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What Did the Saints Say about Islam?

juanderibera
St. Juan de Ribera, Viceroy and Bishop of Valencia (1568-1611), Supervising the Expulsion of Moriscos; Francisco Domingo Marques, 1912

For Islamic scholars, there is a statement in the apostolic exhortation of Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, which is particularly troubling:

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. (p. 253)

As the situation in the Middle East escalates, and the violence of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) spills rivers of innocent Christian blood, this statement seems incongruous with reality.

Popes are certainly free to have personal opinions. A Pope’s opinions, however, when shared with the public, carry more weight because of the authority of his office than would the opinions of another, lesser prelate. His words — particularly when expressed not through an interview or sermon, but an official document — signal, at least implictly, that his opinion is in fact the belief of the Church. This has a real impact on the understanding  of whatever issue is being touched upon, for both Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Particularly in a modern context, where global news is instantaneously available, papal opinions spread far, and fast. Once an idea is out in the wild as something “the pope said”, it becomes difficult to ever take back. There is even a not entirely uncommon misconception that papal opinion, when it touches on any subject related to faith, rises to the level of infallibility.

It seems that there has never been so much division within the Church over basic doctrine. Catholics today argue over long-established teachings which, as recently as fifty years ago, were accepted without dissent. This division appears to permeate the Church, and can be seen not only amongst the laity, but also within the ranks of Catholicism’s highest prelates. This division relates not only to our own internal understanding of teaching about articles of faith and sacramental beliefs, but the way in which the Catholic Church should deal with other religions. It is particularly worrying that this comes at a time when Islam is rising in power, having recently exterminated the Catholic Faith from Iraq, with ever greater numbers of Muslims answering Islam’s call to jihad against Christians.

As I have taken note of the most recent round Catholic infighting over how to view the Muslim faith, I found myself revisiting a question I began pondering during my graduate studies of this growing religion: What do the saints have to say about Islam?

 

The following is a brief list of quotes from Catholic saints about Islam and its founder, Muhammad. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it is illustrative of how Catholics — particularly those favored sons and daughters of the Church we now know to be in heaven — viewed the Muslim faith in prior generations:

“Whoever does not embrace the Catholic Christian faith is lost, like your false prophet Muhammad.”

-St. Peter Mavimenus (d. 8th century), martyr from Gaza. Response reported in the Martyriologum Romanum when he was asked to convert to Islam by a group of Muslims.

 

“There is also the superstition of the Ishmaelites which to this day prevails and keeps people in error, being a forerunner of the Antichrist…. From that time to the present a false prophet named Mohammed has appeared in their midst. This man, after having chanced upon the Old and New Testaments and likewise, it seems, having conversed with an Arian monk, devised his own heresy. Then, having insinuated himself into the good graces of the people by a show of seeming piety, he gave out that a certain book had been sent down to him from heaven. He had set down some ridiculous compositions in this book of his and he gave it to them as an object of veneration.”

-St. John Damascene (d. 749), Syrian Arab Catholic monk and scholar. Quoted from his book On Heresies under the section On the Heresy of the Ishmaelites (in The Fathers of the Church. Vol. 37. Translated by the Catholic University of America. CUA Press. 1958. Pages 153-160.)

 

“We profess Christ to be truly God and your prophet to be a precursor of the Antichrist and other profane doctrine.”

-Sts. Habenitus, Jeremiah, Peter, Sabinian, Walabonsus, and Wistremundus (d. 851), martyrs of Cordoba, Spain. Reported in the Memoriale Sanctorum in response to Spanish Umayyad Caliph ‘Abd Ar-Rahman II’s ministers that they convert to Islam on pain of death.

 

“Any cult which denies the divinity of Christ, does not profess the existence of the Holy Trinity, refutes baptism, defames Christians, and derogates the priesthood, we consider to be damned.”

-Sts. Aurelius, Felix, George, Liliosa, and Natalia (d. 852), martyrs of Cordoba, Spain. Reported in the Memoriale Sanctorum in response to Spanish Umayyad Caliph ‘Abd Ar-Rahman II’s ministers that they convert to Islam on pain of death.

 

“On the other hand, those who founded sects committed to erroneous doctrines proceeded in a way that is opposite to this, the point is clear in the case of Muhammad. He seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh goads us. His teaching also contained precepts that were in conformity with his promises, and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure. In all this, as is not unexpected, he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proofs of the truth of his doctrine, he brought forward only such as could be grasped by the natural ability of anyone with a very modest wisdom. Indeed, the truths that he taught he mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity. He did not bring forth any signs produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly gives witness to divine inspiration; for a visible action that can be only divine reveals an invisibly inspired teacher of truth. On the contrary, Muhammad said that he was sent in the power of his arms—which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants.”

-St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), Theologian and Doctor of the Church. Quoted from his De Rationibus Fidei Contra Saracenos, Graecos, et Armenos and translated from Fr. Damian Fehlner’s Aquinas on Reasons for the Faith: Against the Muslims, Greeks, and Armenians (Franciscans of the Immaculate. 2002.).

 

“As we have seen, Muhammed had neither supernatural miracles nor natural motives of reason to persuade those of his sect. As he lacked in everything, he took to bestial and barbaric means, which is the force of arms. Thus he introduced and promulgated his message with robberies, murders, and bloodshedding, destroying those who did not want to receive it, and with the same means his ministers conserve this today, until God placates his anger and destroys this pestilence from the earth.

[…]

(Muhammad) can also be figured for the dragon in the same Apocalypse which says that the dragon swept up a third of the stars and hurled down a third to earth. Although this line is more appropriately understood concerning the Antichrist, Mohammed was his precursor – the prophet of Satan, father of the sons of haughtiness.

[…]

Even if all the things contained in his law were fables in philosophy and errors in theology, even for those who do not possess the light of reason, the very manners (Islam) teaches are from a school of vicious bestialities. (Muhammad) did not prove his new sect with any motive, having neither supernatural miracles nor natural reasons, but solely the force of arms, violence, fictions, lies, and carnal license. It remains an impious, blasphemous, vicious cult, an innovention of the devil, and the direct way into the fires of hell. It does not even merit the name of being called a religion.”

-St. Juan de Ribera (d.1611), Archbishop of Valencia, missionary to Spanish Muslims, and organizer of the Muslim expulsions of 1609 from Spain. Quoted in several locations from his 1599 Catechismo para la Instruccion de los Nuevos Convertidos de los Moros (my translation).

 

“The Mahometan paradise, however, is only fit for beasts; for filthy sensual pleasure is all the believer has to expect there.”

St. Alfonsus Liguori (d. 1787). Quoted from his book, The History of Heresies and their Refutation.

What is obvious from these statements is that represent a very different view of Islam than we’ve heard from the Vatican in recent years. The recent dormancy of Islam has led many in this generation to believe precisely as Pope Francis does: that it is only Muslim extremists who pose a threat, and that the religion itself is more or less praiseworthy. The experiences of most of the saints throughout Church history, however, taught them the opposite — namely, that Islam and its practices are antithetical to the Catholic faith and those who seek to live it.

Hilaire Belloc, the great 20th century Catholic historian and poet, warned in 1929 that Islam would make a return to the world stage:

We shall almost certainly have to reckon with Islam in the near future. Perhaps, if we lose our Faith, it will rise. For after this subjugation of the Islamic culture by the nominally Christian had already been achieved, the political conquerors of that culture began to notice two disquieting features about it. The first was that its spiritual foundation proved immovable; the second that its area of occupation did not recede, but on the contrary slowly expanded.

[…]

In my own youth the decaying power of Islam (for it was still decaying) in the Near East was a strong menace to the peace of Europe. Those old people of whom I speak had grandparents in whose times Islam was still able to menace the West. The Turks besieged Vienna and nearly took it, less than a century before the American Declaration of Independence. Islam was then our superior, especially in military art. There is no reason why its recent inferiority in mechanical construction, whether military or civilian, should continue indefinitely. Even a slight accession of material power would make the further control of Islam by an alien culture difficult. A little more and there will cease that which our time has taken for granted, the physical domination of Islam by the disintegrated Christendom we know.

As Catholics, we need to understand this situation much better than we currently do. When it comes to the variances between what the Church and her saints used to say about Islam and what is being said now, we need to square the circle. With Islamic violence sweeping the Middle East and growing Muslim populations in many formerly-Christian nations, being able to see the reality we face with clarity and truthfulness is critical to our ability to evangelize Muslims.

As Christians in Iraq and Syria are learning at their own peril, it may also be the only way we’ll learn to survive them.

 

Originally published on August 12, 2014.

251 thoughts on “What Did the Saints Say about Islam?”

  1. This is a great topic. I returned to the Church (in Oceania) around 2006. The persecution of Christians made me take stock of myself in my identity as Christian. I learnt a lot about Islam and think I have a good grasp…it seems to me that ISIS are on strong theological and judicial ground. Whether other Islamic rulers agree with them seems to me to be just Islamic party politics…they don’t like it because it threatens their own power base.
    I found it difficult to return to the Church because of the desire for dialogue over truth…and Islam as peace and the Abrahamic Faiths (including Islam) as points of agreement and consensus of identity between the local Churches and Islam. Our Archbishop was interviewed at this time and stated almost verbatim what has now appeared in Pope Francis’ Encyclical. I went to visit the Archbishop and had a very congenial discussion; and I threw some light, as I thought on the justification of violence in Islam at its deepest levels. Not much really came from it but I said I had to talk about this because of the suffering incurred by our Christian brothers and sisters. It is not so much about Islam as the victims of it. In fact if some aspects of their religion only were changed we could live with them perhaps.
    What followed was strange glances from those who had spoken to me before. Some seemed embarrassed to talk to me if they met me. (I am a completely average, normal, friendly, competent person). Later a woman, in the course of a conversation in the hearing of others asked why I was obsessed with Muslims?
    I tell you….a very strange and disheartening journey.
    Now? It seems to me everyone is posting about Islam and Christians in the Church. I know it is topical but in fact it was quite evident in 2006 and throughout history. Where were all these scholars talking about Islam as it is…surely they haven’t just ‘got it’.
    That aside I think this discussion of what the Saints think is great. St Catherine of Siena told soldiers holding her town under siege….’why don’t you go off and fight the infidels’ (Islam). For the record St Francis’ own story needs to be told correctly, he seems to be the darling of those who long to embrace Islam as ‘brothers’.
    I do think it is salvation history unfolding itself. I agree that Islam is the false prophet. It has spiritual power without a doubt but I think an oppression of evil over swathes of people. If Islam didn’t take its point of departure that Jesus is not the Son of God, did not die on the Cross etc there would be very little point to the religion at all. If the devil wanted a religion of his own, to spite the fact that at its very beginning Christianity had established itself in form and doctrine, then Islam would be the parody of it; bloody evangelisation for a utopian hell of no freedom and by the way subjugate the females brutally in order to rub out the beauty of Mary.

    Reply
    • Great post! I am convinced that Islam is Satan’s attempt to mimic Christianity in the way he tried to imitate everything else about God and worship. The fruits of Islam in 2014 are not so different to those in centuries past.

      My wife, who is not a Catholic, berates me for having such a dim of view of all those ‘peaceful Muslims living good lives’. When I say that my problem is with Islam and not the people doing a poor job of following what it teaches, she does not understand.

      Reply
      • I am sorry but as a Catholic who has had foreign students who are
        Muslims of both sexes, who has known Male and Female adult Muslims,
        those with families, girls and boys, I am with your wife on this. It is
        not the right thing to do to take up a crusade against Islam, the Koran
        or against Muslim people, who incidentally are the ones who are being
        massacred by the USUK governments’ support of the ISIS and other
        sadistic terrorists. Muslims in Iraq and Syria and Libya are facing
        these evildoers, this abomination who call themselves religious Muslim
        soldiers, just like the Christians are & these Muslims are
        supporting the Christians. The Muslim neighbours of Christians are
        trying to help them as they are all of them together being targeted by
        the very terrorists who our USUKIZ governments are arming funding
        training and aiding along with the Qatar & Saudis. These our allies
        really do have repressive regimes. It is time to kick our goverrnments
        rumps hard until, they stop their evil strategies for regime changes
        with the use of proxy armies recruited by faux IMAMS. Out of all the
        good our Lord would have you do, I am telling you, that taking up a
        crusade against the Muslim people and the peaceful Islam is NOT anything
        that God wants. This is why I have devoted my whole day to denouncing
        it and I am wearied. Denounce the terrorists Muslims but not their
        victims who are the real Muslims.

        Reply
        • There seems to be a confusion in your argument between ‘peaceful Muslims’ as you say are victims of ISIS and also ones you know, and ‘peaceful Islam’.

          There is no doubt that Muslims as human person are oriented in their humanity to the good and to peace.

          But regarding the teachings of Islam…you make a claim that the Koran is peaceful? Therefore ISIS Muslims are terrorists and their victims are the real Muslims. Therefore ISIS does not follow the Koran?

          I would be thrilled if you could make this argument…any peace loving person would. But you need to provide the theological evidence that is mainstream Islam.

          Unfortunately, many of us have learned about abrogation, the life the Islamic prophet and listen to the justifications of ISIS and others like Lee Rigby’s killer and have read the Hamas Charter….they all say the same things for the same reasons.

          You need to move your assertions to demonstrable arguments without falling into Islamic heresy!

          I am confident you can’t do such a thing.

          Reply
        • If we took your words at face value we may believe the ‘stories’ you spew, but London Islamic cleric Anjem Choudary,
          [you may know him as the same imam that encouraged Islamists to get on welfare in order to engage in jihad said “Terrorizing the enemy is, in fact, part of Islam.”].

