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Don't agree with the Pope? Here are some "solutions"

It's common knowledge that Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, is less than taken, shall we say, with the Catholic Church. (Note, for example, his insistence that Catholics refrain from talking about the Gospel with Jews, an activity that Foxman apparently believes is "proselytizing".) And he's certainly entitled to his opinion, although I think he's a bit cranky about things, as evidenced by his remarks about Pope Benedict's inter-religious meeting in Washington, D.C. last week (as reported by the New Jersey Jewish Standard):

Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, who attended a meeting with the pope at the John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, D.C., last Thursday, called it "more show that substance, but for the Vatican even show is substance."

The fact that the pope invited the approximately 50 Jewish representatives to meet with him in a private room was an important gesture, said Foxman, because he "greeted us on the occasion of a Jewish festival, which basically was a recognition of religious Jewish life, Jewish faith, and Jewish rituals, and had that significance."

But there was no real dialogue, in Foxman’s view.

And we know Foxman is all about dialogue! But when he tries to rewrite history and Church teaching by misrepresenting the actions and words of Pope John Paul II, well, that's a bit much:

According to Foxman, the pope’s visit to the synagogue was more significant than the private meeting with the Jewish representatives, which he saw as a continuation of a policy began by his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, when he visited the Great Synagogue of Rome in 1986.

"When Pope John Paul went to that synagogue he changed the dogma of Catholicism, which believes that Christianity superseded Judaism and that it was the new Judaism," Foxman said. "It was a public statement that Judaism exists, that Judaism lives, and that it has vitality."

Whoa! John Paul II "changed the dogma of Catholicism"? Problem #1: Not possible. Problem #2: It didn't happen. Problem #3: It definitely didn't happen.  Here is John Paul II's speech, given on April 13, 1986, and here is the key section:

We are all aware that, among the riches of this paragraph no. 4 of Nostra Aetate, three points are especially relevant. I would like to underline them here, before you, in this truly unique circumstance. The first is that the Church of Christ discovers her "bond" with Judaism by "searching into her own mystery" (cf. Nostra Aetate, ibid.) The Jewish religion is not "extrinsic" to us, but in a certain way is "intrinsic" to our own religion. With Judaism therefore we have a relationship which we do not have with any other religion. You are our dearly beloved brothers and, in a certain way, it could be said that you are our elder brothers.

The second point noted by the Council is that no ancestral or collective blame can be imputed to the Jews as a people for "what happened in Christ's passion" (cf. Nostra Aetate, ibid.) Not indiscriminately to the Jews of that time, nor to those who came afterwards, nor to those of today. So any alleged theological justification for discriminatory measures or, worse still, for acts of persecution is unfounded. The Lord will judge each one "according to his own works," Jews and Christians alike (cf. Rom 2:6)

The third point that I would like to emphasize in the Council's Declaration is a consequence of the second. Notwithstanding the Church's awareness of her own identity, it is not lawful to say that the Jews are "repudiated or cursed," as it this were taught or could be deduced from the Sacred Scriptures of the Old or the New Testament (cf. Nostra Aetate, ibid.).  Indeed, the Council had already said in this same text of Nostra Aetate, but also in the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, no. 16, referring to Saint Paul in the Letter to the Romans (11:28-29), that the Jews are beloved of God, who has called them with an irrevocable calling.

I'm not sure how accurate this translation is (there isn't an English translation of this speech on the Vatican site; here's the Italian translation), as the Vatican's English translation of Nostra Aetate says, "Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures." (par 4; emphasis added). Regardless, that description of the Church as the "new people of God" and John Paul II's affirmation of Nostra Aetate expose Foxman's reading as very tendentious, if not downright disingenuous. 

There are other ways to try to get Popes to agree with you. This one, succinctly expressed in a letter to the editor, comes from Florida:

Pope Benedict has returned home with the love of the Roman Catholic faithful still ringing in his ears, as Pope John Paul II did before him.

But I can’t help but think that some of the policies of these two traditionalists must have the pope of the 1960’s, Pope John, spinning in his grave.

If Pope John were alive today and confronted with the scourge of AIDS in sub-Sahara Africa and elsewhere, he undoubtedly would proclaim “Given the spread of AIDS on the one hand and the use of condoms on the other, AIDS is by far the greater evil.”

Pope John was very special. 

Roger M. Sherwood 
Vero Beach 

This could be called "putting words in the mouth of..." or "claiming to know the mind of...", but I'd like to call it the "Argument from Retro-active Ex Cathedra Statements That A Pope Would Have Made If Still Alive and He Agreed With Me." Yes, Mr. Sherwood, Blessed John XXIII was special, but not in the way you indicate.

Finally, there is the more common approach, which is not so much an attempt to rewrite the Church's teachings, but to categorically compare hot button issues of the day with the Church's doctrine—and then congratulate yourself on embracing "the degrading slavery of being a child of [your] age," as Chesterton put it. Case in point, an op-ed in the Louisiana State University student newspaper, which calmly meets a multitude of clichés and politically-correct tropes and eagerly surrenders to each one in turn:

My Facebook.com profile says I am a "Cafeteria Catholic" - I choose the aspects of Catholicism I will actually follow while leaving the undesirable scraps off my plate.

Interpretation: I don't eat my vegetables. Back off, Mom! Who do you think you are?

Nevertheless, I am a confirmed Catholic. I may not attend Mass every week or even feel sorry for all of my sins, but I identify myself with the Church and respect its traditions.

Interpretation: Feed me, Mom! But stop giving me vegetables.

The first problem the Church must change is its approach to abortion. I do not intend to condone the practice of abortion - I personally oppose it - but the Church's past threats to excommunicate any abortion rights political leader is abhorrent.

Yes, it's an outrage that people who support the killing of the unborn and who do so in direct violation of Church teaching should face any sort of criticism or consequences. The horror! The suffering! Hey, where's my steak? Hurry up, Mom! I'm starving!

Sure, approximately 46 million unborn children die each year through abortions, according to the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform's Web site.

Yeah, sure, whatever. Numbers. Just numbers, Imagine if he had written this: Sure, approximately [number] minorities are killed on the streets each year... Or: Sure, approximately [number] women are raped each year... Or: Sure, approximately [number] children die of starvation each year... I'm not saying he's flippant about abortion; I'm saying he's intellectually and morally stunted.

But the Catholic Church must address its backward views on contraceptives. Ninety-three percent of all abortions conducted in the United States are because the child is unwanted or inconvenient, according to the Web site.

See, it's the Church's fault that people have sex and women get pregnant. And it's the Church's fault that people choose abortion. And it's the Church's fault that people get cancer, people use meth, people fight at soccer games, people go to soccer games, people eat beef, people breathe air, people watch "American Idol", etc., etc. It all makes sense now.

Abstinence-only sex education is ineffective and unrealistic.

