Not only have we witnessed Pope Francis continually making heretical statements – even for the Catholic church; but now it seems that this pope was special ordered for the Muslim world. This is not assumed by non-Muslim writers.

I am taking this from a world renowned Muslim cleric; imam Mohamad Bashar Arafat, president of the Islamic Affairs Council of Maryland. The predecessor of Pope Francis , Pope Benedict XVI, had angered Muslim leaders with a speech he gave in Regensburg, Germany, in September 2006. Here is an article I wrote about Pope Benedict and his controversial statements in that speech:

Why Pope Benedict XVI Really Stepped Down 

From University of Notre Dame Contending Modernities 

A Muslim response to Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium

A. RASHIED OMAR

“Pope Francis resonates with the Muslim World much like the Saint of Assisi from whom he takes his name,”—this was how Imam Mohamad Bashar Arafat, president of the Islamic Affairs Council of Maryland, described his visit to the Vatican in October 2013. Saint Francis of Assisi is widely credited as being the first Catholic leader to engage a prominent Muslim Sultan in dialogue in 1219—a point well documented by Paul Moses in The Saint and the Sultan: The Crusades, Islam and Francis of Assisi’s Mission of Peace. Imam Arafat’s sanguine portrayal of Pope Francis’s growing stature in the Muslim World is corroborated by a number of experts on Catholic-Muslim relations, including Fr. Thomas Michel S.J., Senior Fellow at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University.

Notwithstanding this new optimism in Catholic-Muslim relations, it is my considered view that Muslim leaders, in particular, need to do much more to reach out, engage, and embrace Pope Francis’ invitation to interfaith dialogue and solidarity. For this indeed is the demand of our times.

A Constructive Platform for Renewed Dialogue

An invaluable opportunity for such dialogical engagement and solidarity presents itself in Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), issued on 24 November 2013. Evangelii Gaudium is one of the most significant Vatican proclamations to appear since the election of Pope Francis in March 2013, and articulates the theological vision and pastoral mission sustaining the Papacy of Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

Granted, it has only been three months since the issuing of this significant Vatican proclamation, yet it is my hope that some Muslim scholars and leaders will engage with its theological foundations and perspectives in a substantive and thoughtful manner. I believe Evangelii Gaudium could serve as a vital platform for Pope Francis’ resonance among Muslims to be transformed from popular admiration to a deeper encounter and embrace in the theological, social, and spiritual realms.

Evangelii Gaudium exhorts the Christian faithful to embark on a renewed journey of sharing the joy of the gospel (No. 9). It reaffirms a Second Vatican Council decree that establishes an essential bond between evangelization and dialogue; “Evangelization and interreligious dialogue, far from being opposed, mutually support and nourish one another” (No. 258). Furthermore, social dialogue is viewed as a necessary condition for peace with justice (No. 239). It is within this context that the invitation to dialogue with states, society, and with other believers who are not part of the Catholic Church is framed (No. 238). Interreligious dialogue “with the followers of Islam takes on great importance, since they are now significantly present in many traditionally Christian countries where they can freely worship and become fully a part of society” (No. 252).

It is also here that the most significant part of Evangelii Gaudium’s proclamation to Islam and Muslims surfaces. Pope Francis speaks to Muslims in the first person, and exhorts them with the following words: “I ask and humbly entreat those [Muslim majority—my insertion] countries to grant Christians freedom to worship and to practice their faith, in light of the freedom which followers of Islam enjoy in Western countries” (No. 253).

This entreaty is not new and was essentially the foundational prop on which Pope Benedict XVI established his troubled relationship with Islam and Muslims. What is new, however, is the judicious and sensitive manner in which Pope Francis makes his plea.  (emphasis added)

I do not need to dwell here on the perilous nature of the situation of Christian minorities living in Muslim majority countries since experts on the subject have aptly made the case and all fair minded Muslim leaders will readily agree. The religious freedoms of Christian minorities in many Muslim majority countries are appalling and a matter of grave concern which urgently needs to be taken up more honestly and robustly by Muslims engaged in interreligious dialogue.

