The Vatican’s in-house news outlet has described the Muslim period of Ramadan as “a time of prayer and reconciliation for the good of Creation” and for “interreligious collaboration.”
In an article published on Saturday, Vatican News presented the Muslim period of Ramadan as yet another instance to be used for interreligious dialogue. Ramadan is “a time of prayer and reconciliation for the good of Creation,” read the article’s headline.
Ramadan was described as “the holy month for Islam” and as “a month of fasting, prayer and charitable acts.”
Vatican News wrote:
Ramadan and Lent are a time for Muslims and Christians to reflect deeply on shared themes. For both it is a period of fasting and contemplation, during which the faithful are called to reflect on their existence, on their relationship with Creation and with the Creator.
Speaking to Vatican News, Mustafa Cenap Aydin – director of the Tiber Institute Center for Dialogue – compared his Islamic creed and practice of Ramadan to that of the Catholic Lent. With Ramadan starting on March 1 and Lent on March 5, he said that “this coincidence is like two brothers, the sons of Abraham, walking together for different reasons.”
“This year we will have many opportunities for interreligious collaboration, also in spiritual life,” he added, citing the coinciding of the Catholic and Orthodox dates for Easter along with that of the Jewish Passover.
The annual month-long period of Ramadan is famous for its period of daytime fasting and nighttime feasting, and was recently even controversially used as a means by Cardinal Timothy Dolan to exhort Catholics to practice a more rigorous Lent.
But Islamic scholar Robert Spencer explained in a 2016 article published in FrontPage Magazine that while Muslims are exhorted “to grow more generous and kind toward their fellow Muslims” during Ramadan, anti-Muslim violence increases during the same period.
“If the Ramadan imperative is to become more devout, the Muslim who applies himself diligently to the Ramadan observance will simultaneously become more both merciful to his fellow Muslims and more severe against the unbelievers,” wrote Spencer.
He added that “murdering infidels thus doesn’t contradict the spirit of Ramadan; it embodies it.”
Drawing form a 2010 research article, Spencer commented:
The Kavkaz Center, a website operated by Chechen jihadists, explained in a 2010 article that the idea of Ramadan as a time for warfare against infidels went back to Muhammad’s time: “The month of Ramadan in the life of the Prophet (pbuh) and the righteous ancestors was a month of forthcoming. The greatest battles during the lifetime of the Prophet (pbuh) occurred in this blessed month, the month of jihad, zeal and enthusiasm.”
In contrast, as noted recently on LifeSite, Lent is the ancient liturgical season in the Catholic Church’s year marked by fasting, prayer, almsgiving, and good works in preparation for the immense mysteries of Holy Week and Easter. It is also to unite the Catholic faithful to that 40-day period of prayer and fasting which Christ spent in the desert. (Mark 1:12-13)
As noted in Father John Hardon’s respected Catholic Dictionary, Lent “is to better prepare the faithful for the feast of the Resurrection, and dispose them for a more fruitful reception of the graces that Christ merited by his passion and death.”
While much has been made to foster Catholic-Muslim relations in recent years, the Islamic understanding of God is irreconcilable with Catholicism.
In the words of Islam’s holy text itself, it can be noted that there is an outright rejection of so many fundamental elements of Catholicism. Firstly, the Koran rejects the notion of God as Trinity; secondly, it rejects that God has a Son, saying it is beneath Him to have one. Thirdly, Jesus is viewed simply as a messenger of God, necessitating the fact that Mary would not be the Mother of God.
In an August 2016 interview, Raymond Cardinal Burke stated that “I don’t believe it’s true that we’re all worshipping the same God, because the God of Islam is a governor.”
The cardinal’s words are echoed by Bishop Athanasius Schneider in his book-length interview Christus Vincit, when he mentions that “Islam in itself is not faith.” The bishop continues by explaining that faith is only found in Christianity and “is applicable only to belief in the Holy Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. … When someone does not believe in the Holy Trinity, he has no faith but simply natural religion.”