That's true if you think abstinence-only sex education should produce great violinists or help kids learn algebra faster. But teaching children the value of abstaining from sex until marriage does seem to have a better chance of reducing abortion than saying, "Hey, have sex and then blame the Church if you get pregnant!"

While the Church may find premarital sex morally reprehensible, it must face reality and concede that contraceptives can help reduce the number of abortions among women who find their pregnancies inconvenient.

Yes, because if we were able to get rid of everything that was an "inconvenience," the world would be such a great place in which to practice things that are convenient for us, like doing whatever we want without having to be responsible for our actions. Welcome to Hugh Hefner Nation! Mom, bring me more steak! Mom! Mom? Where'd she go?

There's some more of this sorry nonsense (about homosexuality and priestettes), but I'll skip to the end:

As a Catholic, it is not easy for me to doubt the policies of my chosen religion, but I feel the Church must address these questions. ... The Church must improve itself in at least these areas to remain a viable refuge for those seeking more in their lives.

Obviously he really struggled and wrestled and valiantly grappled with these issues, but I suspect he stopped doing so once "Big Brother XVIII" came on at 8:00. If he had really, honestly thought about his "policy" recommendations enough, he would have realized what he had to do: go here.

And that, dear reader, concludes this episode of "How To Avoid Serious Consideration of What the Catholic Church Teaches." Next week: "From Tone-Deaf to Mariah Carey Clone In Eight Simple Steps (Singing Talent Not Required and Plastic Surgery is Optional)."

Ehrman and Wright debate suffering and evil

Bart Ehrman, former Evangelical and current agnostic Scripture scholar, and N.T. Wright, Anglican bishop and non-agnostic Scripture scholar, debate suffering and evil over on the Beliefnet blog. Dr. Scott Carson, a Catholic philosopher who runs the "An Examined Life" blog, offers some commentary. 

In praise of the "out of step" Pope

From columnist Kathleen Parker, a non-Catholic (she is Evangelical, if I'm not mistaken):

That we might choose a path other than the pope’s is the prerogative of a free people — and no one recognizes that freedom with greater consistency than this pope. No one has to be Catholic.

But to ask Benedict to change the church’s rules to suit modern appetites and lifestyles is to ask that he forsake the sanctity of human life for the benefit of earthly delights. Those are not his concerns.

Even for non-Catholics like me, there’s something comforting about a stubborn pope in a world of moral relativity. Like a strong father, he ignores his children’s pleas for leniency knowing that his rules, though tough, serve a higher purpose.

If Benedict were to relent and compromise the value of human life, what would be left to debate? Perhaps only one’s own time to die. And then ...

Who decides?

If only John Kerry and Co. would understand (and respect) Church teaching so well.

Catholic News Service reports on Benedict's meeting today with Jewish leaders:

Rabbi Schneier said he personally extended his congregation's invitation when he was last at the Vatican and met with the secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, in March.

He noted that he first met Pope John Paul II before he was elected pope and was archbishop of Krakow, Poland. The rabbi also was close friend to the late Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, secretary of state from 1979 until his retirement in 1990.

"And I stood with Pope John Paul II in Assisi," the rabbi said, referring to the Interreligious Prayer Meeting for Peace in Assisi, Italy, first convened by Pope John Paul in 1986.

"Despite the centuries that separated us, we will travel together in our respective communities for the benefit of all mankind," the rabbi said.

"It's important to show this solidarity when religion is being criticized as causing conflict," he said. "This is clearly not the case. Violence is perpetrated by those who abuse and misuse religion. ... We have to bear the responsibility to change this."

Ah, if only Abraham Foxman would be so understanding.

Finally, Southern Baptist pastor and theologian R. Albert Mohler, Jr., remarks upon how impressed he is by Benedict's convictions, if not his beliefs:

Pope Benedict has continued his incisive work on the challenge of modern secularism. His speech at Regensburg, Germany in 2006 and his baptism of a prominent Muslim convert this past Easter were clear signs that this is not a Pope primarily concerned with ecumenical relations. Even so, his statements about the address and the baptism – and the general question of Islam – were perfectly in keeping with Catholic doctrine since Vatican II. Evangelicals can admire his boldness without appreciating his inclusivism. <snip>

The Roman Catholic Church believes that evangelicals are in spiritual danger for obstinately and disobediently excluding ourselves from submission to its universal claims and its papacy. Evangelicals are concerned that Catholics are in spiritual danger for their submission to these very claims. We both understand what is at stake.

The divide between evangelical Christians and the Roman Catholic Church remains – as this Pope well understands. And, in so many ways, this is a Pope we can understand. In this strange world, that is no small achievement.

If only Jack Chick would listen...

Just in: The Pope believes in Jesus Christ!

This is a nice birthday present: learning that Pope Benedict XVI is a devout believer in Jesus Christ. The news is provided by The Baltimore Sun, which seems somewhat put out by the revelation:

In his three years as spiritual leader of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics, Pope Benedict XVI has alienated other Christians with his repeated assertion that his is the one true church. A 2006 address in which he quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor who linked Islam and violence set off riots in Muslim countries. And Jews continue to protest his endorsement of a prayer for their conversion.

To some Catholics, those are the forthright moves of a stalwart defender of the faith. But critics, inside the church and out, say his words and actions may be complicating already delicate relations with other religions.

"He has a very, very high Christology, which is to say there is only one way to God, and that is through Jesus Christ. And the only path to Jesus Christ is the Roman Catholic Church, " said Catholic scholar Rosann Catalano, associate director of the Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies in Baltimore. "If that's your starting point, it seems to me, there is not an openness to the possibility that the other - the one who is not you - can be a blessing."

Terry Mattingly of GetReligion takes the article to task and asks:

It’s amazing, to me, that there are journalists and other public critics who are convinced that Benedict needs to slash away at the doctrines of his faith, yet they would freak out if he made the same demands of the leaders of other world religions.

Yes, but that's only because other religious leaders write endlessly about what and why they believe what they do (as well as travel and gives talks about the same), while Benedict XVI is an authoritarian, rigid, dogmatic, judgmental man who hides in a cave and issues hate-filled rants aimed at those who don't submit to his beliefs. Oops, sorry, I may be confusing him with someone else.

But, seriously, a big part of the problem is a skewed, lacking understanding of authentic tolerance and respect. Benedict believes that vibrant Christian faith informs tolerance, while an attitude of indifference, based in relativism, eventually leads to forms of intolerance €”precisely because it rejects the possibility of knowing what is true, good, and right. Why is this so hard for some people to understand? Because if you don't think anything is objectively true, good, and right, you must base your tolerance upon subjective, shifting elements, which are usually motivated by immediate political and ideological concerns.