          Choudary said, [who ‘lectures’ in Sharia]:
          “I would say to the people in Russia, the Muslims and the non-Muslims, THAT EVERY ACTION FOR A MUSLIM ‘MUST BE BASED UPON THE KORAN, THE WORD OF ALLAH’, and the teachings of the messenger Mohammed…who is the final messenger for mankind. I mean I would first invite the people to think about and embrace Islam, ‘BUT THOSE WHO ARE ALREADY MUSLIM MUST KNOW THAT ALLAH MENTIONS IN THE KORAN, IN FACT, IF YOU LOOK IN CHAPTER 8 VERSE 60, he said PREPARE AS MUCH AS YOU CAN ‘STEEDS OF WAR’ TO TERRORIZE THE ENEMY.’ SO TERRORIZING THE ENEMY IS IN THE PART OF ISLAM. I mean this is something that we must embrace and understand as far as the jurisprudence of Islam is concerned.”

          Choudary had referred to the beheading of James Foley as “terrorizing the enemy.”

          Now a question for you Ursulariches, how long have you been studying the Koran and how many times have you read through it?

          Have YOU read Sura 4:34? “Men are the managers of the affairs of women… those you fear rebellious admonish; banish them to their couches and beat them.”

          As well there ARE 123 verses in the Koran that call for fighting and killing anyone that does not believe that “There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet.”, a few are Sura 2:216, 4:103, 5:37, 8:12, 9:5, 9:12, 9:27, 9:73 and 47:3-9 . . . try reading

          I have been studying it for over 4 years and I have studied Ali Dasthi a much admired scholar that studied at ALL the Madrasas in Mecca and wrote several books and ran a very successful newspaper in Iran during the the first half of the 20th century.

          Reply
        • There is a civil war within Islam, true, but that does not weaken the charge that not much of good fruit comes from Islam. What you call the real Muslims prefer being human and neighbourly than being strict followers of the Koran. They know how dangerous true followers of the Koran are to their well being.

          Reply
        • Did you not understand a single thing the Saints said? Islam is not a religion but a death cult and the spawn of Satan himself. There are NO peaceful muslims unless they are waiting for the time to rise up and fight. Meanwhile, 1/8th of what they donate to islam goes directly to finance violent jihad, which makes ALL muslims accessories to every crime committed by the active muslims.

          Your opinions are irrelevant. Listen to those who lived under the rule of islam as these saints and martyrs did. To ignore their words is insanity at best.

          Reply
        • NO ONE’S “taking up a crusade”…..we have to be realistic, though about the ‘violent’ Muslims’ goals: GLOBAL POWER. Me? I’ll take the Saints’ wisdom over this dude’s wife’s and YOUR ‘feelings’….just sayin’….

          Reply
          • Right my feeling??? Try reading the quran/koran . . . ‘mine’ are not feelings ‘mine’ are researched and investigated truths . . .

            Try conversing with information not your empty words . . .

            I do await your debate

          • I will never read a book inspired by the devil. Empty words? Hmm. Okay, your opinion. FACT: When Mo got back from his first encounter with the ‘Angel Gabriel’, his wife HAD TO TALK HIM OUT OF SUICIDE. THAT FACT was in HER memoirs/recollections. THAT is a dead giveaway, literally, that the being that spoke to Mo was NOT Heaven-sent. Helllooo????

          • xp4GYx7DZk, who were you talking to: ” I’ll take the Saints’ wisdom over this dude’s wife’s and YOUR ‘feelings’….just sayin’….”
            It showed up as a reply to me in my email.

            It seems we are in agreement. I studied the quran/koran to have factual information to the lies muslim’s attempt to spew.

            MO was a con-artist, child molesting thief!

          • Chesty (GREAT general!), dunno…think my post ‘jumped! Anyhoo, yeah, he was a devil, inspired by THEE Devil

        • You say Muslims are being targeted the same as Christians in the Middle East. This is not correct. There is no attempt by Sunni Muslims to commit genocide on all Suni Muslims. There is however an attempt by Sunni Muslims to commit genocide on the mainly indigenous Christian population’s in the Middle East.

          Reply
      • Mild Mannered Janitor,
        What is a ‘peaceful muslim’?

        Is it a muslim that only hopes the devout muslim beheads you instead of having to do it for themselves?

        Or, are they muslim’s that will behead you, but only if you are alone and they are many?

        Reply
        • As I said in my original post, ‘peaceful muslims’ are the ones doing a poor job of following what their prophet commands them to do i.e. wage jihad until every infidel has either converted to Islam or has been put to the sword [I believe an exception is made for some e.g. Christians, provided they pay the tax (dhimmitude)]

          Maria put it more eloquently than I did, reminding us that most muslims are ‘oriented in their humanity to the good and to peace.’ This surely gives rise to an internal conflict: what is the poor ‘peaceful’ Muslim to do, especially one say living in the west practicing a profession such as law? Does he strike at the neck of every unbeliever he comes across (hardly career-enhancing) or does he stumble along in a lukewarm fashion like many Christians, distancing himself from the actions of his fellow Muslims in far away lands? How does the ‘peaceful’ Muslim reconcile feelings of love for others with an Allah who is clear not a loving ‘god’.

          Reply
          • In regard to your question of ‘whats a poor muslim to do’, they have to leave the false religion or else they are not ‘poor muslims’. The koran was written for strict adherence of following allah [moon god, angel of light, satan etc…]

            With that calls for the killing, enslavement, indebtedness, or forcing of infidels [Jews, Christians and pagans . . . I.E.: everyone but good muslims] in to sexy slaves.

            So in closing their can be no ‘poor muslim’ except those so to be beheaded as well.

          • Chesty

            Agreed. As a comparison, remember Jim Jones? What were those poor cultists to do to avoid mass suicide? They would have had to leave the cult. Instead they believed Jones, drank the kool-aid and died. They themselves did not give the order and were probably for the most part non-violent people but they adhered to their false prophet’s directive.

            There is no other answer when dealing with a false religion except to reject it. No need to debate ‘moderate’ or ‘peaceful’ adherents–they are involved in a false religion and will follow its tenets if and when the order is given

          • Sorry, but there is no ‘or’ in this case . . . a moderate muslim will be condemned as well as an infidel.

          • There’s no such thing as a radical Muslim. A “radical Muslim” is just a devout Muslim following the Quran how it was meant to be followed. There’s no such thing as a peaceful Muslim. A “peaceful Muslim” is an infiltrator into kafir societies. A kafir is a non-Muslim as contemptuously called by Muslims. The word “kafir” appears countless times in the Quran. The guy in this video (http://youtu.be/GfFa2VAvV4E) can expand on that.

        • It’s good to read such texts and learn about the love christian people have about their neighbors and their enemies. So, Jesus teaches you guys to use your worst bigotry power to stablish more hate between human-beings and call it for LOVE? This is what people like you do. Instead of this coward attitude it’s better to put your sword on. I have much more respect for those wild crusaders who attacked and killed innocent people than this hypocrite attitude. I am proud that I never was lured into buying that lie, Christian love!

          Reply
          • Yes, we understand your wanting to side with wild ‘crusaders’ [which actually you mean muslim’s torturing, raping, enslaving and murdering innocent Kuffar (non-muslim’s)].

            It is simple to understand what you are saying.

            As to being bigots, you are ignorant to islam or just practicing ‘taqiyya’. What have you read of islam? The qur’an maybe; just heard about it? How about studying islam the Qur’an, Hadith & Sira? Why do I say this? Because those three (3) books make up the political movement known as the Islamic religion, (which for the most part it is not a religion).

            How about you, Mojtaba, tell us if you worship al-lah and how you worship al-lah, okay? If not you tell us how your ‘close’ muslim friends worship al-lah?

            Those that have studied islam know that a person CANNOT be a muslim unless they worship al-lah as MOHAMMED did.

            This means, angering easily, using all their lives to further the growth of islam by enslaving, murdering or converting women and children to islam. The men must punish their wives if they step out of line, which part of that is not have sex with them whenever they want, or if they burn or cook in a way that is not acceptable.

            Tell us as well Mojtaba; in a Christian Court room does a muslim have equal standing under the law? As well does a Christian have equal standing with a muslim under the law of sharia? Does a muslim woman have equal standing under sharia as a muslim man?

            Take your lie of bigotry and but it where it belongs; on islam! Only islam states that any non-muslim is worthless, should be murdered or it is perfectly fine to rape non-muslims ie: man, woman, young boy or girl.

    • Very well said. There were many of us out there who believed as you. Our Church has become so mealy mouthed about hurting anyone’s feelings that they have become apologists for the evils instead of assaulting them, Spiritually and head on, just as that great Soldier of Christ, St. Catherine of Sienna.

      While our Christian brothers are being martyred, even our children, being burned and buried alive, beheaded, for the Sharia crime of being Christian, our Church Shepherds bleat like sheep instead of protecting them.

      Reply
    • No doubt in my mind that Islam is Satan inspired. Good article. I have had similar experiences and it is disheartening.

      Reply
    • Many women in the west convert to Islam because of the self respect and dignity of chastity. The headscarf is similar to that which our lady wore. I remember wearing headscarves to mass on Sunday. We are not looking at the Muslim people with the eyes of those commited to love or with pure hearts, rather as Judges in arrogance and we forget that the terrorists whom we supported in Libyan and Syrian atrocities have killed a greater number of Muslims than Christians. These Muslim victims of the TAKFIRIS would call their persecutors devils and they wonder why the Christians in the West allow their governments to use them for regime change in Libya and Syria and in Iraq, this time to oust Maliki.
      Islam believes Jesus is holy born of a holy virgin and that He will come again to JUDGE all.
      In the 80s Private eye published a poem about Jesus of an homosexual nature, it was Muslims who took the paper to court for blasphemy. They believe there will be an antichrist whom they call the dajjal with only one eye, that the all seeing eye on the dollar represents the anti-Christ. There are myths about a Mahdi or precursor to Jesus’ return very like St John the baptist.

      Reply
      • Yeah, and Nazi men wore helmets just like American soldiers so that must means we were on the same side.

        Women are less than second class citizens in Mahometanism and they can be divorced by their husbands by the simple process of their husbands repeating three times that they are divorcing them.

        Beating your wife is taught in Mahometanism and Mahomet his own self beat Aisha the favorite of al his wives (one can only imagine what he did to the wives he was not too keen on).

        Women and chastity in Mahometanism is a lie. The Koran teaches men to marry women REALLY young for it is claimed thee is a divine blessing to marry a girl who has yet to menstruate.

        Child marriage in Mahometanism is not rare; girls as young as 9 in Iran can be married with permission of their family and girls as young as 13 can be married without permission.

        And what do you think is necessary to prove rape if you are a Mahometan women?

        Go on, google it and weep.

        Reply
        • You are misinformed like many of the wahhabis who must be unable to read because they certainly have not read the Koran. The Koran has said that women should not marry at least until after they have reached the age of menstruation.
          Catholics and Americans used to have marriage from the age of 12, after menstruation and Kings and Queens were married at a younger age but I hope they did not consummate until both were past puberty. Many girls have sex at the age of 13. I do not think this is a good thing and I find adult predators really repugnant. 13 yr old have abortions and they also have babies and some are fantastic mothers. I do not condone early sexual activity or sex outside of marriage.
          Women are 2nd class citizens in Saudi and other places in the ME who are our best allies. In both Syria and in Libya, the women had freedom and respect to the extent that British women complain that we are not lavished with as much love as they are.
          You are saying that American soldiers and Nazis were not on the same side because they both wore similar hats? I consider myself to be on the same side as the real Muslims, those who are not wahhabisalafisttakfiripolitically manipulated extremists. We have differences but are on the same side. I consider that Islam is closer to Catholicism than all other major religions and even some so called Christian churches. Islam means to be in submission to God and I hope that all who believe in God the creator and the God of Abraham are under submission to our God of truth, love and mercy .

          Reply
          • Mahomet was a murdering psychotic pederast who married a six y.o. girl when he was in his 50s and he consumated his marriage to her when she was 9.

            Good luck drawing an equivalency between him and Jesus

          • The Koran is totally against sex with girls before puberty and it always has greater authority than the Hadith. This was the same in the Judaeo Christian tradition. If marriage occurred earlier, it was not to be consummated until after puberty. I condemn sexual predators and condemn underage sex. Maturity is necessary to handle relationships and marriage.

          • Taqiyya and Kitman will not work with Catholic Traditionalists.

            Here is your Koran teaching that Mahometan men may marry young girls and engage in coitus with young girls who have not yet menstruated:

            65:1
            O Prophet, when you (and the believers) divorce women, divorce them for heir prescribed waiting-period and count the waiting-period accurately And
            if you are in doubt about those of your women who have despaired of menstruation, (you should know that) their waiting period is threemonths, and the same applies to those who have not menstruated as yet. As for pregnant women, their period ends when they have delivered their burden.

            (Maududi correctly interprets the plain meaning of verse 4:
            Therefore, making mention of the waiting-period for girls who have not yet menstruated, clearly proves that it is not only permissible to give away the girl at this age but it is permissible for the husband to consummate marriage with her.
            Now, obviously no Muslim has the right to forbid a thing which the Qur’an has held as permissible.
            (Maududi, vol. 5, p. 620, note 13, emphasis added)

          • I am totally sure that it is TABOO to do this to anyone before the age of menstruation. Many Muslims do agree that it is totally taboo.
            This is the mentioning of divorcing women and not of taking them to bed.

