Cardinal Dolan equates Easter with Ramadan in new Pan-Ecumenist statement

“Ramadan is a month in which Muslims are to redouble their efforts to please Allah... The idea that this is a time to seek friendship and cooperation with Muslims is laughably naive and demonstrates abject ignorance of Islam.”

— Robert Spencer, cited in article below

Cardinal Dolan equates Easter with Ramadan, Passover, says all are about ‘triumph of light and life’

LifeSite - Thu Mar 14, 2024 - 2:51 pm EDT

NEW YORK (LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Timothy Dolan has equated Easter with the Islamic season of Ramadan and the Jewish Passover, saying that all three are about the “triumph of light and life.”

In a video message posted on X, formerly Twitter, Dolan said, “Does it dawn on you that Lent and Ramadan and Passover always occur close to each other?”

While the Catholic Church [and the Orthodox Church, ed.] commemorates the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ during the Easter Triduum, Judaism and Islam both reject the truth that Jesus is the Son of God and the Redeemer of mankind...

Moreover, the comparison of Islamic Ramadan to Easter is absurd since Islam is diametrically opposed to Christianity.

On March 11, Dolan published a video commemorating the beginning of Ramadan in which he wrongly claimed that Muslims are “a good example” to Catholics “on our Lenten journey.”

As the Islamic scholar Robert Spencer explained, Ramadan is a season in which Islamic attacks against non-Muslims, including Catholics, increase every year.

“[T]he idea of Ramadan providing a possibility of outreach to Muslims is a tragicomic display of the failures and inherent limitations of the ‘dialogue’ imperative,” Spencer said in comments given to the Catholic Herald.

“Ramadan is a month in which Muslims are to redouble their efforts to please Allah,” the author of more than 20 books continued. “The highest form of service to Allah, according to Muhammad, is jihad, which principally involves warfare against unbelievers.”

“Every Ramadan, therefore, we see an increase in jihad attacks. The idea that this is a time to seek friendship and cooperation with Muslims is laughably naive and demonstrates abject ignorance of Islam,” Spencer stated.

[...]

Pope Francis has also made similar remarks and been accused of promoting religious indifferentism during his pontificate, especially through his encyclical on “human fraternity,” Fratelli tutti, and the controversial Abu Dhabi declaration that Francis signed together with Ahmad el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Egypt’s al-Azhar Mosque. The declaration, officially called “Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together,” states that “pluralism and the diversity of religions… are willed by God in His wisdom.”

Much more in the full article on LifeSiteNews...

Ex-Muslims denounce Abu Dhabi ‘Deception', warn against Muslim practice of 'Taqiyya'

Arabic-speaking Muslim converts to Christ warn that Roman Catholic support of the Abu Dhabi Declaration "is not based on the 'Islamic theological implications of the Arabic text', and this reflects an inability to see through the 'deception' and fall for the 'fake human rights rhetoric'."

In short, these brave converts to Christ are warning against the Same God Heresy.

Embracing Deception: Pope Francis signs Abu Dhabi Declaration

Their point is well taken, and fully in keeping with the teaching of the New Testament, which warns against accepting a false gospel, a different Jesus, and a different spirit:

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the Gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be anathema!” (Gal 1:6-8). 

"As we said before, so say I now again: If any preach any other gospel unto you than that which you have received, let him be anathema" (Gal 1:8-9). 

"Now the Spirit expressly says that in the latter times some will depart from the Faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy" (1 Tim 4:1-2). 

The indefatiguable Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch offers this warning in his post on the article:

“The chasm between Islam and Jahiliyyah [the society of unbelievers] is great, and a bridge is not to be built across it so that the people on the two sides may mix with each other, but only so that the people of Jahiliyyah may come over to Islam.” — Sayyid Qutb, Milestones, chapter 10. (Mother Mosque Foundation edition p. 140) 

It is abundantly clear from this report that the Muslim framers of the bu Dhabi declaration were following Qutb’s guidance and crafting a document designed to lead Catholics to Islam. Meanwhile, the Catholic partners in the dialogue had no idea that this was happening, and assumed that their partners were operating in good faith as they were. Their naivete will cost the lives of the Christians murdered in the lands of Islam while no one speaks up for them, for fear of harming the dialogue, much less lifts a finger to defend them.