Weigel and Allen on Pope Benedict, the Trip, Islam, Catholic Education

Amy Welborn has linked to an informative, serious discussion involving George Weigel, John Allen, Jr., and various media folks that was sponsored by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, and was held on April 1st. There is plenty to highlight, but I'll just select one brief section:

SALLY QUINN, ON FAITH: I want to go back to Regensburg because you all have talked about how that was really an opening for dialogue. But a lot of Muslims don’t see it that way, and there is a lot of contention about Regensburg. I was at a conference at Georgetown recently between Catholics and Muslims, and the Muslims were universally upset by this and essentially saying that Regensburg set dialogue back years. How do you all feel about that?

WEIGEL: Well, it set the dialogue in which those people have been engaged back. But that dialogue was going nowhere and the pope knew it. An inter-religious dialogue that is an exchange of pleasantries – aren’t we all wonderful; wouldn’t it be nice if everyone else was as wonderful as we are – there are no real issues here. That’s not dialogue and that’s not tolerance.

Tolerance doesn’t mean ignoring difference as if difference didn’t make a difference. Tolerance comes from the Latin, tolerare, to bear with. Tolerance means to engage differences with civility and respect. So I’m not surprised that those people who have in a sense owned the inter-religious dialogue franchise for the past 30 years are a little bit bent out of shape that somebody came along and rearranged the pieces on the chessboard.

If you’re looking at this in 100-, 200-, 300-year terms, as John correctly suggests this pope thinks, what’s really of interest is not what those people think, but what King Abdullah has done. What is of interest is not that certain people complained about the Magdi Allam baptism, but that the guy who raised the loudest complaints is still coming to the Catholic-Muslim Forum meeting in Rome because he knows that’s where the action is.

So I think that’s what has to be said, Sally, on that front, that this conversation had gotten into a set of grooves that were leading really nowhere. And a new set of grooves had to be created in which these two questions – come back to this again – religious freedom as a human right that can be known by moral reason, whether you’re religious or not, and the separation of religious and political authority in the state. Two issues that have tended to be back-burnered, pushed to the side of the plate in inter-religious dialogue precisely because they’re neuralgic, have now been put in play and in a way that serious people have responded to in a serious way. And I suspect those who are of the old school, if you will, will catch up with the program eventually when they see that’s where the bus is moving over time.

A recommended read. Weigel, of course, has written a number of notable books on John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Catholicism in general, Europe and secularism, and, most recently, on terrorism: Faith, Reason And The War Against Jihadism.

Cardinal Walter Kasper on dual covenant theology: "No go!"

Actually, he didn't say, "No go!" But Cardinal Kasper, in a significant article, "Das Wann und Wie entscheidet Gott", first published in Germany on March 21st, firmly and clearly addresses the controversy over the Good Friday prayers, as well as the notion, popular among some theologians, that the Old Covenant is of equal value with the New Covenant.

That article, thankfully, has been translated and is available as a PDF—along with some helpful commentary by the translator, Dr Thomas Pink of King's College London—on the "Against Grain" site. Here is a brief snippet:

The exclusion of a targeted and institutionalised mission to the Jews does not mean that Christians should sit around and do nothing. One must distinguish between a targeted and organised mission on the one hand, and Christian witness on the other. Of course Christians have to give witness to their ‘elder brothers and sisters in the faith of Abraham’ (John Paul II) at the point where such witness is called for; they have to give witness of their faith and of the riches and beauty of their belief in Jesus Christ. That is what even Paul did. On his missionary journeys he went each time into the synagogue first, and only when he met with unbelief there did he go to the Gentiles.

Such a witness is demanded also of us today. It must certainly be given with tact and with respect; but it would be dishonest if in meeting with their Jewish friends Christians remained silent about their own faith or even denied it. We expect the same in relation to us from believing Jews. This behaviour is entirely normal in the dialogues with which I am familiar. For an honest dialogue between Jews and Christians is only possible, on the one hand, on the basis of a shared belief in the one God, the creator of heaven and earth, and in the promises given to Abraham and the Patriarchs; and on the other hand, in awareness of and with respect for the basic point of difference, which consists in the belief that Jesus is the Christ and the Redeemer of all people.

Be sure to visit "Against the Grain", read the commentary, and download Cardinal Kasper's article.

I find it more than a little interesting that a variation of dual covenant theology is embraced by certain Catholic theologians and is also advocated by premillennial dispensationalists such as John Hagee, more famously known for his less than charitable comments about the Catholic Church (and his support of John McCain). Hagee has stated, "In fact trying to convert Jews is a waste of time ... Jews already have a covenant with God that has never been replaced by Christianity." He says similar things in his books. In doing so, he is simply being faithful to the theological beliefs of John Nelson Darby, whose entire system of dispensationalism was rooted in a heaven/earth : Church/Judaism dualism, a dualism that is rightly described by Ronald Henzel, an Evangelical scholar, as "a dualism as great as anyone had ever posited between the sacred and the secular, or between the spiritual and the natural". That comes from Henzel's exceptional book, Darby, Dualism, and the Decline of Dispensationalism (Fenestra Books, 2003), which is must reading for anyone interested in the topic. More on this topic, I hope, in the near future...

The "Good Friday Prayer" controversy continues

Mostly, it appears, because some Jews, such as Abraham Foxman, cannot stand the thought of any Catholic, at any time, praying that Jews will, of their free accord, accept Jesus Christ as the Messiah. The Washington Post reports:

On Friday, the Vatican tried again, issuing a statement saying that it wanted to reassure Jews that the new formulation of the prayer "in no way intends to indicate a change in the Catholic Church's regard for the Jews "that has evolved from the Second Vatican Council. It said it sustains "the bonds of esteem, dialogue, love, solidarity and collaboration between Catholics and Jews."

But the Anti-Defamation League is still concerned. The reassurance is a "welcome step," said the Anti-Defamation League in a statement. But, said ADL national director Abraham Foxman, the statement still doesn't specifically say the Catholic church is opposed to proselytizing Jews.

Meanwhile, the head rabbi in Rome wants Catholics to cease praying for the conversion of Jews:

"We are not satisfied: what we wanted was to hear a Vatican statement in touch with the times and to hear that the Church does not pray for the conversion of Jews, or at least that it will not pray for this until the forever and that God only helps one group of people". This statement came form the head Rabbi in Rome, Riccardo Di Segna, when addressing the Vatican statement which was released today.

So....the prayer in question does not state that Jews must convert, or have to convert, or even that they are going to hell if they don't convert. (See the Catechism of the Catholic Church for related information.) But some Jewish leaders are saying that Catholics must not pray for Jews, nor even vaguely hope for Jews to become Christian, otherwise they are engaging in a form of anti-Semitism. Now I'm getting confused: who is showing disrespect and intolerance for whom?