          • This is the man who explicated the meaning of the Koran about men being permitted to have sexual intercourse with young girls who have never menstruated:

            +++++++++++

            Abul A’la Maududi
            Islamic scholar
            Abul Ala Maududi, known also as Mawlana, was an Islamic scholar, political philosopher, clergyman, Muslim revivalist leader, and a 20th-century Islamist thinker in India, and later Pakistan. Wikipedia
            Born: September 25, 1903, Aurangabad, India
            Died: September 22, 1979, Buffalo, NY

            ++++++++++++++++++++

            whereas you do not even appear to hav dread the koran

          • ISIS are contrary to the Koran, The teaching is to have modest graves with tombstones not over a foot high, they then think this justifies them desecrating the graveyards? ??? ISIS is not of ISLAM they are an abomination to those who are Muslims. ISIS slaughters the real Muslims, it kills the real Muslims. It kills sunni Muslims and I doubt that more than half of them even believe they are Muslims, they are in it for the high pay they receive. The masquerade of them being Muslim deceives some into fighting with them, these dupes are usually the sui bombers. How long can they fight and how long can they see the atrocities before realizing this is not ISLAM. Some of them HAVE been enlightened and left or been killed off by ISIS itself, some have reconciled with Assad by seeing how bad and evil the terrorists are.

          • Our Catholic church has had awful perverts in it and apostasy and these are not Catholic either. Have you heard of false prophets? Now it is not my place or job to be an apologist for the Koran as I am not a scholar and I have not read it from cover to cover yet. I will defend the Muslim people and defend them from being associated with these sadists in ISIS who are the ones who are murdering them. I know what Love thy neighbour means and I have a better understanding than most. Does it not concern you that our governments are politically associated with using the terrorists as part of their foreign policy of undemocratic regime changes?

          • Though I am not a Catholic, but am a Christian, I can say that the Catholic Church isn’t the Word of God, nor do they pretend to be . . . Weakness of the flesh is a human issue and all will falter.

            Jesus Christ is the Son of God and He NEVER raped a dead person, nor did He have sex with little girls. He never commanded anyone to drink urine or have them slaughtered. Jesus only spoke the truth correct?

            Mohammad in written history raped a dead body, married a 6 yr old, had sex with a 9 yr old, forced Jews to drink urine then had them burnt with coals while still alive, some where beheaded, others had their entrails cut out of them. Mohammad lied to the people of the cities to better his attack, and they both [according to the koran] were prophets of God. Do you see more differences than similarities? I do.

          • You are as sick as the ISIS lot. This is about divorce, that you should keep the women for 3 months as there may be reconcilliation. Those who have not yet reached puberty and are virgins, should also not be divorced for 3 months. This is because God hates divorce and He wants reconcilliation and because he is concerned about the fate of the women.
            Imagine a man and woman separating for 3 months in the same house as opposed to divorcing or leaving. They may reconcile in this time, it is intended to help prevent divorce.

          • First you say the Koran is the highest authority and then you shriek when it is quoted accurately and explicated in a most orthodox way by well know Mahometans.

            You evince little evidence you have even read the koran but you do appear to be lifting explanations about it from some Mahometan apologetics website; that is, you exhibit no intellectual ability or moral authority to be the sole interpreter of the Koran.

            Now, ABS could cite Al Hazar University (The Holy See of Mahometanism) re this issue and he would expect a reflexive gainsaying of their interpretations by you; so – Are you a Muslim?

            For the record, ABS read the Koran LONG Ago on the University of Southern California’s website (with the three orthodox translations) and he also has the text of the Koran in his house with three orthodox commentaries and he has read several books by Bat Ye’or, several by Robert Spencer, One by Serdja Trifkovic etc etc and individual other books about Mahomet and his followers.

            As for the ISIS, they are the most faithful followers of Mahometanism and they imitate the putative perfect man, Mahomet, and what he did as recorded in the hadiths

          • I know for sure that the Koran does say, that there should not be sex until after puberty and that it is very clear on this, in the relevant p;art of the KORAN. HAVE YOU HEARD ME?

          • Quran (9:29) – “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor
            acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People
            of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and
            feel themselves subdued.”

            Quran 48:29) -Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. And those with him are hard (ruthless) against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves

            Bukhari(52:177) – Allah’s Apostle said, “The Hour will not be established until
            you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be
            hiding will say. “O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so
            kill him.”

            Muslim(1:33) -the Messenger of Allah said: I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah, that
            Muhammad is the messenger of Allah

            +++++++ end of mahometan quotes ++++

            ABS could have produced over 100 more similar sinister and sick sayings attributed to God by the psychotic murdering pederast.

            As for you and your – HAVE YOU HEARD ME?

            Loud and clear;and you do not have even the vaguest hint of what is in the Koran nor do you have any idea of how it was organised nor do you have any idea of the concept of abrogation etc etc but, like so many deluded american christians, your ignorance only emboldens you because you have been infected with Indifferentism and you embrace masonic principles that all men are good by their nature and that all religions are essentially the same

            You evince no humility even after announcing you have not read the Koran you presume to pontificate about.

            Worst of all, you have no idea how you are coming across to others.

            Adios,…

          • They did not say to KILL them or how to fight them. Many hymns have fight in them and believe me, I do not take this to mean war in the conventional or even the guerilla sense of the word. Fight the good fight, with all they might, Christ is thy strength…. Run the swift race through God’s good grace… . This is not about racing or taking up weapons unless it is a pen or a keyboard. It is raising ones voice to condemn falsehood and evil and to protect and speak up for humanity.
            WE can condemn evil but it is everywhere. In UK we have a holocaust of massacred children, every few years it reaches another million of them. It is called abortion. Women need support instead of abortions, when they are with child and find themselves stuck in difficulty.

          • I agree with you ursulariches. Really, people look at Jihadwatch.com? I swear the man in charge of the account is banned from the UK and the US Catholic Bishops are opposed to him. Plus, the website is under the David Horowitz foundation, a zionist Jewish organization. I wouldn’t trust anything that comes from there. If you want a real religious scholar check out Reza Aslan. He’s cool, intelligent, and unbiased.

          • This is prophecy.
            There is no way that ISIS are merciful to other Muslims because ISIS are not Muslims, they are an abomination.
            You are sick and obsessed with Islam for some very queer reason, moreover your words are filled with bile and you spew out hatred as you try to justify your hatred of all that is Muslim and you try to justify the abomination of sadistic terrorism as Muslim too.
            You are doing more to promote the abomination of terrorism which calls itself Muslim than to promote peace love understanding and you will not even condemn the evildoing of ISIS or of our government for supporting You spill out hatred for a book. WE could have agreed on somethiings but instead your hatred of a book and all those Muslims who have seen beauty in it leaves no room for you to condemn that which is truly evil, the sadistic murderers which is an attack on the Christians of the ME, the real Muslims and their book.

          • Settle down. Debate is fine. Personal attacks are over the line.

            You’re being out-debated, you have no factual basis for your assertions, and you’re making it difficult for anyone else to get a word in edgewise. You can’t project your desire for what you want another religion to be onto that religion and then try to force everyone else to agree, evidence be damned.

            Take a different approach, or I’m going to remove you from the conversation.

          • When someone is saying that the Koran justifies all manner of evil, could it just be possible that they are then saying that the Koran endorses evil so Muslims should all do evil and could it be that they are doing as much harm as the IMAMS who recruit terrorists? I have a reason for speaking out. It is because I am saying that the Koran does NOT justify or endorse the mass murder of other Muslims or Christians. Therefore I am speaking out against what is clearly evil. Accept my apologies for offending people by being against terrorism.

          • The hymn Jersusalem sung by our politicians & part of the last night of the proms. I will not cease from mental fight nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, til we have built Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land. Compare that to the Koran and do you think this is also what the Koran is saying, the same sentiments. Lots of hymns have fight in them, tell me is this referring to killing people.or to something very different? Please have some understanding and subtley to understand how language used to be used only recently before our dumbing down.

          • I didn’t realise you heard me singing it ,sorry, why not find a better singer to sing it to you on YOU TUBE.?

          • Okay I will . . . The Fight to build Jerusalem in England doesn’t say to kill any particular people, does it Ursulariches or anyone else reading this?

            The Koran speaks directly about killing the infidel [ described as followers of Jesus Christ and or Jews].

            How is that break down for you?

          • So Ursulariches, Mohammad [in his 50’s] was and still would be a sexual predator for marrying a 6 year old then having sex with her [Ali sha] at the age of 9, Correct?

            Question for all that want to defend Mohammad and Islam: Is a ‘necrophiliac’ someone who is aroused by dead bodies? So doesn’t that make Mohammad a necrophiliac when he had sex with the dead woman buried in the cemetry . . . “to save her soul”?

      • Ursula,
        What does the Koran say of a woman that does not produce male offspring?

        How many woman ‘CAN’ a moslim man marry?

        Can a Husband beat his wife, and for what reasons?

        Does not the koran say a woman is worth less than a moslim man?

        Can 4 Moslim man giving testimony over rule a female moslim?

        Do the male moslim’s in the family get 2 times what the female moslim get’s when the family leader dies?

        Yes the koran has equal rights for women . . . equal to other women, but not to men.

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    • The ISIS do so much which is clearly against the Koranic scripture and the Muslims themselves consider the ISIS to be an abomination and ISIS slaughters, not just Christians but the Muslims too. The Christians are smaller in number than the Muslims in Iraq and Syria and the Muslims then are killed in far greater number than Christians. Wherever you may imagine that the Koran permits something terrible, it clearly condemns it somewhere else. The word Mercy is scattered abundantly throughout the Koran and God is known as the God of Mercy.

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      • Prove this statement: “ISIS do so much which is clearly against the Koranic scripture”, as well show us why you believe the koran to not allow jihad against any muslims.

        Can muslims not kill other muslims that go against allah? Can muslims not kill muslim women or men that break any laws in the koran?

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    • Maria,

      Thank you for your comment.
      Thank you and God bless and protect you Andrew for such an enlightening article which most Catholics refuse to see.
      Most Catholics believe that defending the pope in his heresy and apostasy is more important than the truth of Jesus Christ to the peril of theirs and other souls.

      Maria, please do us all a favour. comment on the National Catholic Register.

      You will enlighten many souls.

      http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/past-and-future-reflected-in-pope-francis-pilgrimage-to-turkey/

      Reply
  2. Spot on, good presentation. This is what I figured about Islam, thank you
    for the research. Are we not to learn from the saints? There are a few priest who have the courage. I know of three!!!

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    • “There are a few priest who have the courage.”

      True courage is in FOLLOWING Jesus The Lord and obeying his Word under the guidance of his Holy Spirit.

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    • I went to downtown Dallas to rally for the persecuted Christians in Muslim lands. Had a poor turnout. Good speakers though, Robert Spencer, Walid Shoebat, Mark Christian and Pastor Broden who is black. Broden also ran for Congress but lost.

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      • “I went to downtown Dallas to rally for the persecuted Christians in Muslim lands. Had a poor turnout.”

        When God is against US who can be for US?

        Tell me ARE WE or let us say OUR LEADERS TRUE CHRISTIANS? Are they APOSTLES?

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        • I believe they have eyes but do not see and ears but do not hear. Jesus said He is the Only way to the Father. Why aren’t these Catholic and other Christian leaders telling Muslims that as if the believed it…like I do. Beside Pastor Broden, only one Episcopal minister showed up…no Catholic priests.

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    • I do not consider it is right that we should object to the atrocities against the Christians and not to the atrocities by ISIS against the Muslim people as well. This is especially the case when it is our governments who are party to having proxy armies for their compulsive obsession with regime changes in order to create the new world order, an order which I hope nobody here supports.

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      • URSULARICHES is correct is asserting that ISIS oversteps the boundaries of the Koran by indiscriminately killing peaceful Christians and Muslims, especially children. However there is no similar problem with the killing of Christians who put up any resistance, or the enslavement of the peaceful ones. I did not see that distinction being made.
        As to the falsity of Islam, Jesus Christ said it best, that you can tell the false prophet by the fruitfulness of his religion. To say the fruit of Islam is strife of the first order is stating the obvious, while we acknowledge that individual muslims, taught a limited version of their faith , may be pious and good.

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    • I personally had a Muslim friend defend me from an extremist. Also, have you not seen in the news about the march in Milan?

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  3. Based on my research, I have concluded that a “moderate” Muslim is a “bad” Muslim. All Muslims should, in fact, kill non-muslims and engage in jihad. It is true that the first part of the Koran only speaks of peace, etc., however, the second part of the Koran only speaks of murder, etc. Muslim scolars have concluded that the most recent texts supercede older texts, thus, the second part of the Koran is more binding than the first part.

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  4. the quote I heard the other day from a bishop says it all: “People of the West, if they have eyes, should now see what happens when Muslims are a majority….”

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    • The Muslims of Syria and Libya were at peace with Jews and Christians living there but not at peace with ZIONISTS or with the wahhabi-salafist-Takfiri extremist-politically manipulated- fake- Muslims who if they can read, do not own a Koran and if they do own a Koran, cannot read it.

      Reply
        • The Koran says that if an innocent life is taken it is as bad an evil as if all of humanity was murdered. Catholics are BELIEVERS by the way. Were the unbelievers referred to, cannibals, eaters of human organs, bestialists, paedos, necrophilliacs, sadists, mass murderers…and other horrible things. These things include the way the ISIS behave and many Muslims consider them to be opposite to the Koran. The ISIS rape kids, women, gun rape men, eat organs and slaughter. A woman captured in Libya and released by Gaddafi’s Jamahiriyah army complained that the worst torture of all was to see her neighbour for her whole life of 20 years, boiled alive next to her.

          Reply
          • The koran teaches that jews and Christians are not innocent. Mahometanism teaches the while we may be people of the book, we falsified the scriptures and excised the name of Mahomet from it.

            Look, we Catholic Traditionalists are well-schooled in the taqiyya and kitman of the adepts of the false faith of Mahometanism.