 “Leave them; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:14)

Related:

• Pope signs pact with Islam declaring ‘diversity of religions’ is ‘willed by God’
• Historic 'Covenant of World Religions' sees Pope Francis openly commit Apostasy, equate Islam with Christianity

Ex-Muslims Unmask Abu Dhabi ‘Deception’

by Jules Gomes, ChurchMilitant.com, May 27, 2020:


ROME (ChurchMilitant.com) – A network of Muslim converts, who face the death penalty for apostasy from Islam, are denouncing the Abu Dhabi declaration as a “deception” for “subtle but significant differences” in the Arabic text of the document.

The ex-Muslims from the Arab world are also lamenting Cdl. Gerhard Müller’s naïveté after the orthodox prelate defended the covenant on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together in the May-June issue of Communio.

Müller insists that the text focuses on “fundamental human rights” with “God as their originator and guarantor,” because “all people are born free and equal in dignity and rights” and “human rights are based on the dignity that God himself bestowed on every human being.”

In a preliminary analysis of the declaration shown to Church Militant on condition of anonymity, the Arab-speaking converts say that Cdl. Müller’s reading is not based on the “Islamic theological implications of the Arabic text,” and this reflects his inability to see through the “deception” and fall for the “fake human rights rhetoric.”

England, Anglican Church continue submission to Islam, openly denying Jesus Christ in Royal Cathedral

A Koran reading in Westminster Abbey follows other recent incidents of Islam being proclaimed in Anglican cathedrals as the multifaceted apostasy of England and the COE continues to metastasize, like a spiritual cancer.  

How many of the congregants took their faith in Jesus Christ seriously enough to get up and walk out of this blasphemous invasion of a Christian gathering by a hostile, antichrist spirit? I suspect the number is zero.

Protestant and Catholic England is doomed. Orthodox England is small, but holds out hope for faithful Christians.

Regarding this latest abomination, Bishop Gavin Ashenden, who resigned as Queen’s Chaplain after objecting to the reading of the Koran in Glasgow Cathedral in 2017, warns of the spiritual force of these blasphemies: 

“Reading the Koran in cathedrals... validates Islam’s teaching that is predicated on the claim that the resurrection was a fraud and Jesus lied to his followers and the world.”  

"By welcoming an uncritical reading of the Koran, Westminster Abbey asserts the legitimacy of Mohammad and in so doing repudiates Jesus. One has to wonder what their claim to be a Christian cathedral rests on at that point?" 

— Bishop Gavin Ashenden 

Koran read at Westminster Abbey as Royal Cathedral bows to Islam
September 16, 2019,Jules Gomes, Rebel Priest:

Britain’s royal cathedral—the nation’s coronation church since 1066—and the final resting place of 17 monarchs approved a Koranic reading from its lectern at a memorial service last Tuesday.

Husein Kavazović, the Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina, read from Koran 16: 90-97 at a Service of Thanksgiving for the life of Paddy Ashdown—a British politician and former diplomat who served as leader of the Liberal Democrats.

Ashdown, who died on 22 December 2018, became a passionate advocate for the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the wars that led to the break-up of Yugoslavia.

The Koranic reading was in Bosnian and preceded biblical readings from Isaiah 52: 7-12 and Paul’s second epistle to Timothy 4:1-7.

Expressing his consternation, Islamic jurist Yasser Hussein who spoke to Rebel Priest media, said that such an act could imply that the deceased may have secretly converted to Islam.

Pope signs pact with Islam declaring ‘diversity of religions’ is ‘willed by God’

"This is just the latest in a line of papal statements on Islam dating back to the 1960s that describe Islam as an 'Abrahamic' faith that will lead its adherents to the same God worshiped by Christians."

Pope Francis is a false teacher, preaching a "different gospel," which is the Same God Heresy, which leads its adherents inevitably to apostasy and openly denying Jesus Christ.

Pope signs pact with Islam declaring ‘diversity of religions’ is ‘willed by God’


by Leo Hohmann, February 10, 2019:

Almost without notice from the global media, Pope Francis held a historic meeting last week in the United Arab Emirates with Grand Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, head of Egypt’s al-Azhar University, the world’s most authoritative institution on Islamic law.

