitful. The Council has explained that the manner in which Christians will respond to the call to personal involvement in dialogue and proclamation “will depend on the circumstances and also on their degree of preparation,” which is something we Catholics ought to take as a challenge to prepare not only ourselves but also our children for the work that lies ahead of us. The souls we encounter in the beatific vision might praise Allah’s beneficence that he cared enough to send missionaries imbued with the Holy Spirit who were able to more fully reveal to them the truth of Christ already expressed within their Islamic faith.
Dr. Mahfood,
We should hope and pray that increasing dialogue will bring Christians and Muslims closer together, for they have many things in common with respect to theology and spirituality. I understand that the abortion issue is another area in which Catholics and many Muslims can find some common ground, since most Shi’ite and some Sunni regard the pre-ensoulment embryo alive and its destruction a sin.
That’s true. I was at a conference last year, and one of the faculty from a denominational seminary lamented to me that a Catholic co-presenter told an audience that Catholics had more in common with Muslims on some things than they did with the folks from her institution. She was speaking about the abortion issue though she didn’t mention it by name and derided the Catholic for expressing that these kinds of issues were more important than our general unity under Christ. I spoke diplomatically and told her I hoped, too, that greater unity could be found among Christians. I didn’t tell her, however, that some things Christians propose as morally licit under the guise of their being hard questions of conscience that must be resolved on an individual level is actually a dodging of Christ’s call to be Holy.
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