            As to rape, The Koran teaches that a jihadist may have sex with any women he captures and that includes rape and the rape of whiye women in europe by Mahometans is permissive owing to the fact theta they are unbelievers and less than human.

            You are not fooling one individual with this shop-worn tactics.

          • I think that you are one of those evil IMAMS who is falsifying Islam in order to recruit the very ISIS terrorists whom I am denouncing.

        • You are sick and twisted. The Hadith does not have the authority of the Koran, the Koran exceeds it in authority. What made you decide to be judge and jury on the Koran? Why are you not more concerned with the evils being done in our own nations of USUK or wherever you are from? Why are you not more concerned about the ISIS carrying out British American foreign policies of regime change? Do you agree that the terrorists in Iraq, Syria Libya were depraved AND that our government have arranged Benghazi gate to arm them, they are also armed through Turkey and IZ and treated in IZ when wounded, trained by Mossad, US UK, that the UK US Saudi Qatar IZ are all behind them and perpetrating evils on the people of Libya Syria Iraq who we pretend to be helping. Do any of these nations look helped? Do they look better or worse since our help?

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        • You twisted this again. i said that the Hadith does not have the authority of the Koran for Muslims, the Koran is the greatest authority for Muslims. I think you are one of the terrorists IMAMS interpreting the Koran, You showed me a passage on divorce and seperation and imagined it was about having sex??? You must be sex obsessed.

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          • Didn’t you say the same thing about the jihadwatch site in another comment on this page? Is there any website that shows islam for what it truly is from it’s own writings that in your opinion isn’t “linked to a zionist Jewish organization”?

      • there are 164 verses about jihad in the Koran whereas there is not one word of such divine revelation in the New Testament.

        Koran “Good women are the obedient, guarding the secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them

        No verses in the New Testament feeling Christians to beat their wives…

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        • In the old testament a woman would be stoned to death for adultery. This is still Judaic law.
          Men in UK US EUROPE do still kill women and their wives and their children and hurt them badly. Not only men. The Koran then does not permit for these women to be murdered or have their faces punched in or to be sorely injured, it has a MAXIMUM penalty.
          Imagine how a civilized society would think of us as having our girls stuck on the pill at puberty and sleeping around and having numerous sexual partners before marriage and abortions numbering a million in the UK every few years, date rape, promiscuity, adultery, children raised in one parent homes being normal…. Is this actually a better society for all? When we have perfection in our customs and society, then we should judge because the extent of child sexual abuse in our nations is horrifying. This has been done to the children from care homes by those too big to touch who STILL have not been brought to trial. Is it not of more concern to the British people that we should press for the arrests of British perpetrators of very very very serious abuses which go against all religions except satanism?
          This concerns me more than nit picking over rules given to people from different nations and different cultures in a very different time.

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          • More taqiyya and pitman.

            I cite the Koran teaching that Mahometans can beat their wives and challenge you to cite the new testament doing the same but you can find no such verse and so you try to change the subject to the old testament

            And even in changing the subject you do not see you are begging the question – Who is it today who stones women taken in adultery? Jews or Mahometans?

            You argue yourself into moral traps and/or repeatedly walk into the very rhetorical traps you think you are setting for christians.

            Finally, after arguing that the Koran is the highest authority you are now trying to claim it does not apply to the Mahometans of today.

            You should really stop trying to establish a moral equivalency between Christianity and Mahometanism for all of your attempt are but invitations for the knowledgeable to correct your many errors and in doing so, the false faith of the Mahometans is further exposed.

            Quite useful for Christians not not for you, huh?

            The Koran purports to be the very word of Allah his own self (well, ok there ARE verses in there from Satan, but that aside) and you said it was authoritative but now you want to say that citing allah is nit picking.

          • Women get beaten and killed, so do men, so do children and this happens all over the world. The Koran tells the people not to go TOO far. The Jewish religion advocates stoning adulterers to death.

          • An older version of the Qur’an did state that stoning was the punishment for adultery. The verse was omitted in the latest version. It is known that Mohammed ordered the stoning of adulterers. And the Hadith certainly prescribes stoning.

          • Yea the Jews in the USA and in their own country are busy night and day stoning women and children.

          • You are one of the evil IMAMS who recruit the terrorists by telling them that the Koran tells them to do that which it does not. Have you ever seen a John Wayne film where he beats his wife?

          • Sorry; women not permitted to be hurt? What percentage of women living under Sharia Law are required to undergo a clitorectomy?

            Now, ABS supposes you will now come back and claim that is an enlightened view of women, an aspect of feminism in fact, for women in Mahometanism are being treated just like men in that both are required to submit to circumcision….

          • How many women are there in Syria and how many are intact? I would suggest that that goes for ALL of them. Jesus said that if your hand offends you to cut it off and your eye…cut it out,. Now you are again being an evil IMAM by saying that women should be mutilated and citing the Koran as your authority. You are offending me.

          • It is interesting to read your posts. You have no idea of how far away you are from understanding the West, and how far away your “religion” is from the true religion; Christianity.

          • Male circumcision is different to female circumcision which is like castration. What percentage of the Syrian women are abused in this way? I would suggest than nobody in Assad’s Syria is abused like this unless the ISIS do it. I am sorry for you if this is your lot. I have known Muslim women and they are intact and would not do this to their children and the women are not servile, rather they are spoilt, really spoilt a lot. Saudi has the oppressive kind of Islam.

          • Bye; gotta jet, but thanks for the opportunity that your false claims gave me to knock those deceptions out of the moral ball park.isah. Beaten b

            Mahometanism is the WORST false faith for women; they;d be far better off being Mormons and suffer far less physical abuse then do the mahometan woman.

            As Mahomet’s favorite wife, Aishah said : I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing woman. Look, her skin is greener than her clothes

            Well, she ought to know. Mahomet beat her…

          • So are we both women and are you intact? Are you a Catholic and were you born into a Catholic or Muslim family? Saudi’s version of Islam is different to the Islam of Libya or Syria. In Libya the women were SAFE to wander about alone at any time of day or night and they drove themselves too. Gaddafi was a dictator because he told his people that the girls will go to school with the boys. That was about the extent of the dictatorship as he created the Jamahiriyah system of direct democracy. You do not understand the system here. And the thickos at the BBC would prefer to rail against it when it was a greater democracy, a true democracy better than all of the other nations of the world had.
            Are you a woman and are you from Saudi? Saudi Islam is very different even from Syrian Sunni Islam. Interesting that our allies in the ME are the most repressive regimes and those we hate are the best. .

          • There are only two islams . . . true islamic faith which is Arabic muslims and all other muslims and in the end the ‘all other’ muslims will be treated as infidels as well . . . read the book [of lie’s]

          • ok so if you say that the “real Islamic faith” is the one practiced by ISIS, isn’t it a good thing that a lot of Muslims don’t practice that true faith and have a softer version?

          • From your response it is easy to see you either have never read the qur’an, hadith or sira [books of islam] or the ‘reliance of the traveller’ [book of sharia law] or are practicing the islam act of taqiya I will answer you though due to the vast misconception that muslim’s have put forth. “ALL” muslim’s must adhere to the 5 Pillars of islam part of which is to emulate muhammed’s life as found in the hadith & sira, which are mainly about jihad and conquering ALL NON-MUSLIM’s [Kuffar].

            They are to do this in several ways…One is to trick the Kuffar into letting them in close so that when the muslim has the upper hand they are to strike forcefully the Kuffar either murdering, enslaving or convert them.

            If I could offer you and anyone reading this post any advice I would say to study islam for what it truly is…and it is not solely a religion and definitely not a religion of ‘peace’ to anyone but a muslim.

            Please if unsure ask me direct questions of islam so that I may help in educating you and others of islam’s true wants.

            For instance can you explain the difference between the peaceful Mecca verses in the qur’an and the later Medina verses in the qur’an?

          • Let faith be my shield and let joy be my steed against the dragon of anger and the ogre of greed and let me set free with the sword of my youth, from the castle of darkness the power of the truth. Does this sound like the ISIS sadists? This is religion this hymn. ISIS are politics.

        • Loads of the hymns I know in English mention the word FIGHT. Jersusalem. I will not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand til we have built Jersusalem in England’s green and pleasant land. Sounds exactly the same as the Koranic teaching to me but the Koran and the hymn are nothing like our government policy of regime change or their henchmens’ vile sadistic killings.

          Reply
          • Phony catholic . . . hymns ‘are not’ the Word of God. There are many more words of hate, murder and torture in muslim children’s books then in hymns. There are many more words of murder on muslim television then in hymns.
            Ursulariches, do you want to go down that road?

        • Those 164 verses are against the violent pagans that lived in Saudi Arabia during the time period, not Christians and Jews.

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        • Plus, where do you get your Quran verses? Online? Don’t find an online Quran, which has been manipulated. Get an actual Quran, like order an English translation and have it delivered to your home and then read it.

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      • Again I must bring history to our discussion . . . Ursular; “…fake- Muslims who if they can read, do not own a Koran and if they do own a Koran, cannot read it.”

        Historical fact: Mohammad could not read nor write
        most early moslims [proper spelling] could not read nor write, this is why during the third and fourth caliph that the koran was written down. Abu Bakr’s work came first 632-634 A.D. this culminated with Uthman who put together HIS UNDERSTANDING OF THE CORRECT WORKS AND BURNED OR DESTROYED THE REST, LEAVING ONLY HIS WORKS . . .

        Does that make the word his or allah’s Ursula?

        There were many different ‘versions’ of the koran back then being passed around, unlike the Holy Word of the One True God “I AM” which when found over the centuries separated by 1000’s of miles were the exact same writings.

        Again more differences then similarities.

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      • You must be a muslim and I remember the koran tells its followers that lying is ok. The only peace with muslims is a forced peace.

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  5. The search for the Moderate Muslim leader reminds of the search for the Moderate Politburo member of the 1970s-1980s. We are told they are out there, but we just haven’t found one yet.

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  6. thank you Andrew for the quotes from the past Saints, when sin and error were called out for what they are!….the Church Shepherds of today are nothing but cowards afraid to speak Truth today in face of being attacked as being uncharitable, and un-christian!…the only thing left is for the Hand of Gods Justice to strike this world and bring the wayward back to its knees!

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  7. Dialogue, Dialogue Dialogue, while our brethren are butchered and churches are burned… well done Vatican 2, well done… Its long past time to purge the Church of progressives forever, they are responsible for all of this….Undo Vatican 2 ALL OF IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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    • As a young Catholic who only ever grew up in Vatican 2…

      Purge the Church? How? Kill us all? Is that what you mean?

      Sounds like you have more in common with ISIS than you think, since they butcher their fellow Shia brothers and sisters.

      That attitude is what turns a lot of young Catholics away. Just stop it already.

      Why don’t we think about what the greatest Saint would do?

      What would Blessed Mother do?

      Humility.

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      • No I wont’ stop I will keep kicking progressive in the face more and more everyday. I have no problem killing progressives since they are inherently evil … if that attitude turns young Catholics away so be it, I grew up after Vatican 2 and see what it has done….Ah yes humility while the Church crumbles ….I

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        • If you are a true Catholic, and met me personally, you would not kick me in the face. You would not murder me because that is a sin. You realize I am a registered nurse and I help people. I LIVE my baptism promise with my profession, with my very hands. How do you live your baptismal promise?

          You reject the Church by rejecting the Blessed Mother’s example of humility. She would be appalled by your statement of killing your very own Christian brother.

          I can only conclude you are making statements like that out of anger and frustration. I can only love you and pray for you and ask Blessed Mother to come to you and share her love with you.

          Peace be with you. I don’t know your true name but I will pray for you at Adoration. God bless you in Christ’s name. Please Lord, help Baron Kaza find peace in his heart that he may spread the Gospel as St. Francis did…

          Humbly.

          Benedicat vos Omnipotens Deus, Pater, et Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus.

          Amen.

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          • You are right about one thing I am angry.. and there will not be peace for me until the clergy is purged of gays and the corruption is flushed out once and for all.. St Francis yes a saint, but I will take Saint Michael… I dont need peace…

          • Holy Mother Church is made up of humans who are imperfect and sin. It’s the humans within it that make the choice to sin. Let Abba Father sort that out. They will reap what they will sow.

            Corruption and homosexuality will be part of every human institution but you have to have faith that the Holy Spirit will always protect the Church. Remember, have peace, the Gates of Hell will never prevail over the Church.

            Vatican 2 did not cause this ISIS savagery. Thats a fallacy called “post hoc ergo propter hoc”. People/Humans chose to join these villains and thugs. Our anger should be turned to them. We all have to review what the Catechism says about God’s gift of Free Will.

            Our anguish should be directed against the evil that is ISIS, not at each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. I am angry at the whole situation. Its times like these when we have to unite together to fight. Antagonizing one side isn’t the answer.

          • I truly wonder if Baron has even read the documents of Vatican II. I mean truly read them with the Holy Spirit as a guide. If that were the case, I am confident that they would find that Vatican II changed absolutely (and I emphasize this) nothing in the Church’s teachings. What did happen, however, is a very poor implementation of Vatican II. We have a great Polish Dominican priest that is fond of saying that VII never happened in the US, since what we saw was a twisting of the Council’s true intention and findings. As for the blatant violence in their earlier posts, I concede that Christ flipped tables, but he was also God himself. I’m quite fond of the idea that the Church is a hospital for sinners, and not a museum of saints. The irony is that in their call for a “pure” Church, the poster him/herself is inherently demonstrating the type of behavior that would ultimately be “purged” by themselves. It’s quite odd. “I am angry.. and there will not be peace for me until the clergy is purged of gays and the corruption is flushed out once and for all.” – I have news for you: you’re going to be very, very angry for a very long time. And how sad is that: to focus on the human failings in our Mother Church rather than witness it for the true miracle that it is – the presence of Christ himself on this Earth, with his real and holy presence in our midst at every Mass. If that itself doesn’t give you joy, I don’t know what would.