El-Tayeb, while touted as a “moderate” by some in the West, unapologetically teaches that Muslims who leave Islam for other religions, or no religion at all, are guilty of apostasy and should be killed.

So what is the Pope of Rome, the supposed Vicar of Christ, doing cavorting with such a man?

The two religious leaders released a joint declaration titled On Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together.

Among the many lies, half-truths and deceptions in this document is the following:

“The pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings.”

The key words here are “diversity of religions.” The pope would have us to believe that all religions have merit, especially that of Islam.

This is just the latest in a line of papal statements on Islam dating back to the 1960s that describe Islam as an “Abrahamic” faith that will lead its adherents to the same God worshiped by Christians.

The new document reaffirms Islam as a religion of peace and says that any violence committed in its name is the result of “an accumulation of incorrect interpretations of religious texts and to policies linked to hunger, poverty, injustice, oppression and pride.”

If this were true it would mean that nearly 1,400 years of scholarship by all four Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence would have to be thrown into a massive bonfire. Until we see the smoke rising from such a fiery spectacle, it’s safe to say that Sheikh al-Tayeb played the pope for a fool. Others are suggesting that Pope Francis is no fool at all, but rather is himself a master deceiver with dark intentions.

Leo Hohmann: 'The coming convergence of Islam and apostate Christianity'

"Some of the world’s most prominent Muslims are working on a plan that they hope will offer the secular elites in the U.S., Europe, Canada, and Australia-New Zealand some relief. Give them a 'third way' that will lead to peace and security for all... a new 'convergence' of Islam with Christianity."

Sobering, even prophetic, insights from Christian journalist Leo Hohmann. Read and share.


The coming convergence of Islam and apostate Christianity

By Leo Hohmann, April 16, 2019

With astonishing speed and amazing efficiency, the French government declared early Tuesday morning that the fire which had largely consumed the magnificent, 850-year-old Cathedral of Notre Dame was a mere “accident.”

That’s right: Before investigators had even been cleared to enter the smoldering ruins of the Western World’s most iconic Christian symbol, they had already ruled out the possibility of arson.

I am not saying that any person or group should be blamed for this fire without proof. What I am saying, is that the French government’s absurdly quick action in determining the fire’s non-cause makes a mockery of the concept of an honest investigation. Such malfeasance in carrying out due diligence could easily backfire.

Without an honest and transparent investigation, people will always look at the burning of Notre Dame as a monumental conspiracy. Fill in the blank as to who you want to make responsible for the devastation because the French eliminated certain possibilities from consideration before even the most basic investigative procedures were employed.

It begs the question: Why were the French so eager to sweep this fire under the rug of history?

Well, for the sake of argument, let’s say that a real investigation gets underway and turns up proof of a Muslim plot to burn down the nation’s most famous Christian shrine. [And there has been a disturbing pattern of arsonists targeting hundreds of Christian churches across France over the last few years, including 10 in a one-week period last month].

With nearly 10 percent of its population now Muslim, France would quickly devolve into chaos. Police would launch a nationwide manhunt for the Muslim arsonists. Muslims would be out in the streets, burning and defacing more churches, cemeteries, anything that stands as a symbol of Christian France. Priests and pastors might be kidnapped and killed. Regular Frenchmen, feeling threatened, might strike back, possibly burning down mosques in retaliation.

The last thing President Macron wants is to take a chance that a thorough forensic investigation could spark a civil war. You can hardly blame him. But show me a nation that has lost the will, for whatever reason, to enforce the rule of law and lost faith in its ability to blindly apply justice, and I will show you a nation that has already been conquered.

And it’s not just France.

Most of the Western elites who control the governments across Europe and North America find themselves flailing about in the same murky waters. After decades of importing Muslim migrants to replace the millions of children who were never born because of abortion and “family planning,” these Western nations face a problem of their own making and it’s called Islamic immigration.

Their native populations are getting restless as they discover that their globalist leaders have been lying to them all these years. Islam is not content with its role of being the new “work force” that props up the economies of Germany, France, Belgium and Britain. The nature of Islam is to politically dominate wherever it is given a foothold.

