Do the Bishops Understand Islam? Will they ever learn?

I wrote the article below on Islam back in 2016. Here we are a decade later and what is our relationship with Islam today? Places in the United States (as well as many other Western nations) have no-go zones and rule by Sharia Law. Violence against non-Muslims is on the rise especially in the Middle East and Africa. The recent fraud in Minnesota robbing the state of billions of dollars was primarily the work of Muslims from Somalia. Not only that, but some of that money went to fund the Somali terror group al-Shabob [source]. 

In 2018, William Kilpatrick wrote a letter to the bishops taking issues with their description of Islam as a "religion of peace." It isn't and no amount of naive dialogue will make it so. The goal of Islam is a universal caliphate ruling the world. That is not a judgment on individual Muslims, but on a political system disguised as a religion. Catholicism wants the universal reign of Christ the King freely chosen. Islam want the imposition of the caliphate by any means possible. 

In his visit to Turkey and Lebanon last year Pope Leo said this:

“Dear friends, your presence here today, in this extraordinary place where minarets and bell towers stand side by side, yet both soar toward the heavens, testifies to the enduring faith of this land and the persistent dedication of its people to the one God,” he said, according to LifeSiteNews. The Pope added that in this environment, “may every bell toll, every adhān, every call to prayer blend into a single, soaring hymn… to lift a heartfelt prayer for the divine gift of peace.”

Catholic On-Line News reported:

Not all Church leaders share the Pope’s perspective. According to LifeSiteNews, Bishop Marian Eleganti expressed concern that the Holy Father’s comments underestimate the serious theological differences between Christianity and Islam. Pointing to the Islamic teaching that God has no Son, the bishop argued that “where is the same God? It is impossible – it is such a contradiction,” and warned that the Pope’s optimism reflects “a naïve relationship with Islam.”

The goal of Islam is to see a minaret over St. Peter's basilica in Rome and the call to prayer blaring out to the city. They anticipate the day when Islam will be victorious over the West and that day is fast approaching, not through violent takeover, but through birth. And today, who is winning that battle? Is it not ironic that we Catholics who pay lip service to the value of life often refuse the gift of children, while Muslims, who deny the Son of God, are producing and training children to be soldiers, not of Christ, but of their political system under Allah who is NOT the same God we worship.

Nothing has changed much since I wrote this article published in 2016. If anything, the progress in the Islamic takeover of the West has been accelerating. How many countries now have Muslims holding public office like we do, people who do not love our country or our constitution, but only await the day when they can suppress it in favor of the rule of Sharia Law? And how can we know if anything we're told by an Islamic leader is true since the Koran allows lying to infidels who will forever be persecuted second class citizens unless they convert to Islam.

Witnesses in the Dock: Robert Reilly on the Bishops' "Muddled Dialogue" with Islam

The prosecution calls Robert Reilly to the stand. (All statements from Mr. Reilly, except those in brackets, come from his article The Muddled Catholic-Muslim "Dialogue.")

Prosecutor: Mr. Reilly, the Catholic bishops have called for an end to anti-Islamic bigotry and distortions of Islamic theology and teaching. Can you evaluate the claim of "distortion?"

Reilly: Like most Americans, the bishops know almost nothing about Islam. Therefore, they don’t understand the context in which their Muslim interlocutors are speaking. As a result, they engage in mirror imaging, i.e., understanding the Muslims as the good bishops understand themselves....What might these distortions be? Apparently, that we should view with repugnance the “repeated falsehoods” that Islam is inherently violent, that Muslims seek to supplant the U.S. Constitution with sharia law, and that Muslim immigration threatens “the cultural identity of the American people.”

Prosecutor: Are those in fact distortions of Muslim theology?

Reilly: [No.] San Diego Bishop Robert W. McElroy recently provided an example [of mirror imaging] at the University of San Diego’s Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice....Bishop McElroy’s dialogue partner for the evening was Sayyid Syeed, a leader of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), whose name was familiar to me because he has been a fixture in the Midwest Catholic-Muslim dialogues. Perhaps the bishop was unacquainted with the pedigree of ISNA, which was spawned by the Muslim Brotherhood, the premier world organization for the reestablishment of the caliphate – whose purpose is the establishment of sharia. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi, also a frequent dialogue partner with the bishops and past president of ISNA, had this to say in the newspaper Pakistan Link: “We must not forget that Allah’s rules have to be established in all lands, and all our efforts should lead to that direction.” In 2001, he wrote, “Once more people accept Islam, insha’allah, this will lead to the implementation of Sharia in all areas.”

Prosecutor: In your view is Islam a religion of peace, as U.S. bishops so often assert?

Reilly: [No. Look at history.] By A.D. 650, Muslims ruled Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Egypt – all of which had been Christian lands whose inhabitants were demoted to the subject status of dhimmis [non-Muslim subjected people, second class citizens in the Islamic state.]. Less than a century later, Islam had spread to North Africa and Spain – all within the first millennium of “positive relations.” [As described by Sayyid Syeed, a leader of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) in his "dialogue with Bishops McElroy.] In none of these places did Muslims arrive peacefully....I suggest that the bishops put Bat Ye’or’s book, The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude, on their reading list so they can speak accurately about Islam’s respect for “the peoples of the Book” in the first millennium and afterwards. From this history, is it unreasonable to consider that there is something “inherently violent” in Islam?

Prosecutor: Do you think defeating Christianity is the goal of Islam? 

Reilly: Somewhat around the time of Bishop McElroy’s speech, in a Friday sermon in Edmonton, Alberta, Imam Shaban Sherif Mady declared, “Look forward to it, because the Prophet Muhammad said that Rome would be conquered! It will be conquered. Constantinople was conquered. Rome is the Vatican, the very heart of the Christian state.”

Now who is misunderstanding Islam here, the imam or the bishop?

Prosecutor: What do you think is the impact of the bishops "dialogue?"

Reilly: [It] helps legitimate the Muslim Brotherhood clones and sidelines the real voices of Muslim reform. Also, because they [the bishops] usually get the substance wrong, these “dialogues” end up spreading misunderstandings rather than overcoming them.Since Muslims couldn’t care less what Catholics say about Islam, the only ones who get confused by these “dialogues” are Catholics themselves. I suggest, as a motto for the USCCB’s new national dialogue, the saying of Benedict XVI that “truth makes consensus possible,” and, concomitantly, nonsense makes it impossible.

Prosecutor: Thank you, Mr. Reilly, no further questions at this time.

N.B. Robert Reilly has several books on Islam, The Prospects and Perils of Catholic-Muslim Dialogue and The Closing of the Muslim Mind.