            Pax.

  8. Pope Francis is a perfect Successor to Peter in light of the vile fruit of the Second Vatican Council. Even Pope Alexander VI, for all his immorality, was a fine administrator and protector of the Deposit of Faith. I dare say that Pope Francis is an unfortunate and unhinged creature, who is way out of his depth and succeeds only in offending and embarrassing the Church of Christ.

    Reply
  9. See, I knew it from the very beginning that Mohammed is the devil’s prophet and Islam is the devil’s own version of religion, it does not even merit being called a religion. They say that when they blow themselves up they will go to paradise, what they do not know that they will go straight to hell for all eternity.

    Reply
    • IF there is EVIL in the World I hold “Christians”, their LEADERS responsible for it. I too am included. The Lord gave us his work of proclaiming his Salvation through his Word. And what are we doing?

      Are we FIT for the Lord, have we entered his Kingdom? Do we keep his Word, or do we in practice have his Holy Spirit? Those among us who are true Apostles of The Lord are condemned as Charismatics. Where is the problem or better said, SIN, now? Luke 7 : 29 ff.

      Reply
  10. I agree that Islam is a diversion from the truth established by Satan but lets also remember that we cannot know the eternal fate of those who have been indoctrinated from birth into this heresy. Only God can judge their culpability. “To whom much is given, much is expected. To whom little is given, little is expected”. Let us ALSO keep in mind that ISIS is killing Sunnis and Shia Muslims that do not share their “vision” and tactics. To the chagrin of many on this site there are in fact moderate Muslims. Perhaps they aren’t following the Koran to the “T” by writing off the more violent aspects of its tenets but that is to their credit. Satan often uses truth intermixed with lies to mislead people. Knowing the truth for the lies is the hard part.

    ISIS will not be coerced to peace by violence nor by any other means because they are the work of the enemy. Let us pray for their souls for God does not will for the loss of a single one of these “little ones”. They are as important to Him as you or I…or as each of your children are to you. Prayer is our only recourse for their salvation. God have mercy on US ALL.

    Reply
      • Thanks. That’s one of the best compliments anyone has ever given me. I can only pray that I can one day attain his level of insight and understanding of Catholicism. God Bless!

        Reply
    • Anyone who kills a child is culpable. They know inside they are doing an injustice, but they chose the temptation and will to power.
      As we know from the example of Nazism and Hitler, thru great sacrifice and courage, ISIS can be coerced to silence.

      Reply
      • Any good Christian knows we cannot know the heart of someone else. People have a hard enough time these days being able to understand that for themselves let alone someone else. While we can judge someone’s actions, we cannot judge their heart. That is God’s domain alone. If these people truly believe they are doing the will of God, however disgustingly misguided, that is for God alone to judge their culpabilitty. However, I do believe we have recourse to fight in our self defense. We should not stand idly by and allow them to slaughter innocents simply because we cannot judge the culpability of their souls. I do believe God gives us a right to defend against unjust aggressors regardless of their motivations or misguided religious illusions.

        Reply
        • They would be culpable under human law, and more culpable under divine law. Whether that means purgatory or hell is the question.
          I think you confuse culpability with judgement. I leave it for you to see they are related but not the same.
          Many who have converted to the Christians faith, recognize they were lost in sin in their past life and that they have an new uncanny awareness they were responsible for it. Now whether that would have condemned them had they not converted, I can’t say for sure, but its plausible. Killing babies is a whole order of magnitude worst, and therefore even more plausible.
          I doubt they baby killers believe they truly believe they are doing the will of God. They are intoxicated with power, lust, and greed, and if by that standard they wish to believe they do the will of God, I doubt most are not culpable–some of whom are educated in the West.
          I believe the Christian understanding is that salvation is thru the Church. Those outside may be afforded salvation if they seek to do what is good, but killing a baby– they is no standard that justifies it outside the mind of pro-abortionists. The root of abortion mindedness is sexual hedonism, and similarly there is much culpability in that regard.

          Reply
  11. “By their fruit you will know them”….The west through their political correctness, read the left’s control of thought, has been muted on the threat of Islam. When I look at who aligns with Islam it is always the same groups, and all of the groups have one thing in common- Liberalism aka Progressivism aka Democrat aka Communist. Ideology trumps everything including religious faith and it seems self preservation. Why? Because their Ideology is their faith and their god has multiple heads; abortion, gay rights, socialism, but their hatred of the Judeo Christian God and anyone who professes that belief is paramount. This is the tie between Islam and the left and why the left will never condemn Islam, not matter what they do. They are brothers in the same fight. The fight is against every Christian and Jew that worships and practices their faith.

    If I am right our (Christian and Jews) enemies aren’t just the radical ISIS that are lopping off heads of children, but every faithful Moslem, every leftist and eventually anyone that passively sits back and allows these slaughters to occur. This is a purge that is going on and anyone that thinks this is going to stop after its over in the middle east doesn’t have a grasp of history. It will not end there it is only beginning and unless it is squashed it will only grow and spread like the cancer that it is. Bush understood this thus the wars, the current administration either is clueless or is an enabler. By doing nothing or offering token support to the rebels, the west is sealing its fate because once this hits critical mass and Islam believes they can win a war against the west it will be an all out blitz unlike anything we have seen in this world. Perhaps that is the apocalypse that Revelations talks about but it is obvious how this could play out- don’t forget they have nuclear warheads.

    Reply
  12. Insightful and borne out in the lives of the most committed adherents,
    even today: Christians, when fully committed become Saints, peaceful and
    loving to all. Muslims, when fully committed, embrace violence,
    destruction, and death. The Muslim professes not to have been evolved
    from the apes, but, sadly, it seems that they are rapidly getting there.
    Where are the voices of the moderate Muslims that oppose this senseless
    brutality in the name of their God and religion? Where are they????

    Reply
    • “Christians, when fully committed become Saints, peaceful and
      loving to all.”

      Even pagans too have Saints. True Christians become Apostles. Jesus the Lord had 12 and many more.

      Reply
  13. The problem as I see it, is that the majority of Muslims are like many Catholics nowadays (in the sense of people like you and I who simply want to live in peace and provide for their families) but they don’t know their faith. They are Muslim by culture only, perhaps praying at the mosque every now and then and submitting to the dictates of the theocracy in which they live.

    If the Muslim majority did know exactly what their faith teaches however, rather than blindly and tacitly following cultural and/or governmental control, I suspect at least some would apostatize. A few of the more educated ones on the national stage are doing just that. As it stands. the Muslim populous fearfully won’t dare cross the jihadists (some are sticking up for the Christians but not enough).

    My suggestion for us Christians right now is to pray (especially through the intercession of the Blessed Mother). Sure I would take up arms and defend my brother Christians in this just war cause as I suspect thousands if not millions of other Christian men worldwide would, if the pope had the power to call a crusade, but that isn’t going to happen. I remember Pope Benedict stating a few years back that the only hope for Christianity in the Middle East (and Europe) is that the Muslim majority convert in mass through the Blessed Mother, not an outlandish thought considering that many Muslims are devoted to Mary.

    Reply
    • “…the majority of Muslims are like many Catholics nowadays (in the sense
      of people like you and I who simply want to live in peace and provide
      for their families) but they don’t know their faith.”

      ” They are Muslim by culture only, perhaps praying at the mosque every now and then and submitting to the dictates of the theocracy in which they live.”

      What you say equally applies to all organized Religions. More of God in Jesus The Lord and less of Religion the BEST.

      As in the primitive Church we all need to be true APOSTLES of the Lord. Only Apostles can bring Jesus’ SALVATION to people and not anyone else.

      Reply
    • Both through Jesus who is “the way, truth, and the life” as well as through the Blessed Mother, prayers for the safety of the Christians for the conversion of Muslims to Christ.

      Reply
  14. I understand Pope Francis’ opinion in a way Mr. Bieszad apparently does not. Our holy one’s remarks fueled centuries of warfare between Muslims and Christians. Perhaps by expressing our differences in another way, without forgetting the very substance of our differences as expressed by the saints of the past, we might be able to avert a continuation of world warfare between us and the Muslim world.

    I stand with the Pope, and with his personal opinion.

    Reply
    • Well it certainly hasn’t worked so far has it? YOU may not be interested in war with Islam, but Islam is interested in war with YOU. Whether you like it or face it.

      Reply
  15. True.
    The muslim religion carried to its fullest extent,is a scary barbaric religion,that dosent wish peace on others,to choose and lead a happy peaceful life,on the contrary,it wishes subjugation to the muslim religion,if not the disenters are chased out or beheaded.
    This religion is a scourge on any country on which it gains a foothold and ultimatly ruling over its masses.
    Any doubt about what I have or others that have been crititcal of it,need look no further than Iran,Syria,lebanon,Lybia,Indonesia,Ghaza,and now trying to spread to Egypt and turkey.

    Reply
  16. Ah..Cafeteria Catholicism is alive and well. We are upset with our Pope who dares challenge us to live the Gospel. And I seemed to have missed reading one of the most powerful encounters between a saint and Islam. St Francis of Assisi refused to embrace the culture of mutual hate and fear and instead went to to leader of the Moslem forces knowing martyrdom was very possible. Their encounter is a true illustration on what can happen when we live out our faith in love instead of locking it in fear.

    Reply
    • We don’t have to HATE them. But we better get off of our Pacifist behinds and FIGHT them. As you bleat your lamb like words, our Christian Brothers and Sisters are being beheaded, burned, buried, and sexually enslaved.

      I have worked with Muslims in the West Bank. I LOVED them, as I acted as an instrument of healing, trying to live the Prayer of St. Francis and I know I changed some hearts, but I have no illusions. EVIL IS ACTING THROUGH ISLAM. Face it, and like St. Catherine said, FIGHT THE INFIDELS OF ISLAM before they destroy US. They have no wish for peace.

      Convert or die. Those are your choices to Boko Harem, ISIS, and Taliban.

      Reply
    • Hold it! Don’t misrepresent what St. Francis of Assisi did. He went to convert the Muslims (Saracens) and did not succeed, but he didn’t leave them thinking they were a bunch of nice guys and hey, can’t we all just get alone, live and let live. He knew what they were, and saw them as lost, pagans. He looked for martyrdom, because he knew to condemn Mohamed to their face was to ask for beheading. God had other plans, but it wasn’t because Francis was being ecumenical.

      And remember the contemporaneous account of the Miracle of St. Clare by Thomas of Celano, that as the Muslims were climbing the walls of San Damiano, into the very cloister, she left her sick bed and held a monstrance with Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist up, and said to Him:

      “Behold, my Lord, is it possible that Thou wouldst deliver into the hands of pagans Thy defenseless slaves, whom I have taught out of love for Thee? I pray Thee, Lord,
      protect these Thy slaves whom I cannot now save by myself.”
      Suddenly a voice resounded in her ears from the tabernacle: “I will always protect you!”
      “My Lord,” she added, “if it is Thy wish, protect also this city which is sustained by Thy love.’
      Christ replied, “It will have to undergo many trials, but it will be defended by My protection.”
      Then the virgin, raising a face bathed in tears, comforted the sisters: “I assure you, daughters, that you will suffer no evil; only have faith in Christ.”
      Upon seeing the courage of the sisters, the Saracens took flight and fled back over the walls they had scaled, unnerved by the strength of the sister whom they saw praying. And Clare immediately warned those who heard the voice I spoke of above, ordering them sternly: “Take care not to tell anyone about that voice while I am still alive, dearest
      daughters.” Thomas of Celano, The History of St. Clare, Virgin.

      Do you not think these holy women feared rape followed by death, or enslavement? Don’t be fooled, the Catholics in Italy were under no illusion about the fierceness or intention of the Muslims.

      Reply
      • Indeed St Francis did go to convert the Muslims. I never indicated otherwise. But he went in the love of God respecting the people to whom he was going a also made in God’s image. St Francis refused to buy into the fear and judgement, and popular hates of his day. He simply sought to live the Gospel of our Lord for the conversion of his soul and souls of all he encountered.

        Reply
  17. Remember how the JEWS even the devout kind Jews were thought of and treated by these same saints. Now condemn the taking of the lives of several families for one tooth and killing the children in schools and hospitals for one eye.

    Reply
    • Which Jews, which Saints? You know these particular Jews were kind and devout and completely innocent because? I sincerely doubt the Church would canonize people who treated truly innocent people horrible. Names, dates, citations?

      Reply
      • So where are the same saints quotations on Jews? Did they say ANYTHING about them and lets compare what they said about Muslims and about Jews? What did Catholics say about Protestants? So get this into proper perspective. I have know really humble gracious Muslims and those who are not very nice at all and those in between. In Libya our nations UKUS were on the same side as the same evildoers who commited the atrocities in Syria and Iraq but our news barely mentioned the numerous horrific sadistic atrocities about what the evildoers we supported in Libya did –or what NATO really did. So you believe in magic humanitarian bombing? .

        Reply
  18. This is a very helpful article, just what I’ve been looking for! It’s vital to know what the giants of the Catholic faith have taught about Islam. Our current pope seems to be ignorant of basic teachings of the Church, so we’re in trouble. I’ve read a little of the Koran & books that explain Islam’s teachings. ISIS is following the teachings of the Koran very well. Islam is an ideology like Communism; a true religion worships the one true God, not an antichrist or a demon. People who believe in God don’t slaughter tens of millions of people in the name of religion.