By the way, Christopher Blosser of "Against the Grain" has put together a fantastic page on this issue, with a wealth of well-organized links, stories, excerpts, etc. He writes:

There seems to be confusion over the terms proselytism and evangelization -- Cardinal Francis Arinze, former head of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious dialogue and one quite familiar with the term, proselytism is generally understood to mean the effort to spread one's religion by methods that are regarded as unnacceptable. These might include coercion by physical (through harrassment and threat of violence), economic (through the promise of material gifts), and psychological (taking advantage of one's ignorance) means -- all of which deserve condemnation since they insult the human dignity of the recipient, infringes upon one's religious freedom, and does no honor to God.

Search through the history of Christian-Jewish relations, and you will likely find examples of all of the above. However, as Lawrence Uzzell pointed out, proselytism "is most often invoked by those who ultimately oppose all forms of Christian evangelism. If the Apostles had refrained from everything that today is lumped under the term, there would have been no carrying out of the Great Commission and the Church might have died in its infancy. Precisely because it labels all missionary activity pejoratively, the term is no help in distinguishing the legitimate from the illegitimate." ("Don't Call It Proselytism" First Things October 2004)

This seems to describe those within the Jewish community (and not a few "liberal Catholic" participants in the dialogue) who lump together any effort to witness the gospel proselytization, for whom the very suggestion that they might be saved, even implicitly, through the sacrifice of Christ is verboten.

Visit the page at "Against the Grain."

• "Jews Demand Signs" | An Interview with Roy Schoeman, editor of Honey From the Rock: Sixteen Jews Find the Sweetness of Christ | Carl E. Olson
• Jews Find the Sweetness of Christ | Preface to Honey From the Rock | Roy Schoeman
• Judaism Fulfilled | An Interview with Roy H. Schoeman
• The Jews and the Second Coming | Roy H. Schoeman
• Eugenio Zolli's Path to Rome | Stephen Sparrow

The Idiotic Column of the Week brought to you by...

...a certain Randall H. Miller, described as "an American educator and blogger currently living in the Dominican Republic." In an article titled, "How to Incite Muslims", posted on OpEdNews.com, Miller attempts to engage with reality, but reveals that he is not quite up to the daunting task:

Just in case you don’t recognize the charming man in this photo, it’s Pope Benedict XVI (formerly Cardinal Ratzinger) the head of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. When he’s not busy sending thousands of Catholic operatives to Africa to teach against condom use (even between married couples where only one partner is infected) or condemning anybody whose not Catholic to eternal hellfire, he can be found inciting Muslims with his arrogance and poor judgement.

And how has the condom-hating, hellfire-spewing Pope incited Muslims? Perhaps by yelling, "Death to the Jihadists!" from his window at the Vatican? By sponsoring terrorism against innocent men, women, and children around the world? By calling Muslims names such as "pigs" and "swine" and "vermin"? No, no, no—something far worse:

Religious tension around the world is so thick you could cut it with a crucifix. Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists (yes, even them!), and the super-delusional Scientologists are all embattled in their own struggles brought about by their religious convictions. This tension can manifest itself violently in the blink of an eye. So, what does the Pope do? He personally baptizes Magdi Allam on Easter Sunday in Saint Peter’s Basilica to much fanfare. Why the show? I’m all for civil rights and free speech, but did he not consider that doing so could put a target on the back of every Catholic around the world? Couldn’t Allam have been baptized in his local parish like everyone else?

Because, don't you see, dear reader, that a quiet act of religious expression is a most despicable and confrontational thing? Don't you see that any Muslim who heard of this unspeakably offensive action cannot help but be outraged, angered, and even incensed? You see, it is our fault. No theirs. We have free will. They don't. We must take responsibility for our actions. They don't.

The Muslim world needs to be engaged by the West. Not all nice and snuggly, but seriously engaged. They need to be educated them that our values like free speech, gender equality, and democracy are things we will never, ever give up. The message needs to be sent clearly that they don’t have to like our ways, but they’d better get used to them. Unfortunately, we won’t get to that kind of direct dialogue as long as high-profile religious zealots like the Pope continue to sabotage the way with unnecessary incitement. Baptizing a Muslim on Easter Sunday in Saint Peter’s Basilica?

And who, in fact, is engaging the Muslim world in serious, non-snuggly dialogue? One guess.

Vatican further clarifies new "Oremus et pro Iudaeis"

From the Vatican Information Service:

Here follows the communique provided by the Press Office of the Holy See on the publication of the new "Oremus et pro Iudaeis" for the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal.

  "Following the publication of the new Prayer for the Jews for the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal, some groups within the Jewish community have expressed disappointment that it is not in harmony with the official declarations and statements of the Holy See regarding the Jewish people and their faith which have marked the progress of friendly relations between the Jews and the Catholic Church over the last forty years".

  "The Holy See wishes to reassure that the new formulation of the Prayer, which modifies certain expressions of the 1962 Missal, in no way intends to indicate a change in the Catholic Church's regard for the Jews which has evolved from the basis of the Second Vatican Council, particularly the Declaration Nostra Aetate. In fact, Pope Benedict XVI, in an audience with the Chief Rabbis of Israel on 15 September 2005, remarked that this document has proven to be a milestone on the road towards the reconciliation of Christians with the Jewish people. The continuation of the position found in Nostra Aetate is clearly shown by the fact that the prayer contained in the 1970 Missal continues to be in full use, and is the ordinary form of the prayer of Catholics".

  "In the context of other affirmations of the Council - on Sacred Scripture (Dei Verbum, 14) and on the Church (Lumen Gentium, 16) - Nostra Aetate presents the fundamental principles which have sustained and today continue to sustain the bonds of esteem, dialogue, love, solidarity and collaboration between Catholics and Jews.  It is precisely while examining the mystery of the Church that Nostra Aetate recalls the unique bond with which the people of the New Testament is spiritually linked with the stock of Abraham and rejects every attitude of contempt or discrimination against Jews, firmly repudiating any kind of anti-Semitism".

  "The Holy See hopes that the explanations made in this statement will help to clarify any misunderstanding.  It reiterates the unwavering desire that the concrete progress made in mutual understanding and the growth in esteem between Jews and Christians will continue to develop".

Buddhist Dreams and Spiritualist Schemes

Buddhist Dreams and Spiritualist Schemes | An Ignatius Insight Interview with Dr. John B. Buescher | Carl E. Olson | April 1, 2008

John B. Buescher received his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia, concentrating on the history of religions, especially Buddhism and Christianity, and studying Asian languages. He was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and later a Program Officer in the Division of Education Programs at the National Endowment for the Humanities. From 1991 until 2007 he was the head of the Voice of America's Tibetan Broadcast Service, directing the programming of four hours of daily shortwave radio news and feature broadcasts to Tibet and South Asia.

In addition to Echoes from an Empty Sky: the Origins of the Buddhist Doctrine of the Two Truths (Snow Lion Publications, 2005), Buescher has written a number of important books and articles on the nineteenth-century American Transcendentalists and Spiritualists, notably The Other Side of Salvation: Spiritualism in the Nineteenth-Century Religious Experience (Skinner House Books, 2004) and The Remarkable Life of John Murray Spear: Agitator for the Spirit Land (University of Notre Dame Press, 2006). His most recent work is a monograph, Aquarian Evangelist: The Age of Aquarius as It Dawned in the Mind of Levi Dowling (Theosophical History, 2008). He is a parishioner of Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Annandale, Virginia.

