More fruitless and self-defeating dialogue. Remarks from me below.
“Priests Convene Ramadan Prayer In Churches,” by Jules Gomes, ChurchMilitant.com, May 11, 2022:
MUMBAI, India (ChurchMilitant.com) – Faithful Catholics are slamming the archbishop of Bombay after churches hosted Ramadan meals and prayers and rang church bells to usher in the breaking of the Islamic fast.
Hindus ridiculed Catholics on social media as Muslims prayed with their backsides offensively thrust up towards the crucifix and the Blessed Sacrament in a church led by the Jesuits of the Bombay province.
One-Way Street
“Will the Muslim community reciprocate the gesture and allow Catholics to offer Holy Mass in their mosques?” Blaise Gomes, with the Association of Concerned Catholics, asked Bombay’s archbishop, Cdl. Oswald Gracias, in a strongly worded letter on Saturday….
Gracias responded to Gomes, categorically stating that Gracias had “not given permission for the use of church premises for religious ceremonies of other religions” and there may have been “some misunderstanding.”
However, en route to Rome, Cdl. Gracias responded to Church Militant’s request for comment, defending the decision to host iftar meals in churches, since “the iftar meal is a fellowship meal.” The cardinal, who is a member of Pope Francis’ inner circle of nine consultors, elaborated:
Inter-religious dialogue is one of the priorities of the Catholic Church, and you are aware that there have been many contacts between the Catholic Church and people of other religions. Pope Francis, on his visit to Abu Dhabi, gave us a good example of how God’s kingdom can be spread. All religions should work unitedly for peace.
World-renowned historian Robert Spencer, whose research focuses on Islam, explained to Church Militant that the iftar dinner is a ritual meal loaded with religious significance and that reducing it to a mere fellowship dinner is considered demeaning to Islam.
By participating in iftars, Christians are helping celebrate an imperative to conquer and subjugate them.
Spencer, author of 23 books on the Muslim faith and the Middle East, emphasized:
Iftar is not just a meal. It is the breaking of the Ramadan fast every evening. Ramadan is a month devoted to intensifying one’s observance of Islam and growing more righteous. In Islam, the most righteous deed of all is jihad, which most prominently involves warfare against — and the subjugation of — non-Muslims.
The scholar, who published his bestseller The Critical Qur’an: Explained from Key Islamic Commentaries and Contemporary Historical Research this month, warned:
Cardinal Gracias, like all those who pursue this chimerical “dialogue,” is naive. They’re falling for what many Muslims have noted is an instrument of Islamic proselytizing and an attempt to limit criticism of jihad violence and Sharia oppression, rather than a genuine give and take. By participating in iftars, Christians are helping celebrate an imperative to conquer and subjugate them.
For all their iftar meals, Catholic hierarchs and other proponents of “dialogue” have never saved a single Christian from being persecuted or a single church from being destroyed by Islamic jihadis. Cardinal Gracias should ponder that and study why it might be so. But he won’t.
While the Mumbai-based parishes of Our Lady of Lourdes, Orlem and St. Peter’s Church, Bandra (a Jesuit parish), hosted iftar meals and prayers on church and school property, Holy Cross Church in Nashik invited Muslims into the church to pray and break the Islamic fast.
Why is a Catholic priest offering namaz?
Jesuit parish priest Fr. Vincy D’Mello joined the Islamic prayers and told the worshippers “they could perform the namaz (Islamic prayer) in the church itself in the direction where there was no deity,” Ajmal Khan, secretary of Aims Charitable Trust, said.