    Reply
  19. On the mosque with the golden dome in Jerusalem there is an arabic inscription that says : God has NO SON. While walking on the Via Dolorosa for the Way of the Cross a few Arabs started talking to me and stated : Jesus NEVER died on the Cross, the apostles put an impostor in His place and helped Jesus escape !! I lived and worked as a nurse in Jerusalem for several years.

    Reply
    • Once one elderly Muslim insistently invited me to enter his Mosque to have a chat. At last I obliged. He said at the outset, “We don’t believe Jesus is Son of God.” And I replied that may be all right for you, BUT for me he is Son of God my Savior.” And I told him what Jesus DID for me and THROUGH ME : healings, miracles…and he and some young trainees who were listening kept quiet and I walked out. I also told him about a Muslim Maulavi who became a Catholic Christian preacher. His (Name : Maulavi Sulaiman, who became MARIO JOSEPH) biography is titled, “IN SEARCH OF YOU”. He preaches at THE DIVINE retreat centre, Kerala, INDIA, where thousand come from all Religions and and are carried away by Christ The Lord.

      Please search on GOOGLE. In THE DIVINE there are many true APOSTLES of The Lord proclaiming his Word and witnessing to his Kingdom.

      Reply
  20. Islam is a sinister worldview and should be opposed at every level. There are millions of good people who are ensnared by Islam and we should help set them free from the bonds of that evil religion. However, we may now reside in a Church that embraces Islam as a valid system of belief. I don’t know where the Catholic Church stands.

    Reply
  21. ISIS will never stop as they live on the hate of everyone that does not follow their brand of Islam. Right or wrong they will be the cause of the next major world war. It will pit Muslim’s against Christians all over the world as they truly believe that everybody that does not convert must be killed (beheaded). There is no talking to them and they will never change and if the Muslim’s ever combine their strength, God Help all Christians.

    Reply
  22. I learned in public high school that Islam is “a religion of the sword – convert or die.” Read the Encyclopedia Americana about Muhammad and how he was “directed by God” to start this new religion. See if that was a God you would want to be associated with.

    Reply
  23. I don’t see the Pope saying we should avoid hateful generalizations of Islam as an endorsement. It is consistent with his messages of love, forgiveness and redemption. Whereas hate, especially generalized across an entire group, leads to persecutions and death. And precludes thought of conversion and redemption.

    And he might be right about the Koran. I thought the most incendiary Islamic teachings were in alternate writings such as the Hadith.

    Don’t get me wrong- I side with the saints in my views on Islam. But if we believe in mercy, even followers of a cult are eligible for redemption. I read the Pope’s comment as not judging individuals through generalizations. Remember, as we judge others, that is the standard that will be used by God in judging us.

    Reply
    • C O E X I S T E N C E

      “COEXIST” the latest command

      of the “New World Order” band

      live and let live

      no need to forgive

      for there ain’t no sin

      each living their own spin

      Coexistence a cold and loveless word

      in a cold and loveless earth

      for they have declared God dead

      and worship themselves instead

      mankind in his selfish pride

      orchestrates the worldwide divide

      but LOVE will return as LOVE

      He begs us to throw in the glove

      to run away from the dragon

      to escape the devil’s paddy wagon

      to turn to the Eternal Light

      be our heart broken but contrite

      He will cleanse us thoroughly

      from all sin and iniquity

      we will live as brothers and sisters

      no need to send us any twisters

      no more armies, no more wars

      no more enemies at our doors.

      be watchful, children, be on guard

      keep Me constant in your heart

      My return date you don’t know

      but Myself suddenly I will show

      in a new and peaceful Jerusalem

      a new birth in a new Bethlehem

      Rita Biesemans November 18 2012

      Reply
  24. Greater minds than of St. Thomas Aquinas’, are rare. His observation of this deception is exactly right.
    The cult of Islam is indeed the False Religion.

    Reply
  25. “What do the saints have to say about Islam?”

    And what about what The Lord himself has told about them? In contrast what the Lord has told is better or rather THE BEST, so we can safely forget what the Saints have said. Following The Lord, Keeping his Word and doing his Word will make us ALL his APOSTLES. His Apostles will eliminate all EVILS and EVIL DOERS from the World under the guidance, direction and protection of his Holy Spirit by proclaiming his Word of SALVATION for ALL. The CHURCH-PERSONNEL who take themselves for THE CHURCH are a poor substitute for the Lord’s APOSTLES .Get the people YOUNG or OLD who are open-minded and humble exposed to the Word ministry that is going on in retreat centres like THE DIVINE and THE SEHION, in Kerala, INDIA, and you will see the difference.

    There was a time when the 12 Apostles were living cowardly and fearful lives BUT later came a time when the Spirit of Jesus found them FIT and overtook them as was also the case much later with Saul who became Paul; there came a U-turn. From this very moment the Apostles were just the opposite, courageous and daring to DIE for The Lord, even so they started to REJOICE when they were found worthy to SUFFER on account of The Lord. Well, this is true LIFE. Let us not DIE before death comes BUT DIE FOR THE LORD for in anyway we all have to DIE ONE DAY.

    Reply
  26. Great article! It is well noreworthy to be informed… What the Pope says at this time about Islam and the Koran cannot yet be evaluated because no quotes have been given for discernment. It was only an opinion… I love my Catholic and the Saints who are already in Heaven, as they have been proclaimed Saints because they are in Heaven prove to be closer to the truth… Thank you for this enlightening article.

    Many Blessings

    Reply
  27. Read “Apocalypse – Letter by Letter” for an analysis of where Islam fits in Revelation. It seems the ‘Mountain Burning With Fire” is spreading. All it needs is for the completion of the secularization of Roman Christendom and the removal of the papacy for the culmative act of God to cleanse his flock.

    Reply
  28. The Christian World is WISE only by half. It is built mostly by human cleverness; how can it then stand? YES OF COURSE it will stand if the BISHOPS and People become true APOSTLES of The Lord. For LIFE in the Church needs to be WORD OF GOD based. All other things with which the people and leaders are occupied are secondary.

    Reply
  29. As the Dietrich Bonhoeffer said in Germany
    during the years leading up to the “final solution” of the Third
    Reich, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us
    guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

    Reply
  30. “……avoid hateful generalisations, for authentic Islam and the proper
    reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence. (p. 253)”

    INSTITUTIONALIZED Christianity’s Churches and their Pastors believe they have a duty to win the good will of some at least from the other side and thus SAVE their SHEEP being slaughtered. This is called practicality.

    Reply
  31. Attacking anybody’s FAITH is not desirable or good. Let people be responsible for what they DO or BELIEVE. Respect FREEDOM of people.

    The work of true Christians is to PROCLAIM God’s Word of SALVATION. The Lord it is who said, “This IS WHY I came.” i.e. to proclaim, to preach the Word.

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  32. Islam means complete submission to the will of God. Strange how in the name of Islam, people can murder children and women and mass murder people who are believers Muslims and Christians alike. The USUK united with the terrorists of Libya to slay the people of Libya and we called it humanitarianism. David Cameron was going on about what his Christian faith means to him. If our governments were serious about tackling ISIS, they would not be asking Assad to step down or trying to orchestrate regime change through the use of ISIS.

    Reply
    • You ‘forgot’ to add Islam effectively is in practice submission only as defined by the prophet Mohammed, a prophet who has all the weaknesses to flesh and power one can imagine. But you’re right about Assad.

      Reply
  33. “Jews by reason of their fault are sentenced to perpetual servitude” for killing Jesus.

    He also claimed “Jews may not keep those things which they have extorted from others through usury”. He added “the Jew should be punished with a greater fine than anyone else in a similar case.”

    Later in the letter, he wrote “Jews of each sex in all Christian provinces, and all the time, should be distinguished from other people by some clothing.”

    (In other words, Saint Thomas Aquinas supported forcing Jews to wear badges… Sound familiar?)

    Reply
  34. Saints? This discussion is on Saints and Islam?

    What about the greatest Saint?

    Did all my fellow brother and sister Catholic Christians just FORGET about the Blessed Mother?

    What would Blessed Mother do?

    Humility to start with…not screaming for blood.

    Reply
  35. The Bishop of Rome is our Pope and our Cross and his statement about Mahometanism is wildly wrong; in fact, the most faithful followers of the psychotic murdering pederast are those whom we deride as terrorists for they actualise the putative commands of Allah as recored in the Koran and as put into practice by the putatively perfect man, Mahomet, and whose malign and mephitic behavior (part John Gotti, part David Koresh as described by Serdja Trifokovic), as recorded in the Hadiths and Sira, have been the cause of so much madness, mayhem, and murder.

    The willful blindness and masonic orientation (all faiths are essentially the same and all men are basically good) of our Hierarchy is a sick, sad, joke

    Reply
  36. Those persecuting the Christians are also persecuting the Muslims and murdering them en masse. Let us face this truth.

    The terrorists in Iraq, Libya Syria Iraq are an abomination to the Muslims like the paedo priests have been an abomination to us Catholics. Let us look at the ISIS as an abomination, as Salafist/takfiri/wahhabi/extremist/politically manipulated/abomination of Islam which is our enemy. AND also the enemy of the Muslim people.
    Let us have some reason and truth and charity towards the Muslim people who are suffering like the Christians.
    Our USUK government though, we should be hard on them and metaphorically kick their rumps until they cease funding the terrorists as their proxy armies for regime changes. You do know that Assad is the best thing for Syria right now. The Syrian people certainly think so and voted him back in with an increased majority.
    I will not be part of any anti ~Islam movement in the Catholic church, any more than I would be part of an anti Judaic movement.. I denounce ISIS as not being of Islam and the treatment of the Palestinians as not being of Judaism and the paedo priest as not being of Catholicism.

    Reply
  37. Everywhere in the Koran where these seek to justify these filthy actions being false & abusing it, there is also another part which totally condemns this and condemns it in greater clarity. If it says in the Koran that these will be die, it does not say that WE should kill them, rather it means go to hell and lose eternal life. Rather than judge without studying it yourself, try to read the actual Koran yourself and remember that some bits of the OT do not seem that nice.
    Try to read in context and do not be like the infidels the sadistic terrorists in their reading of it. They are told to not have elaborate gravestones over a foot high. They read this as you must desecrate graveyards.

    Reply
    • Can it, sister. You do not have the first clue what you are talking about. ISIS leaders have specific teachings in the Koran, Hadiths,and Sira that justify everything – EVERYTHING – that they are doing; rape,murder, mayhem, forced conversions, killing other muslims etc etc etc

      Spare us your ignorant pontificating. You have no idea what you are talking about

      Any person can google Jihad Watch and watch the David Wood video posted there about Obama and reality land and in the comments section there is a link to a more recent David Wood video that cites chapter and verse proving that what ISIS does is entirely in keeping with what Mahomet did andordered his followers to do.

      Please can it. Just STOP.

      Reply
      • maybe you should stop looking at such biased sources for all of your information. As for ISIS having the truth of Islam. Unlike Catholics Islam does not have a central authority. It has many schools of though and belief with varrying views. Many extremists follow Wahabbism, which is essentially fundamentalism on steroids where they say they have the true interpretation and persecute any other Muslims who don’t agree with them.
        There are over 20000 groups calling themselves Christians who believe they have the true interpretation of the Bible and that the others are obviously wrong. Is it that hard to believe that ISIS is more than willing to manipulate their scriptures to conform to their beliefs and ideology?
        An example, Islam forbids suicide very strongly, but extremists twist suicide bombings as heroic sacrifices, thereby being martyrdom (which is good to both Christians and Muslims)

        Reply
        • Spencer…Please tell us what books do these ‘many schools of thought’ follow? There are but 2 sects in islam…sunni & shia the sunni follow all the calif’s and the Shia do not follow the first three because they are not mohammed but sunni calif’s. Both sects are commanded by the books of islam to murder, enslave or kill ALL Kuffar [non-muslim’s, infidels].
          Yes islam forbids sucide EXCEPT by way of JIHAD.

          I suspect that it is you Spencer that doesn’t understand islam. Please tell us of the 5 pillars of islam and how any muslim can be peaceful when following these 5 pillars that are a must to be a muslim.

          Reply
          • 5 pillars of Islam:

            1. Professing the faith, the typical “No God but Allah” thing
            2. Prayer 5 times a day
            3. Giving Zakat (Alms)
            4. Fasting during Ramadaan
            5. If possible travel to Mecca at least once in someone’s life.

            I don’t see where the violence comes in, unless you are fiercely against people who give alms, pray several times a day, fast and actually profess their faith and go on pilgrimage.
            And in additions to the two main divisions of Muslims there are many schools of Islam within Sunni Islam and among Shia.
            Frankly they’re almost as divided as protestants because there’s no central authority and a lot of scholars who differ greatly in interpreting the Quran and other Hadith scriptures that vary in how accepted they are.
            There’s also the question of if Muslims are all a bunch of murder the infidel crazies how Christian communities are still around today in the mid east instead of being wiped out hundreds of years ago.
            Sucicide in Jihad is one of the cases of some group who came up with a way to try to justify their tactics by interpreting teachings to fit into their actions.

          • 1st Pillar is only half correct…NICE TRY…No God but allah AND mohammed is the prophet of allah and ‘must’ be followed.

            Yes the English translations many times ‘skip’ this, BUT
            muslims CAN NOT, they must strive to ’emulate’ mohammeds life to be concidered GOOD muslims.

            Now if you look at history you will see mohammed, raped non-muslims [Kafir (singular of non-muslim) Kuffar (plural of non-muslims), murdered non-muslims, lied to non-muslims and enslaved non-muslims as well
            murdered all that tried to leave islam.

            Please learn of islam to know the truth of its evil; read its books; qur’an (AKA koran), hadith and sira [they are all available on internet or amazon]. You will quickly see the hadith and sira are only about
            mohammeds life so that muslims can strive to follow it.