Carl E. Olson, editor of Ignatius Insight, recently interviewed Buescher about his journey from Catholicism to Buddhism and back to the Catholic Church, and what cautionary lessons can be learned from studying nineteenth-century spiritualists.

Read the entire interview...

Father Samir Khalil Samir, S.J., provides some excellent analysis...

...of the reaction to the baptism, by Pope Benedict XVI, of Magdi Allam. Fr. Samir is a Jesuit and a scholar of Islam who teaches at Université Saint-Joseph in Beirut. His comments are published in Asia News, in an article titled "Magdi Christian Allam, a contested conversion" (March 27th). He writes:

The fact that Benedict XVI accepted to personally celebrate the baptism of Magdi Allam is surprising. It must also be said that he did so without ostentation, giving the same importance to all 7 baptised, and not giving precedence to the Muslim convert. This emphasis on the Islamic convert is the work of the press, overly used to attributing political meanings.

But Benedict XVI wanted to underline that everyone, Muslim, Atheist, Christians who have abandoned the faith, are all called to the faith.  He wanted to affirm the universality of the Christian calling, not because we Christians are the largest group, but to underline that every human being is called by Jesus. Everyone has the right to know Christ. No-one is excluded.

Of course, the presence of a Muslim among the catechumens is a sign for the Islamic world.  It is the most recalcitrant group to recognise this step. The pope, without violence or acridity seems to be saying: You too are called to discover Christ and to enter into the Church, if you so desire.

<snip>

The final aspect is that of reciprocity in the duty to evangelise. The pope and many Vatican documents underline that we Christians have the duty to announce the Gospel to everyone, and that everyone is free to accept it or refuse it.

How can we maintain the personal obligation to announce the Gospel while respecting the freedom of the other? The Church resolves this apparent contradiction by clearly stating that no one can be forced to convert. As early as the 8th century Arab Christian intellectuals wrote treatise underlining that not only is violence forbidden in calling someone to the faith, but that moral and spiritual pressure is also forbidden. And they were only too familiar with the financial, moral and physical pressures that they were subjected too in order to keep their faith!

Freedom to evangelise (tabshîr), and freedom to islamify (da’wa) must be guaranteed. Christianity, for me, is the most beautiful and perfect religion, and Islam, despite its many beautiful traits, is not the fulfilment of the divine project for man, it is not the appeal to humanism. At the same time I admit that the Muslim is convinced of the contrary and it is his right, rather his duty to be so! This is true reciprocal respect: each person follows his conscience and increasingly tries to enlighten the other.

The pope does not hide his certainty that Muslims still need one more step to reach the perfection of truth. But despite this he neither attacks nor slanders Muslims. And when a Muslim says to me “it is a shame you are not Muslim!” I understand that he holds me in deep respect. And my feelings towards him are the same.

This reciprocal respect is fundamental in order to build a peaceful coexistence between religions, but also with the atheist and secularist: a society in which each person is convinced of the truth of his position, but in which he is also convinced of the others right to live this certainty and live it with me.

Definitely worth the read.

Fr. Stanley Jaki on The Catholic Intellectual

The Catholic Intellectual | Fr. Stanley L. Jaki | Ignatius Insight

The expression, "Catholic Intellectual," may seem to involve a twofold superfluity, suggestive of some contradiction. Is it not superfluous to write the word "catholic" as "Catholic" if "catholic" truly stands for an appreciation of the whole range of reality and values? And can such an appreciation be truly at work if it is not also the work of the intellect?

The apparent conflict between "catholic" and "Catholic" will especially bother intellectuals who take ideas and not facts for their starting point. Consideration of facts certainly must come first as long as one wants to come up with something tangible about the predicaments, duties, and prospects of Catholic intellectuals. A most relevant fact in this respect can be noticed by the Catholic intellectual if he considers the beginning of the wide usage of the word "catholic," a Greek word by origin.

Surprising as it may seem, the word "catholic" occurs only here and there in the writings of ancient Greek philosophers. While Aristotle, for instance, often uses the adverb kath'olou (on the whole or in general), he never uses its adjectival form catholikos or its feminine and neutral variants. The reason for this may lie in the Greeks' contempt for all others, whom they gladly lumped under the term barbaroi. Greek philosophers did not even draw in full the logic of the idea, widely entertained by them, that the individual mind was but a bit from the universal mind into which the former was reabsorbed following the bodily death. For if such was the case, the mind of each individual must have had a truly catholic or universal character, even if in its bodily framework the mind was not Greek but barbarian.

The failure of the Greeks to see this was, of course, rooted in their inability to look beyond the mind to the personhood of each individual. That personhood revealed its infinite value only within Christianity. In the measure in which Christians surrendered to the incomparable fact of Jesus Christ, as the Incarnate Son of God, they were able to perceive in full what it meant for man to have been "made in the image of God."

Read the entire article...

TIME to consider some differences between Catholicism and Islam

Jeff Israely of TIME magazine reports/editorializes about the conversion of Magdi Allam:

Like Hirsan Ali, the Egyptian-born Allam was raised in a Muslim family, before emigrating as a teenager to Europe, where he eventually became famous for railing against what he sees as fundamental flaws in his native religion. The Rome-based journalist has faced repeated death threats from Islamic radicals, and travels to speaking engagements in Italy and abroad with an armed security detail. Needless to say, neither Allam nor Hirsan Ali show signs of toning down their criticism.

<snip>

Church officials may be pleased that Allam has so publicly joined the Catholic flock, but he is unlikely to become any kind of mediator in the Vatican's attempts to start a dialogue with Islam. That is because Allam is seen as almost belligerently anti-Islamic.

<snip>

This and other writings have led to widespread criticism among Muslims in Italy, who say he depicts only the worst of Islamic faith and culture. Not surprisingly, Allam has won the admiration of some of Europe's prominent conservatives and critics of Muslim immigration. He has been compared to Hirsan Ali, herself an avowed atheist who long ago renounced her faith, and now divides her time between Europe and the United States. Allam also struck up a friendship with Oriana Fallaci, the late Italian journalist and writer, who in recent years wrote anti-Muslim screeds and warned against Europe becoming "Eurabia." Fallaci, a Catholic by birth, was a non-believer through her adult life, though reportedly was exploring questions of faith as she battled terminal cancer. [emphasis added]

Let's say, just for kicks, that a journalist/writer who was raised as a Catholic or was raised in a Christian culture, began writing books saying how bad, violent, and utterly irrational is Catholicism specifically and Christianity in general. Would said writer (i.e., Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, etc.) require 24/7 security details? Would he receive constant death threats? And, if he did receive a death threat, would it be treated as a "ho hum, oh, well, that's the way things are" sort of issue by Christians? By the media? Let's say that Sam Harris became a Muslim. Do you think he would face death threats from Christians for doing so?