Elsewhere I have noted the incompatibility of restrictive laws regarding apostasy and religious freedom in many Muslim majority settings, and have called on Muslim scholars and leaders to question the prevailing interpretation of the Islamic law of apostasy and Christian leaders to abandon aid evangelism. An increasing number of Muslim leaders are speaking out against this injustice. For example, at his December 13 2013 Vatican meeting with Pope Francis, Dr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, head of the Organization of Islamic Co-operation (OIC), stressed the need for “greater efforts from OIC member states to foster respect for religious pluralism and cultural diversity and to counter the spread of bigotry and prejudice.”

The Ethical and Qur’anic case for Religious Freedom

While it is my considered view that the demand for full religious freedom and greater protection for Christian minorities living in Muslim majority countries is legitimate and requisite, I respectfully disagree with Pope Francis that ‘reciprocity’ should be the driving force for religious freedoms on at least two grounds.

First, it is ethically expedient to argue that Muslim majority countries need to grant Christians freedom to worship and practice their faith in reciprocation of Muslims being granted those freedoms in Western countries. I believe that it should be the responsibility of faith leaders— Christians, Muslims and those of other faiths—to offer deeper and far more ethically and scripturally grounded visions of a truly humanistic and compassionate world and to make strategic interventions in order to shift the balance in favor of such genuine morality. Granting freedom of worship and protecting places of worship is an injunction to all believing Muslims in Chapter 22 verse 40 in the Qur’an, where God clearly proclaims:

If God had not restrained some people by means of others, monasteries, churches, and synagogues and mosques – all in which God’s name is abundantly extolled – would surely have been destroyed. Indeed God comes to the aid of those who come to His aid; verily He is powerful and all-mighty.(Q22:40 – Translation from Arabic by the author.)

It is interesting to note that the explicit wording of the above verses gives precedence to the protection of monasteries, churches and synagogues over that of mosques in order to underline their inviolability and the duty of the Muslim to safeguard them against any desecration or abuse, and protect freedom of belief. (For an depth analysis of the interpretations of this verse by classical Muslim commentators of the Qur’an see: Asma Afsaruddin, “In Defense of All Houses of Worship”, in ed., Sohail H. Hashmi, Just Wars, Holy Wars & Jihads: Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Encounters and Exchanges). It is the proper reading of these and other verses in the Qur’an (2:256; 10:99, & 11:118) that should be invoked in the plea to Muslim majority countries to grant non-Muslim minorities freedom of workshop in their countries. Upholding the teachings of the Qur’an and sacred scriptures, should set the moral standard of tolerance, dialogue and compassion to which we must aspire in striving towards a more just and peaceful world.

Second, should the religious freedoms and opportunities for integration accorded to Muslims by Western countries be the most sublime height of pluralism that we should aspire to? The answer to this question, is of course an unequivocal no! The Runnymede Trust (1997), the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (2002), and the United Nations (2004) have all concluded on the basis of extensive research that there is an alarming rise in religious bigotry and prejudice, which includes the virtual explosion of Islamophobia in Europe and the United States.

To his credit, Pope Francis does explicitly raise the question of the indignities suffered by Muslims in the West in Evangelii Gaudium when he says: “We Christians should embrace with affection and respect Muslim immigrants to our countries” (No. 253). Pope Francis has not only been vocal about the need to embrace with affection and respect Muslim immigrants in Europe—he has practically displayed such compassion with a number of symbolic expressions of this concern. In December 2013, for example, Pope Francis gave Christmas gift packages to 2,000 immigrants, many of whom are Muslims, who live at the Dono di Maria, a shelter within close proximity to the Vatican. In an accompanying message he urged Western countries to welcome and respect immigrants rather than treat them as “pawns on the chessboard of humanity.”