            REMEMBER: NO MUSLIM can be a muslim without emulating mohammeds ways or the way he commanded others to live. ANY muslim that doesn’t follow this is a non-muslim or ‘a confused’ muslim and according to islam can and must be killed.

            So the term ‘moderate’ muslim is a fallacy, to trick Kuffar; it is known in islam as the practice of Al-Taqiyah (sometimes spelled Taqiyya, Taqiya or Taquiya), meaning lying to Kuffar to gain the upper hand to overpower them.

          • Taqiyya is traditionally associated with Shia Muslims and covers the idea of being able to lie in order to survive persecution since for most of their history Shia Muslims have been the minority and often persecuted by the Sunni majority. It doesn’t have to do with the paranoid idea that their religion requires lying to overcome all non Muslims, especially since that wasn’t a method of the Muslim conquests.

            Interestingly many Christian groups such as the Copts, Assyrians and such heretics were actually better off under Muslim rule as second class citizens who just had to pay a tax, than under Byzantine rule where they were persecuted since they were heretics. If Muslims all just killed every non Muslim in general then these groups wouldn’t have endured for so long.

          • Our brothers and sisters in Christ are being slaughtered in the name of Islam and you choose to speak in defense of the religion and God that beheads them?
            Sorry I have to say that after all this is a catholic website and it seems there is to much discussion here defending the Antichrist religion and not exposing its wickedness.
            Not by everyone here but a small minority, so please remember before you type.

            Any that deny Jesus Christ is the son of God is the Antichrist and liar!!!

          • this is a really old comment (I had forgotten about this and I don’t really have the time or attention to get involved in another argument here.

            But I’d like to say that my concern for the state of Christians in the Mid East is great.

            However I take issue with your implication that because I’m not happily falling in line in joining in propaganda I’m being the servant of the Antichrist.

            It’s useless for discussion and serves nothing other than trying to shut up people with other views by demonizing them (rather literally)

          • Well said John- the bottom line is Islam denies Jesus’ Divinity and the very existence of the Holy Spirit, therefore it is evil because it leads it’s followers away from Christ and the Salvation He died to earn for us! There really is NO other way for the sincere Christian to see it except as an anti-Christ ideaology and therefore Satanic.

      • If you want verses from the Qur’an that justify ISIS then you only have to look at Sura 9:5 and 9:29. Also note that these verses are among the last uttered by Mohammed, and therefore “abrogate” all earlier verses of the Qur’an. The doctrine of abrogation makes Islam deceptive as well as evil.

        Then we have the jihad against the Jews, in hadith Sahih Muslim 6985 (Google it), and this drives the war against Israel and why no matter how much land Israel surrenders it will never we enough for Islam.

        See how evil Mohammed was, and how evil the real Islamic doctrines are:
        http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Main_Page

        Reply
    • What is the context of the Koran Ursalariches . . . Tell us where you, a “Catholic”, teach foreign students.

      I ask the previous and this; do you practice “Taqiyya” [for all it literally means: “Concealing, precaution, guarding]

      Sahih Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 67, Number 427: “By Allah, and Allah willing, if I take an oath and later find something else better than that. Then I do what is better and expiate my oath.’ ”

      Others use this technique as well, such as Sheik Hilali and the late Yasser Arafat are both publicly record as ‘condemning’ the 9/11 attacks, in ambiguous terms, to the Western media while praising the suicide bombings, or “ martyrdom operations”, to their Arabic speaking audiences.

      Ursalariches, do you believe in jihad against the unbelievers?

      Reply
      • Interestingly Taquiyya was an area of thought for Shia Muslims only for the idea that in Sunni dominated countries they could pretend to accept Sunni teachings to avoid being killed.
        Technically Sunnis allow a believer to be forced to say they accept a teaching if its forced upon them, but only in dire circumstances.
        It’s a way of surviving persecution not infiltrating.

        Reply
        • Spencer, your study is either weak [you are new to studying it or you are a muslim, dhimmi trying to cover for islam], muhammed used taquiyya several times in his short life as a ‘prophet’…try researching the hadith and sira; I have.

          Reply
          • Does it make it easier for you if you can just discredit anyone who disagrees with you by claiming that people are really just Muslims in hiding who’s evil plan requires going around the internet to battle people in a comment forum?

    • All peacful versus in the Qur’an written in the early Meccan era were superseded by the violent Median Hijara era. This is known as abrogation. The Hadith’s record the sayings and actions of Muhammad, a man considered in Islam to be the perfect example of human conduct. Having read the Hadith’s myself I can say without reservation that this man was probably the most evil and vile individual to have ever walked the earth.

      Reply
  38. Ursularchis-The muslims who are being subject to ISIS in these countries are not the ones being told to convert or face the sword.

    Reply
  39. There were some quotes from St Thomas re the Jews. The letter he wrote is sensitive today of course. I think it reflects his fairness and moderation if read within the age he lived. Re the comment on distinctive clothing…every one had distinctive clothing. The class and occupation defined clothing. Certain fabrics and colours were restricted to the upper classes, the middle classes wearing browns, greys and the muddier colours.
    This is the particular quote from the Letter about distinctive clothing….note St Thomas merely suggests they wear their OWN distinctive clothing which sits with their own law.

    “Jews of each sex in all Christian provinces, and all the time, should be distinguished from other people by some clothing. This is also mandated to them by their own law, namely that they make for themselves fringes on the four corners of their cloaks, through which they are distinguished from others.”

    Here is the link to the full letter by St Thomas in response to questions about how to treat Jews as inhabitants within a certain aristocrats jurisdiction.

    http://www.ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/primary-texts-from-the-history-of-the-relationship/268-Aquinas

    At the same time, none of it has become Church Law or anything like Divine Law.

    Reply
  40. What is clear is that we are afraid of the influence and instability of Islam. What happens, has happened through history both recent and past.
    I think this is a reasonable fear and not irrational. In which case Islamophobia is a realistic state of mind!
    What is also clear is that for the most part people today are willing to live with difference of all sorts. But what can’t be accepted is that someone else’s difference threatens the safety of others.
    We can accept this as how we should live as friends and strangers together.
    So the question is really how to stop the violence and most importantly, which is the first mandate of every government…to keep their people safe.
    Thinking about God in this…I don’t think God teaches that death of the body is the worst thing but the death of the soul.
    Islam needs Christ.
    To live under Islam is worse than death.

    Reply
  41. The more one learns about Mahomet and his adepts, the more sickened one
    becomes. While we have Popes and Prelates telling us that we
    worship the same God, the reality is quite different.

    Think about this mephitic doctrine of Mahometanism. It is the doctrine (from Mahomet his own self) that Christian amen and Jewish men will be cast into hell by Allah but the
    wives of these Christian men and Jewish men will be taken-up into
    Heaven to serve as sex slaves for Mahomet and his adepts.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbpAXRfbE-A

    Reply
  42. Fun fact, many Christians in many regions of the former Byzantine Empire actually enjoyed more freedom under Arab rule after the conquests because they had been illegal and seen as heretics by the Byzantines and so were persecuted.
    But in all seriousness. I am terrified of a day when Christians decide that the extremists are right. When Christians decide they must battle all Muslims in a mutually destroying war that would likely lead to the corruption of well intentioned Christians, perhaps driving them to believe it is alright to force others to convert or oppress those who don’t.
    Groups like ISIS are evil true, but the good news is that in most cases when evil shows its face most people choose to fight it. The world is turning against ISIS, Shia, Sunni, Yazid, Christians, they all realize that they are facing evil in that region and many are taking action already, and while many others are too scared to act, with unity between faiths I believe they can be victorious

    Reply
  43. Excellent article, though I do differ on one point. Trying to evangelize muslims before we de-militarize them is a recipe for certain extinction. They are already proving how clever they are by creating a “cultural jihad” by which they intend to conquer the world through immigration, infiltration, and out breeding the West. Their plan is essentially flawless unless they succoumb too quickly to their inherent tendency toward violence. If they can maintain their “peaceful” appearance, however false it is, they will indeed conquer the world without ever having to go to war.

    The Saints were definitely correct about islam. Their wisdom must be exposed to the world and accepted by it or the world is doomed to slavery and death with no hope of ever being free again.

    Reply
  44. Very interesting discussion. Allow me to submit my two cents worth. I think those who are in denial of the evidence of Islam in this dialogue have missed the point of the original post quoting the saints. The state of western civilization’s attitude toward Islam today is a direct result of the fact that we no longer teach or study history. Islam has a long, long past — 1400 years of history to reflect upon. It is a vicious and bloody religion which anthropologists say has been responsible for the violent deaths of 250,000,000 people over its history. The truth is that while we muse over the World Wars and the Napoleonic Wars, all the great wars of Europe before the 18th century were fought resisting Islamic “proselyzation.” And now we are at it again and no one seems to remember.

    They have never heard of The Battle of Tours in the in 732 when Muslim armies were stopped in France after having taken all of Spain. They don’t know that Islam held Christian Spain for 800 years. They have not been told of the sieges of Constantinople and its vicious sacking in 1453 leaving the Balkans open to conquest. Who can tell the story of their medieval “nuclear option” — the hideous Janissaries — the Berzerkers of Islam. Does any remember the sieges of Vienna, the last of which was finally broken by the Poles on September 11, 1683. Has anyone even heard of the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 when the weaker and lighter naval forces of Christian Europe met the massive Islamic navy off the coast of Greece on its way to Italy and, according to Pope Pius V and the rosaries of millions of Catholics, by the grace of God and the intervention of Mary, defeated it. (In thanksgiving the Pope instituted the feast of Our Lady of Victory and required all Catholics to abstain from meat on Friday — except for the Spaniards who led the battle fleet.)

    It proselytizes by terror and death killing the “infidel” and converting the survivors. They even kill their own without compunction. Its precepts are diametrically opposed to Christian philosophy. All culture is rooted in religion and whether we admit it or not Western Culture is Christian culture. Where Christians preach forgiveness, Muslims believe in vengeance; Where Christians are mandated to charity, Muslims are charitable only to their immediate relatives and friends (name a great world Islamic charity); Where Christians believe in the equality of all souls before God (of which democracy and women’s rights are eventual offshoots), Muslims believe in a hierarchical society led by a caliph or strongman (democracy is antithetical to Islam).

    Islam’s goal is to convert the entire world to Islam. That is the end game of ISIL and Al Qaeda and Khorasan and all the other offshoots. But will the politicians and the media tell us that? They won’t even let us hear the rantings of their spokesmen who will tell you straight out that they want to see the flag of Allah flying over the US Capitol. But Allah needs their help, they believe, to convert the world and he wants them to do it by killing people.

    Let me next state certain basic realities: There are over 1.2 billion muslims in the world. Not all of them are violent; not all of them are willing to die for Allah unless they have to. Only a small percentage of them are willing to join the Jihad. Islam today is like most religions – There are four divisions: Those who are adherents in name only; those who are liberal and progressive believers; those who are reform believers; and the fundamentalists who are true believers. The latter are the ones we are threatened by and are fighting. We don’t know what percentage of the 1.2 billion are fundamentalists but we do know that we don’t want to fight all 1.2 billion of them across the planet. And if we threaten their cherished religion, even the least devote is likely to fight. The politicians have to walk a fine line between the fundamentalists and the rest of world-wide Islam. Maybe that’s what Pope Francis is doing when he made his recent pronunciation – leaving room for the moderates within Islam.

    One other reality is that while Christianity is based on the New Testament in which Jesus spoke to the ages in metaphors and parables that can be interpreted from age to age, the Koran, Haditha and Sharia are 7th Century codes delivered to the people by the “last prophet of God” and is very, very specific, speaking to a people who lived in the 7th Century. And it is all encompassing. It is both religion and politics, government and law, covering every phase of human life – in the 7th Century. Who is to amend or rewrite the word of the Last Prophet of God as delivered to him by and angel of God? Who is to contradict the Prophet?

    Reply
    • The best solution is to reach out and convert the Muslims, first in the West. Most of them don’t know their religion–and in the west aren’t even taught it fully or accurately. In principle the conversion should be easy: the Koran statements about they claim Christian believe about the Trinity is so false and ludicrous, that it can be used to challenge the accuracy of the Koran. And if one inaccuracy is found, then it follows the Koran could not have been dictated by a good angel or by God’s consent. They are many such examples to be found.
      In Africa, Muslims are converting in mass to the Catholic church.

      Reply
      • Muslims are commanded not to read the bible, but they should be invited to voluntarily do so, where it is safe for them to do so, so that they can shed their misconceptions. One this is done, it becomes fairly obvious that the Bible is divinely inspired, in comparison to the Koran which only reflects the human desires and perceptions of the prophet.

        Reply
      • You say that the best solution is to convert the Muslims. ” In principle the conversion should be easy:” Oh? What would it take to convince you to renounce the divinity of Christ? Religion is an odd thing. It is passed down from generation to generation almost as though it were contained in the genes. It is the most difficult thing in the world to change in people. Those who do convert to one religion or another are usually people who had no firm religion in the first place. But remember also, Islam is much more than a religion. It is a mindset. It encompasses more than just theological beliefs. It is government, philosophy, even science. Furthermore, it is a capital offense to convert from Islam or to attempt to convert anyone else away from Islam. Maybe you could convert some weak or tepid western muslims who are only cultural Islamics but it isn’t these that pose the threat of the fundamentalists. But ultimately the problem is the existence of Islam in and of itself because it acts as a justifier and enabler for all the world’s sociopaths and psychopathic killers who want to kill and torture people and who need an umbrella to shelter their primal urges.

        Reply
        • First of all, you don’t follow thru with the logical conclusion that naturally follows from your last paragraph.

          2nd, to your main point:

          It would be very easy to convince me to renounce the divinity of Christ if you give me convincing proof.

