BLUF
\nCardinal Dolan may one day discover that he was unwittingly encouraging elements that no one, churchman or otherwise, should have encouraged. By then, however, it could be too late.<\/p>\n
Cardinal Dolan Hails \u2018Our Islamic Brothers and Sisters,\u2019 Calls Ash Wednesday \u2018Our Ramadan\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n On Friday, Timothy Cardinal Dolan, the Archbishop of New York,\u00a0posted<\/a>\u00a0on X: \u201cRamadan starts tomorrow! Ramadan is the season of penance for our Islamic brothers and sisters. Do they ever take it seriously! I tell you that because Ash Wednesday is coming up \u2013 that\u2019s kind of like our Ramadan.\u201d<\/p>\n These generous statements were entirely in keeping with the spirit of ecumenism that Pope Francis has advocated so assiduously, and so the cardinal\u2019s words came as no surprise, but their graciousness was no guarantor of their accuracy. Unfortunately, virtually every part of Dolan\u2019s statement was wrong, and some of it was dangerously misleading.<\/p>\n Ramadan is not, first off, exactly a \u201cseason of penance.\u201d It does involve self-denial and cultivation of a sense of self-control, although the gorging all night somewhat mitigates the ascetic effect of the fasting all day, the focus is not primarily upon penance. Nobody \u201cgives something up for Ramadan.\u201d Ramadan superficially resembles Lent in that it is a season for Muslims to redouble their efforts to please Allah, but in Islam, this takes on a radically different form from efforts to please God in Christianity.<\/strong> (Note for those who need it: yes, \u201cAllah\u201d is the Arabic word for God \u2014 actually \u201cthe God,\u201d and yes, Arabic-speaking Christians do use the word, although some, notably Copts, shy away from doing so because of its association with the God of the Qur\u2019an. I am using it here to refer to that God.)<\/p>\n The highest form of service to Allah, according to Islam\u2019s prophet Muhammad, is jihad, which principally involves warfare against unbelievers. A hadith has a Muslim asking Muhammad: \u201cInstruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad (in reward).\u201d<\/em><\/strong> Muhammad replied, \u201cI do not find such a deed.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> (Bukhari 4.52.44)<\/p>\n So what better way to increase one\u2019s devotion to Allah than by waging jihad? Every Ramadan, therefore, we see an increase in jihad attacks. This is hardly something that Cardinal Dolan should be celebrating, but of course, he is certain that Islam is a religion of peace, and that anybody who tells him otherwise is just an \u201cIslamophobe.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dolan also calls Muslims the \u201cbrothers and sisters\u201d of Roman Catholics. In fact, that is not how Muslims regard Christians. Is Dolan aware of these Qur\u2019an passages? (Spoiler: no, he isn\u2019t.) The Qur\u2019an calls \u201cthe people of the book,\u201d which includes Christians, \u201cthe most vile of created beings\u201d (98:6). It says that those who believe in the divinity of Christ are unbelievers (5:17, 5:72). It denies the crucifixion (4:157) and the Trinity (4:171), although it assumes that the Trinity includes Allah, Jesus and Mary (5:116).<\/p>\n The Qur\u2019an also insists that Allah has no son and that those who say Jesus is the Son of God are under the curse of Allah (19:35, 9:30). Above all, it calls upon Muslims to fight against and subjugate \u201cthe people of the book,\u201d making them accept the hegemony of the Muslims (9:29). Thus Cardinal Dolan would be hard-pressed to find a devout and knowledgeable Muslim who would avow that these accursed Christians were his \u201cbrothers and sisters.\u201d<\/p>\n The cardinal also praises Muslims for taking Ramadan so seriously. Is he aware (spoiler: no) of how often Muslims (and non-Muslims) are punished for\u00a0not<\/a>\u00a0observing<\/a>\u00a0Ramadan? Observance of Ramadan is all too often a matter of fear, not devotion. Back in March 2024, Nigerian police\u00a0arrested<\/a>\u00a0eleven Muslims who were caught eating during daylight hours in Ramadan. Around the same time, the French-language \u00a0Valeurs Actuelles<\/a>\u00a0reported on an incident in which two Muslims attacked a non-Muslim in a detention center for not observing the Ramadan fast. The following month, four Muslim teens brutally\u00a0beat<\/a>\u00a0a 13-year-old Muslim girl on a bus for the same reason.<\/p>\n French politician Marion Mar\u00e9chal\u00a0declared<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cRamadan is the barometer of the Islamization of French society.\u201d Mar\u00e9chal was referring to the normalization of Ramadan in France and all over the West, which Dolan certainly aided with his fulsome message on Friday. It is unlikely that such a meeting would ever occur, but Cardinal Dolan would do well to have a meeting with Mar\u00e9chal and discuss with her why she believes that the observance of Ramadan is not something that Western countries should see as wholesome and salutary.<\/p>\n And finally, in saying that Ash Wednesday, and by extension Lent, was \u201cour Ramadan,\u201d Dolan had the historical order reversed. Lent did not come after Ramadan and was not derived from it, but the Muslim period of fasting was indeed influenced by Christian practice. Why is Dolan placing Christians in a subordinate position to Muslims in this regard, when the Qur\u2019an itself directs Muslims to fight Christians until they \u201cfeel themselves subdued\u201d (9:29)?<\/p>\n Cardinal Dolan may one day discover that he was unwittingly encouraging elements that no one, churchman or otherwise, should have encouraged. By then, however, it could be too late.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BLUF Cardinal Dolan may one day discover that he was unwittingly encouraging elements that no one, churchman or otherwise, should have encouraged. By then, however, it could be too late. Cardinal Dolan Hails \u2018Our Islamic Brothers and Sisters,\u2019 Calls Ash Wednesday \u2018Our Ramadan\u2019 On Friday, Timothy Cardinal Dolan, the Archbishop of New York,\u00a0posted\u00a0on X: \u201cRamadan … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,34,80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crap-for-brains","category-moslems-jihadis","category-you-cant-make-this-up"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=107991"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107992,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107991\/revisions\/107992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=107991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=107991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=107991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}