To thwart and mitigate against such political exploitation of the plight of Muslim immigrants in the West, Pope Francis specifically exhorts the faithful inEvangelii Gaudium, to avoid hateful generalizations even in the face of “disconcerting episodes of violence” and “in spite of fundamentalisms on both sides,” because “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence” (No. 253).

An Invaluable Opportunity

It is my considered view that through Evangelii Gaudium Pope Francis has inaugurated a constructive platform for credible Muslim leaders to enter into a renewed dialogue with Catholics on the critical question of interpretations of sacred scripture and the roots of violence in our contemporary world. Moreover, by locating such a conversation within the broader framework of Pope Francis’ theology of compassion for the poor which offers a powerful social critique of our global culture of consumerism, covetousness, and opulence, interreligious dialogue will find even greater resonance among Muslims. It is my sincere hope that more Muslim scholars will take up the dialogical challenge presented in Evangelii Gaudium in a comparable spirit of reverence and hospitality with which the twelfth century Muslim leader, Sultan al-Kamil, welcomed the Saint of Assisi from whom the current Pope takes his name. – source

Since Pope Francis’s Evanelii Gaudium is referenced so often in the article by the imam; I feel that  it is necessary for the reader to be able to see this “Manifesto” by Pope Francis.  It is quite long, but I urge the reader to at least read “Inter-religious Dialogue from #250-258.”

The radical document by Pope Francis is known as his Manifesto to the world.  Here is the link for the entire manifesto:

Evangelii Gaudium

Here is the section on Inter-religious Diaglogue from #250 – 258

Inter-religious dialogue

250. An attitude of openness in truth and in love must characterize the dialogue with the followers of non-Christian religions, in spite of various obstacles and difficulties, especially forms of fundamentalism on both sides. Interreligious dialogue is a necessary condition for peace in the world, and so it is a duty for Christians as well as other religious communities. This dialogue is in first place a conversation about human existence or simply, as the bishops of India have put it, a matter of “being open to them, sharing their joys and sorrows”.[194] In this way we learn to accept others and their different ways of living, thinking and speaking. We can then join one another in taking up the duty of serving justice and peace, which should become a basic principle of all our exchanges. A dialogue which seeks social peace and justice is in itself, beyond all merely practical considerations, an ethical commitment which brings about a new social situation. Efforts made in dealing with a specific theme can become a process in which, by mutual listening, both parts can be purified and enriched. These efforts, therefore, can also express love for truth.

251. In this dialogue, ever friendly and sincere, attention must always be paid to the essential bond between dialogue and proclamation, which leads the Church to maintain and intensify her relationship with non-Christians.[195] A facile syncretism would ultimately be a totalitarian gesture on the part of those who would ignore greater values of which they are not the masters. True openness involves remaining steadfast in one’s deepest convictions, clear and joyful in one’s own identity, while at the same time being “open to understanding those of the other party” and “knowing that dialogue can enrich each side”.[196]What is not helpful is a diplomatic openness which says “yes” to everything in order to avoid problems, for this would be a way of deceiving others and denying them the good which we have been given to share generously with others. Evangelization and interreligious dialogue, far from being opposed, mutually support and nourish one another.[197]

252. Our relationship with the followers of Islam has taken on great importance, since they are now significantly present in many traditionally Christian countries, where they can freely worship and become fully a part of society. We must never forget that they “profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, who will judge humanity on the last day”.[198] The sacred writings of Islam have retained some Christian teachings; Jesus and Mary receive profound veneration and it is admirable to see how Muslims both young and old, men and women, make time for daily prayer and faithfully take part in religious services. Many of them also have a deep conviction that their life, in its entirety, is from God and for God. They also acknowledge the need to respond to God with an ethical commitment and with mercy towards those most in need.

