Holy Americans – “Nearly 100 American men and women from the United States are currently being considered for sainthood.” Holy, Independent: Meet 12 of the Many Americans on the Path to Sainthood (National Catholic Register)
A Political Bible Study – “Their pitch was genius: If conflict-leery pastors didn’t want to address difficult political matters with their congregants, they could simply outsource their shepherding responsibility to The After Party.” When Progressive Foundations Fund Evangelism (First Things)
Prince Demetrius Gallitzin – “To this list of true Russian heroes … I would add another: Prince Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, the 18th-century pioneer priest of the Alleghenies.” The Russian Prince-Turned-Priest of Western Pennsylvania (Providence)
Decisions and Justice – “What qualities should a person possess who has the responsibility of making decisions? Clearly this is a question with far-reaching implications.” The Art of Making the Right Decision (The Imaginative Conservative)
Promoting Narratives – “Journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving.” An Epidemic of Media Doublespeak (National Review)
The Negative World – “For the first time in the 400-year history of America, official, elite culture now views Christianity negatively, or at least skeptically.” Positively Christian: Principles for Living in the Negative World (Touchstone)
Called to Bear Witness – “Rooted in community life, Pope Leo XIV’s vision of authority centers not on control but on teaching, sanctifying and governing.” What Leo XIV’s Thesis Reveals About His Theology of Leadership (National Catholic Register)
Practical, Ethical Guardrails for AI – “Despite what any Silicon Valley sage may tell you, no one person or company really knows exactly how humanity will adapt—or not—to this world-changing technology.” Why the Catholic Church’s Voice on AI Could Be the Most Consequential (First Things)
Fanatic Thomist – “An X-user who employs the screen name, ‘Fanatic Thomist,’ produced a very useful florilegium of passages from scholastic theologians answering affirmatively to the question, ‘Do Jews and Muslims worship the true God as Christians?’” Noted Scholastic Theologians on the Question Whether Muslims Worship the True God (Catholicism.org)
(*The posting of any particular news item or essay is not an endorsement of the content and perspective of said news item or essay.)
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A Political Bible Study – “Their pitch was genius: If conflict-leery pastors didn’t want to address difficult political matters with their congregants, they could simply outsource their shepherding responsibility to The After Party.” When Progressive Foundations Fund Evangelism (First Things)
This FT article details exactly how far the progressive financial power push has been into evangelical Protestantism. In conjunction with that, just this week, the IRS reversed the policy which prohibited tax-exempt religious group’s endorsing of political candidates. The two facts together point to a heating of the battle to convert conservative Christianity to progressive liberalism. So help us, God.
Fanatic Thomist – “An X-user who employs the screen name, ‘Fanatic Thomist,’ produced a very useful florilegium of passages from scholastic theologians answering affirmatively to the question, ‘Do Jews and Muslims worship the true God as Christians?’” Noted Scholastic Theologians on the Question Whether Muslims Worship the True God (Catholicism.org)
The passages add up to a lengthy article. The posting of the quotes is noticeably from Catholicism.org (Isn’t this group a derivative of Fr. Feeney’s teaching?). Interesting for those pondering the question and VCII teaching on other religions in relation to Catholics.
With regard to whether Muslims worship the one true God the theologians quoted respond – yes. The documents of Vatican II also say that Muslims adore the one God. The key word seems to me to be THE, which indicates that they not only adore one God, but the same God as Christians. I really do not understand how this can be, given that the Muslim god has very different characteristics than the Christian God, i.e. kill the infidel, suicide bombers get 72 virgins in heaven, can have multiple wives, etc.
It is not a matter of worshiping one god, there were Romans who only worshiped Zeus, but that they worship THE one God.
I am interested in what other commenters may say.
Here’s my 2 cents worth: As Catholic Christians, we believe there is only one God. This stems from belief in monotheism whose roots are in Judaism. Islam also worships one God; their belief stems from the monotheistic religion or God of Abraham.
The three major religion developed different conceptions of God. Catholics believe there is one true God and worship Him as the One True God. Muslims and Jews worship a God THEY may believe differs from the Catholic God since they conceive of Him as having different aspects than the Catholic God. All three religions nonetheless worship the monotheistic God that Abraham worshiped.
An individual Catholic will perceive God a bit differently from his Catholic neighbor’s perception, but both worship the same God because there is no other.
This opinion is mine alone, and any errors therein are mine alone.
@ decisions and justice
We read:”…there is no such thing as a decision which is not an ‘ethical’ or moral decision,” and the author then dwells mostly on the meaning of prudent decisions.
About “moral judgments”–apart from more autonomous “decisions”–we have the added clarity of St. John Paul II regarding the displacement of the moral law by the calculus of proportionalism and consequentialism:
“A separation, or even an opposition [!], is thus established in some cases between the teaching of the precept, which is valid and general, and the norm of the individual conscience, which would in fact make the final ‘decision’ [!] [no longer a ‘moral judgment’!] about what is good and what is evil. On this basis, an attempt is made to legitimize so-called ‘pastoral’ solutions contrary to the teaching of the Magisterium, and to justify a ‘creative’ hermeneutic according to which the moral conscience is in no way obliged, in every case, by a particular negative precept [‘thou shalt not…’]” (Veritatis Splendor, n. 56).
@ Fanatic Thomist
The first of the seven commentators, the 17th-century João da Silveira writes: “…Just as although the Turks worship the true God, because nevertheless they mix [!] in many false things, they are rightly said to be ignorant of God.”
Because Islam is less a derivative of Christianity than a collage, and which then happens to include diluted/deluded allusions to Christ, yours truly tilts to the conclusion that Islam is not strictly speaking a “heresy” as Hilaire Belloc claimed (“The Great Heresies,” 1938)…
Rather, Islam is an external mix or compendium of ingredients: parts from the Pentateuch (but absent a listing of the six prohibitive commandments of Moses), parts of the Gospels, carryover from tribal Arabia (jihad as still the warrior cult like Japanese Bushido, pockets of polygamy, continued pilgrimage to the now de-paganized Ka’ba in Mecca with the 360 deities displaced by monotheism), and personal biography. Of the five pillars of Islam, three are of Judeo-Christian origin: prayer, fasting, almsgiving (adding the pilgrimage and an affirmation of monotheism and Muhammad as the prophet). More adrift than even heresy, Islam altogether replaces “the Word made flesh [the historical Incarnation]” with “the word made book [the Qur’an as the “dictated” essence of God], and then redefines and demotes the Triune One as a pagan triad of the Father, the Son, and Mary. The self-understanding (!) of Islam is more a natural religion than a Christian heresy, remotely akin to what Christian faith & reason distinguishes as the inborn natural law apart divine revelation. Plus, occasional abrogation under a fluid and consensual “reading and rereading,” parallel to post-Christian process theology (and even the misshapen aspects of “synodality”?).
Nevertheless, adding to the seven earlier commentators cited by Fanatic Thomist, Belloc issues this prescient warning:
“I say the suggestion that Islam may re-arise [!] sounds fantastic—but this is only because men are always powerfully affected by the immediate past—one might say that they are blinded by it. Cultures spring from religions; ultimately the vital force which maintains any culture is its philosophy, its attitude towards the universe; the decay of a religion involves the decay of the culture corresponding to it—we see that most clearly in the breakdown of Christianity today. The bad work begun at the Reformation is bearing its final fruit in the dissolution of our ancestral doctrines—the very structure of our society is dissolving.”