Some or all of the atheists mentioned above likely hear, on occasion, nasty comments and have had a confrontation here and there with a peeved Christian. It happens, and everyone knows that every group, church, or movement has its jerks and idiots. But some of these new atheists have also engaged in well-attended, well-publicized debates with Christians such as Dinesh D'Souza. How many debates do you hear about taking place between critics of Islam and Muslim scholars/apologists? In addition, Hitchens and Co. have largely received the red carpet treatment in the media. They work in freedom and enjoy financial success and publicity because of their books criticizing religion, especially Christianity.

Frankly, if being sympathetic toward the nation of Israel (that is, thinking it has a right to exist) and being critical of certain aspects of Islam are all it takes to targeted for assassination, I think I'd also tend toward being "belligerently anti-Islamic." Really now, is this so hard to comprehend?

A Catholic News Service story reports:

When Pope Benedict XVI welcomed into the Catholic Church a Muslim-born journalist often critical of Islam, it was not a sign that the pope accepts everything the journalist believes, said the Vatican spokesman.

The Italian journalist, Magdi Allam, "has the right to express his own ideas. They remain his personal opinions without in any way becoming the official expression of the positions of the pope or the Holy See," said Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi.

Father Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, made his comments March 27 in response to a statement from Aref Ali Nayed, a spokesman for the 138 Muslim scholars who initiated the Common Word dialogue project in October and who established the Catholic-Muslim Forum for dialogue with the Vatican in early March.

Father Lombardi said baptism is a recognition that the person entering the church "has freely and sincerely accepted the Christian faith in its fundamental articles" as expressed in the creed.

"Of course, believers are free to maintain their own ideas on a vast range of questions and problems on which legitimate pluralism exists among Christians," he said. "Welcoming a new believer into the church clearly does not mean espousing all that person's ideas and opinions, especially on political and social matters."

This is especially revealing:

Nayed questioned the pope's decision to baptize Allam March 22 during the globally televised Easter Vigil from St. Peter's Basilica.

"It is sad that the intimate and personal act of a religious conversion is made into a triumphalist tool for scoring points," Nayed said.

"It is sad that the particular person chosen for such a highly public gesture has a history of generating, and continues to generate, hateful discourse," he added.

He refers, of course, to Allam's criticisms of Islam. But what does he have to say about the numerous death threats against Allam? Are those "hateful"? Is there any interest on his part in condemning those threatening, hateful remarks?

Again, let's say that some wing nut, in the course of being interviewed about March Madness, suddenly started yelling, "Death to Hitchens! Death to Harris! Death in the name of Jesus!" Would Christian leaders be silent? Would they shrug? If they said or did nothing, would they get a free pass from the media? From the public? Would Hitchens and Harris be taken to task by TIME magazine for being "almost belligerently anti-Christian"? Just wondering.

Finally, Sherry Weddell has a post that asks, "Why do Muslims convert to Christianity?":

In many places, apostasy [from Islam] is tantamount to rejecting family, religion, culture, ethnicity, and nationality. Thus, many Muslim converts face persecution from family, police, or militants. Two friends were unable to fill out the questionnaire—one because he was apparently poisoned by his own family, the other because the government imprisoned him and later his tongue was cut out by a warlord so that he could no longer say the name of Jesus.

Well, who knows—those converts may have been "anti-Islamic", so who's to say they were treated unfairly? (And, yes, I'm being sarcastic.)

UPDATE: George Weigel, author of Faith, Reason And The War Against Jihadism (as well as many other books), talks about Allam's baptism over at NRO:

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: What’s the most important message about the war we’re in coming out of Magdi Allam’s conversion from Islam to Catholicism?

GEORGE WEIGEL: The war against jihadism is, among many other things, a war in defense of religious freedom, the first of human rights. That war is, at bottom, a war of ideas — of different ideas about the human person and different ideas of human obligation. Magdi Allam has courageously defended the religious freedom of all while sharply criticizing those currents of thought in Islam which would deny the right of religious conversion to Muslims. Now he fights the war of ideas from a different foxhole, so to speak.

Read the entire interview.

The testimony of Magdi Allam

The Muslim journalist who was baptized by Benedict XVI at Saturday's Easter Vigil Mass in St. Peter's Basilica has written a short account of why and how he decided to become Catholic. From ZENIT:

Yesterday evening I converted to the Christian Catholic religion, renouncing my previous Islamic faith. Thus, I finally saw the light, by divine grace -- the healthy fruit of a long, matured gestation, lived in suffering and joy, together with intimate reflection and conscious and manifest expression. I am especially grateful to his holiness Pope Benedict XVI, who imparted the sacraments of Christian initiation to me, baptism, confirmation and Eucharist, in the Basilica of St. Peter’s during the course of the solemn celebration of the Easter Vigil. And I took the simplest and most explicit Christian name: “Cristiano.” Since yesterday evening therefore my name is Magdi Crisitano Allam.

For me it is the most beautiful day of [my] life. To acquire the gift of the Christian faith during the commemoration of Christ’s resurrection by the hand of the Holy Father is, for a believer, an incomparable and inestimable privilege. At almost 56 […], it is a historical, exceptional and unforgettable event, which marks a radical and definitive turn with respect to the past. The miracle of Christ’s resurrection reverberated through my soul, liberating it from the darkness in which the preaching of hatred and intolerance in the face of the “different,” uncritically condemned as “enemy,” were privileged over love and respect of “neighbor,” who is always, an in every case, “person”; thus, as my mind was freed from the obscurantism of an ideology that legitimates lies and deception, violent death that leads to murder and suicide, the blind submission to tyranny, I was able to adhere to the authentic religion of truth, of life and of freedom.

On my first Easter as a Christian I not only discovered Jesus, I discovered for the first time the face of the true and only God, who is the God of faith and reason.

And, a bit later, this striking paragraph:

Dear Director, you asked me whether I fear for my life, in the awareness that conversion to Christianity will certainly procure for me yet another, and much more grave, death sentence for apostasy. You are perfectly right. I know what I am headed for but I face my destiny with my head held high, standing upright and with the interior solidity of one who has the certainty of his faith. And I will be more so after the courageous and historical gesture of the Pope, who, as soon has he knew of my desire, immediately agreed to personally impart the Christian sacraments of initiation to me. His Holiness has sent an explicit and revolutionary message to a Church that until now has been too prudent in the conversion of Muslims, abstaining from proselytizing in majority Muslim countries and keeping quiet about the reality of converts in Christian countries. Out of fear. The fear of not being able to protect converts in the face of their being condemned to death for apostasy and fear of reprisals against Christians living in Islamic countries. Well, today Benedict XVI, with his witness, tells us that we must overcome fear and not be afraid to affirm the truth of Jesus even with Muslims.

