Thursday, September 30, 2010

My Letter to the Pope

Hi All,

Well, I'm not sure he'll every actually read this, but I thought it was worth writing. My letter to the Pope on the topic of Catholic witness to Muslims can be downloaded at St Francis Magazine's website. Or just click HERE for the PDF.

Here is a sample:

The first reform I suggest is regarding Holy Scripture. One of
the most recurrent themes in conversion narratives of Muslims is
the reading of the Bible. Yet how many hundreds of thousands of
emigrants live throughout the West without access to the bible in
their own language? What if parishes in areas with significant
immigrant populations were told they had to have bibles available
in those languages--perhaps Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, Pashto, Turkish,
or something else? What if each sleepy Catholic parish became a
de facto source of distribution of Scripture? I am not talking about
proselytism, or even evangelism.


Please pass this on or link to it on your blog or website, especially if you are Catholic. Catholic mission to Muslims today is very weak, and it doesn't need to be like that.

--Abu Daoud

2 comments:

Don said...

This is excellent.

I would like to underscore your points in three ways.

The first concerns the Bible: Catholics need to stop being so skittish on this subject. His Holiness needs to be reminded that his predecessor set forth this (I would especially call his attention to paragraph 57).

Second, he needs to spend some time here regarding Muslims and their dreams.

Third, is my memory getting bad or was there a time when private baptism was acceptable in the Roman Catholic and Anglican world? How can they in good conscience refuse to baptise suitable candidates? He should ignore his post-Vatican II mentality people on this one and revive the practice for new Muslim converts. Their Muslim friends and family will find out in good time.

Abu Daoud said...

Thanks Don, but I'm afraid it hasn't gone anywhere as far as I know. Would you mind printing a copy and mailing it to your local Catholic bishop with a short note as to why he should read it? Peace be with you during this Easter season, and sorry for taking so long to respond.