          And I would submit to you that that the majority of people in the West have turned away from the living God they were taught about and which was part of their culture. Very easy indeed, because of what they perceive are weaknesses of believing.

          Furthermore, the number of Catholics in Africa has increased in the last 10 to 15 years from roughly 20-30 million to roughly 140-150 million. Most from the Muslim faith, and today probably at a faster rate than yesterday because of what they perceive is the destructiveness of Isalm, as they can see from themselves in the news.
          The evidence is not with you.

          Reply
          • Maybe it would be easy to convince you that Jesus was a fraud but speak for yourself. Religious faith is just that. It does not require “convincing proof”. That’s probably why even the absurd religions cling to us through the centuries. If Marx and Lenin had tied communism to religion it would still be with us in force.

            As far as the conversions of Africans: I am sure you are right that there have been such mass conversions. I cannot speak to the socio-religious issues involving Africa and Africans. But somehow I don’t see that happening or any chance of it happening amongst Arabs and Middle-Easterners. Think of trying to convert Isreali Jews to Christianity. Not likely.

            So how practical is your solution? I think only God can solve the problem. As impractical as it sounds to a person without faith (I don’t mean you — only generally) it would probably be more practical to urge prayer rather than proselyzation and conversion of Muslims. (especially since they will cut your head off if you try … or at least put you in prison for life, e.g. the Iranian-American Christian pastor serving time in an Iranian prison for his efforts.)

            BTW, I don’t know what you mean by “follow thru with the logical conclusion that naturally follows from your last paragraph.” What logical conclusion do you think “naturally follows”?

  45. Galatians 1:6-9
    3
    Grace be to you, and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ,

    4
    Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this
    present wicked world, according to the will of God and our Father:

    5
    To whom is glory for ever and ever. Amen.

    6
    I wonder that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel.

    7
    Which is not another: only there are some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ.

    8
    But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you
    besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.

    9
    As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a
    gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.

    Reply
  46. Mohammed has an experience he discerns is demonic. He tells his wife Khadija, an older and ambitious woman, about it. She convinces him it was a divine revelation. Because she sees its potential as a means of organizing the animist tribes on the Arabian Peninsula into an efficient and conquering army. The rest is history. The motivations and goals of Islam have remained the same since the 7th Century and are spelled out clearly in the Koran – world domination through conversion of infidels by force.

    Reply
  47. Great and true as all these quotes are, the reality is that there’s also a body of Islamic hermeneutics, however small this body might be or little airtime they get, advocating for a peaceful, pluralistic Islam. It is the responsibility of the Pope and world leaders to appeal to these voices as the voices of Islamic reason and respectful coexistence in lieu of the others looking for civilizational confrontation.

    I’m also in favor of active missionary evangelism directed against Muslim and vigorous apologetics – but I’m not going to support anything resembling perpetual war, and I mean a war that actually kills people and breaks things, unless it is a last defensive resort for the people involved, as a solution to Islamic militancy.

    May the Holy Spirit grant us the prudence to recognize the opportunity of peace and seize it wisely.

    +JMJ,
    ~Theo

    Reply
  48. Hereunder is a declaration of the Archbishop of Mosul now in exile inErbil (Iraq):
    “Our sufferings today are the prelude of those that you, Europeans and Western Christians, will also suffer in the near future,” said the archbishop. “I lost my diocese. The physical setting of my apostolate has been occupied by Islamic radicals who want us converted or dead. But my community is still alive.”
    “Please, try to understand us,” he said. “Your liberal and democratic principles are worth nothing here. You must consider again our reality in the Middle East, because you are welcoming in your countries an ever growing number of Muslims.”
    “Also, you are in danger,” said the archbishop. “You must take strong and courageous decisions, even at the cost of contradicting your principles.”
    “You think all men are equal, but that is not true: Islam does not say that all men are equal,” said Archbishop Nona. “Your values are not their values. If you do not understand this soon enough, you will become the victims of the enemy you have welcomed in your home.”

    Reply
  49. I have been back and forth about Islam and it’s relevance. Your article has given me much to think about as a practicing Catholic. Perhaps it is best to back off from promoting Islam and teach our own people about our beliefs and traditions as Catholics. So much about the Quran makes me very nervous.

    Reply
  50. St. John Paul II,

    May Saint John Baptist protect Islam and all the people of Jordan, and all who partecipated in this celebration, a memorable celebration. I’m very grateful to all of you.”

    JUBILEE PILGRIMAGE
    OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II
    TO THE HOLY LAND (MARCH 20-26, 2000)

    VISIT TO WADI AL-KHARRAR
    PRAYER OF THE HOLY FATHER

    Tuesday, 21 March 2000

    Reply
  51. What Pope Francis said mimics Obama and the Left in America. I have reserved judgment of this Pope until now. I have just not had the enthusiasm of my friends in his regard. The fact that he is a Jesuit and from Argentina has done nothing to make my uneasiness flee. In fact, it has done just the opposite. He is wrong in his statement regarding Islam, it is the typical
    “do-gooder” statement and let’s not offend, let us be ‘oh, so tolerant,’ instead of stating the truth as Jesus would have done. The spirit of this world creeps in to high places indeed. I feel very disappointed in Pope Francis’s stance on Islam and I wonder does he read the Koran and the Hadiths of Islam does he not see the violence, the hate and the malice contained therein. Thank you for the quotes of the Saints in regard to Islam. Thank you for keeping this website up and running. It is needed.

    Reply
  52. Statements like his lead me to doubt the validity of this modern Church. Islam is responsible for the deaths of our modern holy Stephans.

    Reply
  53. (3) Now in the Catholic Church itself we take the greatest care to hold that which has been believed everywhere, always and by all. That is truly and properly ‘Catholic,’ as is shown by the very force and meaning of the word, which comprehends everything almost universally. We shall hold to this rule if we follow universality [i.e. oecumenicity], antiquity, and consent. We shall follow universality if we acknowledge that one Faith to be true which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity if we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is clear that our ancestors and fathers proclaimed; consent, if in antiquity itself we keep following the definitions and opinions of all, or certainly nearly all, bishops and doctors alike. – St. Vincent of Lerins: The “Vincentian Canon”, AD 434 – Source.

    *

    Ubi Petrus, ibi ecclesia, et ubi ecclesia vita eterna – St. Ambrose of Milan.

    Reply
  54. Most of these cats were also murdering Jews and non-Catholic Christians at the same time they made these statements. Just so you know your source.

    Reply
  55. This article is extremely offensive to me as a Catholic who knows the often masked history of my faith. I think we are forgetting that Christopher Columbus, and many others, killed, raped, and enslaved billions of Africans and Native Americans in the name of Catholicism. The kind of blatant racism in this article is found everywhere in American culture and directly contradicts the teachings of Jesus Christ, who was filled with love for all people. I am appalled and ashamed that people who practice my religion think in this way.

    Reply
    • Amanda, someone has been lying to you. While there were certainly abuses perpetrated by Catholics, there were never “billions” who suffered these crimes, and the Catholic faith itself never taught that these practices were acceptable. Islam actually holds violence as a core tenet. There is a significant difference.

      Reply
      • There certainly were billions. While I truly believe that the Catholic faith never taught this, many throughout time have used the catholic religion to enslave, rape, and kill people. Islam, in fact, does not hold violence as it’s core tennant. in fact, One of the most damaging claims against the Islamic religion is that it promotes or somelerates the use of violence in the promotion of its goals. This claim is bolstered by those who lift a handful of verses from the Qur’an out of their context and present that as proof. In context, however, those verses talk about specific situations that faced the Muslim community of the time, and involved vastly superior forces that were seeking to vanquish the small monotheistic movement known as Islam. The Qur’an puts it this way:

        And why shouldn’t you fight in the cause of God and in the cause of those who, being weak, are mistreated: the men, women and children whose only cry is, “Our Lord! Deliver us from this land whose people are oppressors. Send us someone from You who will protect us, and send us someone from You who will help!” [4:75]

        Any battles fought under the leadership of Muhammad were defensive in nature and occurred only after hostilities were already declared against the Muslims. The Qur’an and the policies of Muhammad delineated the proper justifications for war, and also imposed rules for its humane conduct. These rules include such things as non-combatants are not to be harmed, wanton destruction is forbidden, quarter must be given to surrendering troops, and peace negotiations when offered must be accepted.

        When critics of Islam use the few verses of the Qur’an that talk about war out of context, they are just as dishonest as the few extremists in our midst who also twist the meanings and give them an interpretation that is unknown in traditional Islam.

        The truth of the matter is that the turmoil you see emanating from the Muslim world is not based on religion, but rather on serious political grievances and issues of social justice. Sometimes religion is used as a cloak for this or that cause, but the underlying factors that fuel the conflicts are no different than those that cause upheaval and revolution in any other part of the world.

        Reply
        • Additionally, though Jihad is a tennant, it means simply to strive against evil, and is misinterpreted by extremists and critics alike.

          Reply
        • No, Amanda. There were not billions. Please feel free to fact check. Cite any statistic from any credible source you can find. I’ll wait here.

          As for the rest, the author of this article is an Islamic scholar who is fluent in Arabic, has read all of the original source texts in their native language, and has memorized most of them. He’s an expert. You have to contend with him, not me.

          Reply
    • Racism? Muslim is not a race. And Jesus Christ corrected those in error, he wasn’t some doped-up hippy who just said “I”m okay, you’re okay, we’re all okay, man!” If what the Saints have to say disturbs you so deeply…that’s a whole ‘nother issue

      Reply
  56. Merkel Moon?

    “There are now rumours circulating that Merkel could stand down in order to replace Ban Ki-Moon as UN General Secretary when he retires next year. One MP in her party said: ‘She told those close to her a few months ago that she wants to stay on for the next election. But her behaviour towards the refugees [INVADERS] makes it seem like she is still making an application for the UN.'”

    (Breitbart)

    Reply
  57. Concerning the encyclica of Pope Francis Evangelium Gaudium, it is stadfast doctrine of catholic church in present times. There is no proof of “Own opinion” but clear teaching “Ex Cathedra”. We may discus on how forms of ISLAM like ISIS is a sect and cannot be accepted as religion. In practical political correctness, some countries declare ISLAM as NON-ACCEPTED RELIGION and SECT.

    Reply
    • Or Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia [Saudi Arabia has 100k air conditioned tents that will house 3 million people but will take no #SyrianRefugees pic.twitter.com/2MNFHVZMNP].

      Reply
  58. “He who is not with me is against me.” God calls Himself: “ I am Who AM!” There is no other name! I pity all those who were born in the tradition of Islam. “My sheep know my voice.” Pray that those who belong to Jesus will find Jesus before the Mercy Time is over! “Fahter , i pray not for myself, but for those who are thine!” There are those who are not Jesus’! We prau for them all! God alone knows who is His! Pray hard for those poor miss guided souls!

    Reply
    • Jesus isn’t even god and never said he was… I grew up in a Catholic home and the Bible never said that the CHURCH did.

      Reply
  59. “for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence. (p. 253.”
    That statement is patently false.
    Kafir is the Islamic term for a non-Muslim. The word “kafir” is not a
    neutral term but is rather one of the most negative & reviled words
    in any language as far as Islam is concerned & certainly leads to
    much religious bigotry. Here’s just a few references from the Muslim Qur’an in regards to how Muslims are to treat “kafirs”:

    1. A Kafir can be mocked (Qur’an, 83:34-36)

    2. A Kafir can be beheaded (Qur’an 47:4ff)

    3. A Kafir can be plotted against (Qur’an 86:15ff)

    4. A Kafir can be terrorized (Qur’an 8:12ff)

    5. A Kafir is not the friend of a Kafir (Qur’an 3:28ff)

    6. A Kafir is evil (Qur’an 23:97ff)

    7. A Kafir should be disgraced (Qur’an 37:18ff)

    8. A Kafir is cursed (Qur’an 33:60ff)

    Reply
  60. Equally puzzling to this issue, is the continued protestant attack against the pope as the anti-Christ. It is not only lay Catholics, with a nominal understanding of their faith, which threaten them, but additionally it is confused protestants as well. Martin Luther’s chief interest in the Eastern questions they had in their disagreements with the west “lay in the belief, which he shared with many of his evangelical contemporaries, and with many of the Greeks themselves before the fall of Constantinople, that the end of the world was near and that the Grand Turk was Antichrist: though he had an alternative candidate in the person of the Pope (http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/tca_luther.aspx).” Unfortunately, many protestant and now late evangelicals have continued on with the pressing narrative that it is the pope who will ultimately hold the seat of the anti-Christ and seemingly give Islam a pass, despite the overwhelming current evidence of the contrary. The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic church is a concept completely foreign to Protestant Evangelicals. To them, the “catholic” church is a worldwide conglomerate of scattered faith holding individuals who collectively make up the church. But how can they? Many evangelicals today are very confused on the issue of Islam and its threat to Christianity. However, many evangelicals instead, accuse the orthodox follower of the faith as the threat. In fact, they accuse the orthodoxy of the church as “narrow-minded” “obsolete” “threatening” “bigoted” “mis-informed” and a host of other attacks. As they set to encourage orthodox/Catholicism to decline and they become increasingly mis-informed about the ecumenical councils, they will provide a haven for the spread of radical Islam that will ultimately seek to conquer Christianity. This cycle continues, unfortunately, because of Catholic pandering to ecumenical efforts with the protestant movement; an ecumenical effort which has only watered down and diluted Catholicism, rather than raise the holiness of evangelicalism. We are all weak, we all fall, and we must all continue to strive in holiness and pray for unity and a healing of the great schism.

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  61. Thank for for Islam and thank god for leaving Christianity… the number one religion for mass murder throughout history.

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