Read the entire piece.

Benedict, Easter, and Islam

From Pope Benedict XVI's "Urbi et Orbi" Easter Day address:

"Resurrexi, et adhuc tecum sum. Alleluia! I have risen, I am still with you. Alleluia! Dear brothers and sisters, Jesus, crucified and risen, repeats this joyful proclamation to us today: the Easter proclamation. Let us welcome it with deep wonder and gratitude!

Resurrexi et adhuc tecum sum. I have risen, I am still with you, for ever. These words, taken from an ancient version of Psalm 138 (v. 18b), were sung at the beginning of today's Mass. In them, at the rising of the Easter sun, the Church recognizes the voice of Jesus himself who, on rising from death, turns to the Father filled with gladness and love, and exclaims: My Father, here I am! I have risen, I am still with you, and so I shall be forever; your Spirit never abandoned me. In this way we can also come to a new understanding of other passages from the psalm: "If I climb the heavens, you are there; if I descend into the underworld, you are there. Even darkness is not dark for you, and the night is as clear as day; for you, darkness is like light" (Ps 138:8,12). It is true: in the solemn Easter vigil, darkness becomes light, night gives way to the day that knows no sunset. The death and resurrection of the Word of God incarnate is an event of invincible love, it is the victory of that Love which has delivered us from the slavery of sin and death. It has changed the course of history, giving to human life an indestructible and renewed meaning and value.

"I have risen and I am still with you, forever." These words invite us to contemplate the risen Christ, letting his voice resound in our heart. With his redeeming sacrifice, Jesus of Nazareth has made us adopted children of God, so that we too can now take our place in the mysterious dialogue between him and the Father. We are reminded of what he once said to those who were listening: "All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (Mt 11:27). In this perspective, we note that the words addressed by the risen Jesus to the Father on this day "I am still with you, for ever" apply indirectly to us as well, "children of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him" (cf. Rom 8:17). Through the death and resurrection of Christ, we too rise to new life today, and uniting our voice with his, we proclaim that we wish to remain for ever with God, our infinitely good and merciful Father.

Read the entire address.

In related news, a moderate Muslim author was baptized by the Pope on Easter (from Reuters):

A Muslim author and critic of Islamic fundamentalism who was baptised a Catholic by Pope Benedict said on Sunday Islam is "physiologically violent" and he is now in great danger because of his conversion.

"I realise what I am going up against but I will confront my fate with my head high, with my back straight and the interior strength of one who is certain about his faith," said Magdi Allam.

In a surprise move on Saturday night, the pope baptised the 55-year-old, Egyptian-born Allam at an Easter eve service in St Peter's Basilica that was broadcast around the world.

The conversion of Allam to Christianity -- he took the name "Christian" for his baptism -- was kept secret until the Vatican disclosed it in a statement less than an hour before it began.

Writing in Sunday's edition of the leading Corriere della Sera, the newspaper of which he is a deputy director, Allam said: "... the root of evil is innate in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictual".

Allam, who is a strong supporter of Israel and who an Israeli newspaper once called a "Muslim Zionist," has lived under police protection following threats against him, particularly after he criticised Iran's position on Israel.

He said before converting he had continually asked himself why someone who had struggled for what he called "moderate Islam" was then "condemned to death in the name of Islam and on the basis of a Koranic legitimisation".

From The Jerusalem Post:

Yahya Pallavicini, vice president of Coreis, a group of observant Muslims in Italy, said he respected Allam's choice but was "perplexed" by the symbolic and high-profile way in which he chose to convert.

"If Allam truly was compelled by a strong spiritual inspiration, perhaps it would have been better to do it delicately," Pallavicini said, according to the ANSA news agency.

By "delicately" it seems Pallavicini means "non-publicly." Yes, the "respect" is palpable. It's the sort of "respect" that says, "As long as you don't let people know what you really think and believe, you'll be fine." That is simply intimidation posing as respect, the sort of double-talk used by those who have little or no respect for the beliefs of others. Addressing this sort of mentality in a recent column, Fr. Jonathon Morris wrote the following for FOX.com:

Bin Laden even knows the crusade is not against Islam. 

Benedict’s crusade can be likened to a quiet pilgrimage in the pursuit of rescuing human reason from the clutches of fundamentalism. It aims to restore reason as the great cultural meeting point for people of every race and creed.

While Benedict sees rationality as the only suitable launching pad of all true faith, bin Laden sees it as the great obstacle to his manipulation of the masses. While Benedict sees faith and reason as mutually enriching sources of truth, bin Laden sees the former as incompatible with the later. And while Benedict claims God can never command us to do evil because the first universal moral dictate of reason —“do good and avoid evil”— reflects his loving voice, bin Laden on the other hand claims Allah can do whatever he pleases, evil included.

The good news Benedict is preaching is that truth and goodness are of universal attraction. The more Pope Benedict whispers about universals, the more Muslims will listen. And they already are. Earlier this month the Vatican announced 225 Muslim leaders have asked to enter into official dialogue with Christians to proclaim the need for peace and mutual respect. Last week the Muslim country of Qatar inaugurated its first official Christian church. After the historic and first ever visit of a Saudi King to the Vatican last year, the two states are now in negotiations to allow the construction of Christian churches in the Kingdom, the holy ground of Mecca and Medina.

These are small, but incredibly significant signs that Muslims too are signing up to fight the crusade.    

Let's hope and pray it is so.

Shari'a law and the "elephant in the room"

David Yerushalmi, senior attorney at the Institute for Advanced Strategic & Political Studies and legal adviser to the Center for Security Policy, writes at First Things about the recent comments of Rowan Williams and the possible place of Islamic law, or Shari’a, in Western nations:

This is already taking place in the United States. So what’s the fuss all about?

The fuss is about the elephant in the room, or, better yet, the wolf in sheep’s clothing that some Americans fail to acknowledge. Put simply, not all foreign or religious laws are equal. Most foreign laws, be they sourced in secular legal codes or religious ones, are not predicated on a doctrine of world domination and holy war. But what if a legal system is founded upon the goal of conquering the world through holy war when persuasion and subjugation are not immediately successful?

In other words, should a society lend legitimacy to a legal system whose raison d’être is the destruction of that society? Moreover, how should a society treat a legal system that obligates its faithful to use violent jihad to accomplish its goals?

Good questions. Read the entire piece.