253. In order to sustain dialogue with Islam, suitable training is essential for all involved, not only so that they can be solidly and joyfully grounded in their own identity, but so that they can also acknowledge the values of others, appreciate the concerns underlying their demands and shed light on shared beliefs. We Christians should embrace with affection and respect Muslim immigrants to our countries in the same way that we hope and ask to be received and respected in countries of Islamic tradition. I ask and I humbly entreat those countries to grant Christians freedom to worship and to practice their faith, in light of the freedom which followers of Islam enjoy in Western countries! Faced with disconcerting episodes of violent fundamentalism, our respect for true followers of Islam should lead us to avoid hateful generalisations, for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.

254. Non-Christians, by God’s gracious initiative, when they are faithful to their own consciences, can live “justified by the grace of God”,[199] and thus be “associated to the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ”.[200] But due to the sacramental dimension of sanctifying grace, God’s working in them tends to produce signs and rites, sacred expressions which in turn bring others to a communitarian experience of journeying towards God.[201] While these lack the meaning and efficacy of the sacraments instituted by Christ, they can be channels which the Holy Spirit raises up in order to liberate non-Christians from atheistic immanentism or from purely individual religious experiences. The same Spirit everywhere brings forth various forms of practical wisdom which help people to bear suffering and to live in greater peace and harmony. As Christians, we can also benefit from these treasures built up over many centuries, which can help us better to live our own beliefs.

Social dialogue in a context of religious freedom

255. The Synod Fathers spoke of the importance of respect for religious freedom, viewed as a fundamental human right.[202]This includes “the freedom to choose the religion which one judges to be true and to manifest one’s beliefs in public”.[203] A healthy pluralism, one which genuinely respects differences and values them as such, does not entail privatizing religions in an attempt to reduce them to the quiet obscurity of the individual’s conscience or to relegate them to the enclosed precincts of churches, synagogues or mosques. This would represent, in effect, a new form of discrimination and authoritarianism. The respect due to the agnostic or non-believing minority should not be arbitrarily imposed in a way that silences the convictions of the believing majority or ignores the wealth of religious traditions. In the long run, this would feed resentment rather than tolerance and peace.

256. When considering the effect of religion on public life, one must distinguish the different ways in which it is practiced. Intellectuals and serious journalists frequently descend to crude and superficial generalizations in speaking of the shortcomings of religion, and often prove incapable of realizing that not all believers – or religious leaders – are the same. Some politicians take advantage of this confusion to justify acts of discrimination. At other times, contempt is shown for writings which reflect religious convictions, overlooking the fact that religious classics can prove meaningful in every age; they have an enduring power to open new horizons, to stimulate thought, to expand the mind and the heart. This contempt is due to the myopia of a certain rationalism. Is it reasonable and enlightened to dismiss certain writings simply because they arose in a context of religious belief? These writings include principles which are profoundly humanistic and, albeit tinged with religious symbols and teachings, they have a certain value for reason.

257. As believers, we also feel close to those who do not consider themselves part of any religious tradition, yet sincerely seek the truth, goodness and beauty which we believe have their highest expression and source in God. We consider them as precious allies in the commitment to defending human dignity, in building peaceful coexistence between peoples and in protecting creation. A special place of encounter is offered by new Areopagi such as the Court of the Gentiles, where “believers and non-believers are able to engage in dialogue about fundamental issues of ethics, art and science, and about the search for transcendence”.[204] This too is a path to peace in our troubled world.

258. Starting from certain social issues of great importance for the future of humanity, I have tried to make explicit once again the inescapable social dimension of the Gospel message and to encourage all Christians to demonstrate it by their words, attitudes and deeds. – source

Brethren, I have written a few articles, asking the question: “Could Pope Francis be the False Prophet, spoken of in Scripture?”  Only our Lord knows the answer to this question.  But this pope is a globalist, leftist, Communist leaning man, who believes that all religions should come together for the greater good of our planet (Mother Earth as he calls it).  This is so New Age and Satanic – at times it leaves me breathless that this is happening in our lifetime.

This is the pope who said that the Cross of Christ was a failure!  How can Catholics even abide this heresy?

Shalom b’Yeshua

MARANATHA!