Yet, the Western political class are reticent to confront Islam when its violent side spills out into the open. This is why France, the U.K., Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden and Germany have all become increasingly anti-Israel in recent years. They don’t want to offend their growing Muslim populations. They must bow to this foreign religious ideology, or risk violence in the streets.

The elites need a way out of this dilemma because right-wing parties are quickly gaining strength, and before long these European countries will all have their own versions of Donald Trump to contend with. That’s the last thing they want. They need an out, a way to save face with native European voters while somehow also giving their new Muslim citizens the feeling that they have a seat at the table of political power.

They can’t go on indefinitely with Muslims and Christians [even if most are Christian in name only], representing opposing cultural values and worldviews, living in the same cities and growing further apart by the day. The current model is not sustainable.

Arise, a new inter-religious community

That’s where the interfaith movement comes into play.

Some of the world’s most prominent Muslims are working on a plan that they hope will offer the secular elites in the U.S., Europe, Canada, and Australia-New Zealand some relief. Give them a “third way” that will lead to peace and security for all.

The hope is that this third way provides Western elites with an opportunity to stave off a complete Islamic takeover while accepting the most basic tenets of Islamic Sharia. This includes, first and foremost, an end to all Christian proselytizing of Muslims, and secondly, a silencing of all anti-Islam rhetoric in the public space. Any Christian who insists on pointing out the dark side of Islam will be silenced. That’s pretty much already been accomplished, to varying degrees, in the post-Christian, formerly-free Western nations. But Muslim leaders still put forth the “Islamophobia” meme in hopes of getting more out of the deal.

Apostate Pope advocates for Islam, forces Dhimmitude on Moroccan Christians

Pope Francis has for some time now been openly teaching an explicitly false Gospel, what I have termed the "Same God Heresy". This is one of the greatest heresies and scandals of our age, and many Christians are falling all over themselves to endorse it.

Catholic news site Gloria.tv reports:

On the eve of his visit to Morocco (March 30-31), Pope Francis said in a video message on VaticanNews.va that “as Christians and Muslims we believe in God, the Creator and Merciful”... 

This message repeats Francis heretical Abu Dhabi declaration according to which the diversity of religions that contradict each other and religions which deny the Trinity and Incarnation are willed by God.

Of course, there are also some Orthodox Christian bishops (e.g., Met. Georges Khodr) who preach religious syncretism, pan-ecumenism, dhimmitude and submission to Islam, but when the Pope of Rome does this on the global stage, cue the "Last Pope Prophecies" trailers. The Apostate Pope's heretical teachings are clearly a sign of the age.

Traditional, orthodox-minded Roman Catholics, come to Orthodoxy. We are waiting for you with open arms!

"Come out of her, My people..." (Rev. 18:4)

Pope Francis offers more doves to be attacked by crows.

The Pope to the Christians of Morocco: Please do not need to preach

BBC Middle East, March 31, 2019 (Google Translate from Arabic)
Thanks to Timothy R. Furnish.


The Pope, Francis, told members of the small Catholic community in Morocco that the role of community members in the country is not to try to make their neighbors convert to Christianity, but to live in brotherhood with other religions.

The Pope took the two-day trip to emphasize interreligious dialogue, while supporting King Mohammed VI's efforts to promote religious moderation in order to promote interfaith dialogue and renounce violence in the name of religion.

Roman Catholic Christians in Morocco represent less than one percent of Morocco's 35 million population, while there are 23,000 Christians, mostly immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa and those from Europe, particularly France.

"Christians are a small minority in this country, and I see that this is not a problem, although I realize that this may be difficult for some of you," he said during a meeting with community leaders in a Rabat cathedral.

Islamic Sharia Law in America: An Orthodox Christian Perspective (AUDIO)

Not integrating well into Western Civilization. Notice the black flags of jihad.

This is a very challenging talk by Fr Josiah Trenham, providing an in-depth look at Islam and sharia throughout history and in America today. Fr. Josiah also contrasts the threat from sharia with the threat from secularism, homosexualism, etc.