The sound of one Catholic hand clapping

John B. Buescher was for many years director of the Voice of America's Tibetan Broadcast Service. He is also a very fine author and researcher, who has written some significant books on 19th-century American spiritualism, including The Other Side of Salvation: Spiritualism and the Nineteenth-Century Religious Experience and The Remarkable Life of John Murray Spear: Agitator for the Spirit Land. He has an outstanding essay in the Jan/Feb 2008 issue of Books & Culture titled, "Everything Is On Fire," about his journey away from Catholicism, his excursions into Tibetan Buddhism, and his return to the Catholic Church. Here is what he has to say about that homecoming:

I am neither a Buddhist nor a prophet. I have reverted to the Catholicism that gave joy to my youth. How did this happen? Buddhism focuses on the life of the monk and nun, who have renounced the world in an effort to achieve enlightenment and thereby climb out of the cycle of suffering transmigration through rebirth. Compared to Christianity, it has only a rudimentary teaching on the governance of society or on the value of the family. Throughout Asia, Buddhist clerics usually have a lot to say and do at funerals but little or nothing at weddings and births. This sensibility has found fertile ground in the West, where we have spent the last few centuries attacking the principles that encourage the regeneration of the given structures of society—especially of marriage and the family.

Several years ago, after spending more than a decade researching the early history of Western interest in Buddhism and seeing how it was tied into the growth in the West of radicalism and atheism, I realized how thoroughly these views are themselves historically conditioned and are therefore neither necessary nor ultimately given. Whatever "Progress" is, it is neither linear nor inevitable nor irreversible. That applies, I concluded, to the modernist revolution itself, the uncritical acceptance of which, I further came to see, had drawn us toward chaos, into what John Paul II called "the Culture of Death." This led me to admit the existence of natural law, which asserted itself despite the massive efforts in our culture to deny it. This law pointed to the existence of a Legislator. And the institution that held most unwaveringly to what I had concluded was the truth of human nature was the Catholic Church. How had it done that in the face of so much in the culture that denied it? It could not be through the individual merits of its members or its clergy—their sins and failings were manifold and were often on display in the newspapers. As with smoke and fire, I concluded that if it was not the individuals in the Church, then the institution itself, in a way that was mostly hidden to me, benefited from intelligent guidance beyond its mortal capacity.

As a result, I achieved an odd kind of enlightenment. Or a number of small ones that added up to this: I realized that what I most urgently needed was repentance. Not for the sin of holding on to an infantile form of faith, but rather for turning away from the Faith and looking to myself for salvation. After almost forty years, I saw the smoke on a mountain pass. God, I felt very strongly, had lit the fire. And the trail of smoke led back home. All these inferential steps I am describing make it sound like a series of trap doors shutting, but really it felt more as if, in the dark, a person I knew was drawing closer and closer to me in silence—"anthropomorphic" though that may be. I made the sound of one (closed) hand clapping (the breast). Mea maxima culpa. And I began the "yoga" of genuflecting before Him at whose name every knee shall bend.

Bewildered at my turning back to the Church, someone asked me why I had chosen Catholicism, of all religions (Could there be a worse one? was implicit in the question). I could only answer that I did not have that kind of choice. When the door opens onto the truth, you can walk through it or you can walk away from it, but in honesty you cannot just look for another door.

In religion it is not enough for people to do the best that they can. That can never be enough. Our life is more perilous than that. Everything is on fire. We cannot put out the flames, for we too are engulfed. I pray to Jesus Christ not because he was the teacher who showed us how to do the best we can, but because he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Miserere mei, Domine.

At least two of us have found our way into this pew. Paul Williams, author of The Unexpected Way: On Converting from Buddhism to Catholicism, is a former practitioner and continuing scholar of Tibetan Buddhism. He is also a relatively new Catholic. He writes about why the two religions are irreconcilable. Buddhists are not theists. And, despite talk about the unknowable "Other," Christians most certainly are theists—at least those who have not decided that God is a projection of a limited mind. Williams also argues that reincarnation cannot ultimately provide a basis for religious practice because it reduces the significance of individual lives to a vanishing point.

Buddhism has always needed to shore up "conventional" truth—including moral truth—because it is undermined by the doctrines of selflessness, impermanence, and emptiness. This is why Chesterton wrote that Buddhism was not a creed but a doubt. It is plain to me that Buddhist sages are similar to Christians in their capacity to sin. Buddhism, however, by locating our suffering in ignorance, rather than in the will, and its cure in knowledge, makes it difficult to think that one who had really experienced enlightenment could sin. Buddhists are often inclined, I believe, not to recognize enlightened beings' sins as sins, but to explain them away as "skillful means," actions that, to the unenlightened, look like sins but that spring from someplace beyond good and evil. Christians have sometimes broached this sort of rationalization—"To the pure all things are pure"—but have generally hesitated to insist on it. Christian doctrine weighs strongly against it.

Does it need to be said that Buddhism does not know Jesus Christ in any sense except an indirect, hidden, and metaphorical one? How then can a Christian fail to say that it is lacking something, and awaits the Gospel? The actions of Jesus were essential to the salvation of all. He was fully human and fully divine. He rose from the dead. He will come again.

Read the entire piece. Also, visit John's site, SpiritHistory.com.

And, from Ignatius Insight, this related article:

The "burden of the Church's preaching" is "to proclaim the cross of Christ..."

From The New York Times, report of some Jews upset that the Catholic Church insists on preaching the Gospel:

The revision of a contentious Good Friday prayer approved this week by Pope Benedict XVI could set back Jewish-Catholic relations, Conservative Judaism’s international assembly of rabbis says in a resolution to be voted on next week.

The prayer calls for God to enlighten the hearts of Jews “so that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, the savior of all men.”

The draft resolution states the prayer would “cast a harsh shadow over the spirit of mutual respect and collaboration that has marked these past four decades, making it more difficult for Jews to engage constructively in dialogue with Catholics.”

On Tuesday, the pope released new wording for the prayer, part of the traditional Latin, or Tridentine, Mass.

Before the Second Vatican Council, also known as Vatican II, the Good Friday Mass in Latin prayed for the conversion of Jews, referring to their “blindness” and calling upon God to “lift a veil from their hearts.”

An unofficial translation of the new prayer reads: “Let us pray for the Jews. May the Lord Our God enlighten their hearts so that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, the savior of all men.”

Lay Jewish groups this week called the change insufficient.

Rabbi Joel H. Meyers, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, the Conservative rabbis’ group, said leaders from the Reform and Reconstructionist movements had also been in touch with him about issuing a joint statement on the papal revision.

“We have been very much involved in interfaith activities and dialogue for years, and relationships with the Catholic Church are really quite good,” the rabbi said. “I think it really turns back the clock a bit and reverts to some sense that the church is pulling back from the positions it took in Vatican II.”

Actually, Pope Benedict's actions are very much in keeping with the teachings of Vatican II, which emphasized both respect for the freedom and dignity of all people (and condemned racism, anti-Semiticism, etc.), but also stated that the Church has an obligation to preach the Gospel to all men:

As Holy Scripture testifies, Jerusalem did not recognize the time of her visitation,(9) nor did the Jews in large number, accept the Gospel; indeed not a few opposed its spreading.(10) Nevertheless, God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; He does not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls H