RUTHFULLY YOURS

We have heard many disturbing statements in recent years made by Catholic clerics, from bishops and cardinals right up to Pope Francis, who seem to believe that Islam is a religion like any other, that criticism of Islam is unjustified and based on the motiveless malignity of “Islamophobia,” and that the main duty of Catholics with respect to Muslims is not to challenge or confront them both as to their ideology and as to the many acts of Muslim terrorism, but to engage, rather, in endless Catholic-Muslim Dialogue. Ever since the Second Vatican Council, the Church has had an ill-considered mandate to engage in “dialogue” with Muslims, as the Committee for Ecumenical and Religious Affairs of the United States Conference of Bishops has stated:

“The declaration has been consistently upheld by recent popes. Pope John Paul II affirmed the need for dialogue with Muslims on numerous occasions throughout his long pontificate (1978–2005). For example, in Crossing the Threshold of Hope he remarked in the chapter entitled “Muhammad?” that “believers in Allah are particularly close to us” and that “the religiosity of Muslims deserves our respect” ([New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005], 91, 93). The pope also reiterated the central mandate of Nostra Aetate by reminding the faithful that they are called to maintain “a dialogue with followers of the ‘Prophet’” and that “the Church remains always open to dialogue and cooperation” (ibid., 93, 94).

Unfortunately, while American Bishops claim that Muslims have been willing to engage in such dialogue, they report that the Christian side has not been as forthcoming:

“Sadly, in recent years, there has been a deliberate rejection of this call to engage in dialogue with our Muslim brothers and sisters by some in the Catholic Church and in other ecclesial families. We understand the confusion and deep emotions…

Not “confusion” and unspecified “deep emotions,” but rage.

…stirred by real and apparent acts of aggression and discrimination…

Not unspecified “acts of aggression and discrimination,” but mass murder, repeated again and again.

…by certain Muslims against non-Muslims, often against Christians abroad. We, and increasingly our Muslim partners in dialogue, are concerned about these very real phenomena. Along with many of our fellow Catholics and the many Muslims who themselves are targeted by radicals…

Muslims have not been “targeted” in Europe, even if some have unavoidably been among those killed when large groups have been the target. It is only Shia Muslims in the Middle East and Pakistan who have been deliberately targeted, by Sunnis, and solely because they are regarded by those Sunnis as Infidels, even the worst kind of Infidels.

“Last year, Weigel wrote a First Things article emphasizing John Paul II’s refusal to believe that some problems in the world cannot be fixed:

Those frightened by the seeming power of the wicked in the world today can take heart from what John Paul II said to young people in Cracow in June 1979: “Be afraid only of thoughtlessness and pusillanimity.” Be not afraid: his signature phrase, lived to the end, made him John Paul the Great.”

As over 3 million young Catholics gathered in Krakow during a time of escalating violence across the world — and as the Sussers reflected on the horrific violence that affected their family decades ago — the words of the first and only Polish pope remained as timeless and important as ever.

The sun set slowly, shining its last light against the barbed-wire fences of Auschwitz, and casting a shadow on the ground where unspeakable atrocities were committed, three-quarters of a century ago. Ron Susser and his 16-year-old daughter Zoe set foot onto the former concentration camp, crossing beneath a gate that bore the infamous inscription: arbeit macht frei, or “Work sets you free.”

After traveling all day, a group of 220 people from the Arlington diocese in Virginia had arrived at the camp as part of their World Youth Day pilgrimage to Krakow, Poland. The trip to Auschwitz was an emotional one for much of the group. But it held particular significance for Ron and Zoe.

During the Nazi regime, now-notable figures such as Anne Frank and her father, Viktor Frankl, Primo Levi, Maximilian Kolbe, Edith Stein, and Elie Wiesel were imprisoned in Auschwitz. The concentration camp also detained many of Ron’s ancestors, only three of whom survived: his great aunt and his parents.

“My parents were liberated on May 1, 1945,” Susser said. “My father referred to that day as his second birthday.”

Auschwitz operated for less than five years, and yet the number of people murdered at the camp is estimated to be somewhere around 1.1 million. Only about 200,000 people who passed through the Auschwitz camps survived.

The group from the Arlington diocese arranged to visit Auschwitz on the first day of their trip to Poland for World Youth Day, a global encounter that took place all of last week and gathered 3 million Catholics in Krakow to see Pope Francis.

The Islamic State terror group has come out publicly to reject Pope Francis’ claims that the war being waged by Islamic terrorists is not religious in nature, assuring the pontiff that their sole motivation is religious and sanctioned by Allah in the Qur’an.

The Islamic State terror group has come out publicly to reject Pope Francis’ claims that the war being waged by Islamic terrorists is not religious in nature, assuring the pontiff that their sole motivation is religious and sanctioned by Allah in the Qur’an.

In the most recent issue of Dabiq, the propaganda magazine of the Islamic State, ISIS criticizes Pope Francis for his naïveté in clinging to the conviction that Muslims want peace and that acts of Islamic terror are economically motivated.

“This is a divinely-warranted war between the Muslim nation and the nations of disbelief,” the authors state in an article titled “By the Sword.”

The Islamic State directly attacks Francis for claiming that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Quran are opposed to every form of violence,” saying that by doing this, “Francis continues to hide behind a deceptive veil of ‘good will,’ covering his actual intentions of pacifying the Muslim nation.”

Pope Francis “has struggled against reality” in his efforts to portray Islam as a religion of peace, the article insists, before going on to urge all Muslims to take up the sword of jihad, the “greatest obligation” of a true Muslim.

Despite the obviously religious nature of their attacks, the article states, “many people in Crusader countries express shock and even disgust that Islamic State leadership ‘uses religion to justify violence.’”

“Indeed, waging jihad – spreading the rule of Allah by the sword – is an obligation found in the Quran, the word of our Lord,” it reads.

“The blood of the disbelievers is obligatory to spill by default. The command is clear. Kill the disbelievers, as Allah said, ‘Then kill the polytheists wherever you find them.’”

The Islamic State also reacted to Pope Francis’s description of recent acts of Islamic terror as “senseless violence,” insisting that there is nothing senseless about it.

“The gist of the matter is that there is indeed a rhyme to our terrorism, warfare, ruthlessness, and brutality,” they declare, adding that their hatred for the Christian West is absolute and implacable.