Though I agree with much of what Fr. Josiah says, including his warning that we are facing these threats because we have allowed ourselves to be co-opted by the world, and have become too interested in our own comfort and prosperity, I most adamantly disagree with his belief that we can partner with Muslims against the pressures of secularism, and that the United States should enable the implementation of Islamic sharia law for religious matters. Sharia never stops at merely "religious matters," as can be seen in the implementation of sharia courts in the UK.

Has the Church in the U.S. Succumbed to the Charms of Islam?

William Kilpatrick on the dangers of Muslim-Christian 'interfaith dialogue'.

I admire Kilpatrick's writing, and included the following passage from him in my book, Facing Islam:

Although many won’t admit it, we are in the midst of an ideological war with Islam. And since the advantage goes to the side that fully realizes they are at war, the West is losing. The propaganda war is going in favor of Islam precisely because the West doesn’t realize it is supposed to be fighting one... 

Even those who see the danger clearly rarely talk in terms of victory; they talk mainly in terms of resisting cultural jihad. You know you’re in trouble when your ideological opponent is a primitive seventh-century belief system, and yet the best that your top strategists hope for is to put up a good resistance... 

In past ideological struggles we wisely sought ideological victory—the discrediting of the belief system that inspired our enemies. Because the driving force behind Islamic aggression is Islamic theology, it makes no sense to treat Islamic theology like a protected species. Rather, we should hope that Muslims lose faith in Islam just as Nazis lost faith in Nazism and Eastern-bloc Communists lost faith in communism... Of course, it would be all the better if we had something to offer them in its place. — William Kilpatrick, Losing Their Religion, Front Page Magazine, June 14, 2010.

Excellent observation at the end (and a rare one for counter jihad writers), and one of the reasons why we must never think of Islam and Muslims in terms of "coexistence" or "interfaith harmony." Such notions imply that we don't think we have "something to offer them in its place." Such notions make it seem that we really don't believe in our Christian faith, but rather that all religions are basically equivalent.

For an Orthodox Christian, such an attitude is absolute apostasy. The Risen Lord commanded us to "go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." He did not tell us to be "nice" and get along, but that we would be persecuted if we truly followed Him. And He pronounced a severe warning: "Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so they did to the false prophets..."

The Orthodox Church emphatically does have "something better to offer" Muslims in place of the false religion of Islam. And if we have a heart for the Gospel and care for the lost and perishing, we will at some level grieve for the powerful deception which holds 1.6 billion Muslims under its sway.

By living authentic Christian lives, and supporting Orthodox Christian mission efforts (such as in Muslim countries like Indonesia and Pakistan), we are supporting the Great Commission, we are following our Lord Jesus Christ, and we are daily strengthening both our own faith, as well as the global Orthodox Christian witness. We will show that we fervently believe we have something much better to offer Muslims and all people, and that we wish to invite them to eternal life in Christ.

But such authentic, evangelical Christian faith is rare, perhaps because so many consider Islam a sister-religion to Christianity.

Returning to William Kilpatrick, in the below article he critiques recent pan-ecumenist fantasy remarks by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, and the broader context of Roman Catholic inter-faith relations with Islam. Kilpatrick's warnings should equally be heeded by Orthodox Christians, who as a rule can be overly generous in their assessment of Islam, its doctrines, and its purpose.


Has the Church in the U.S. Succumbed to the Charms of Islam? 
by William Kilpatrick, New Oxford Review — January 2014

New York’s Timothy Cardinal Dolan paid a visit last summer to the Albanian Islamic Cultural Center in Tompkinsville on Staten Island, where he met with a large group of Muslim leaders. As is often the case when Catholic prelates meet with Muslims, his theme was the common ground shared by the two faiths. Cardinal Dolan told his Islamic audience, “You love God, we love God, and he is the same God,” and he thanked them “for making me feel like a friend and a member of a family...” He went on to tell them how much they share in common with Catholics: “Your love of marriage and family, your love of children and babies, your love of freedom — religious freedom particularly — your defense of life, your desire for harmony and unity and your care for others, your care for God’s creation and your care for those who are in need.”

Perhaps this is true of the Muslims of Tompkinsville, but unfortunately the cardinal’s words will be taken as an endorsement of Islam in general. I say “unfortunately” because what he says about the common values and beliefs of Muslims and Catholics is highly misleading.