American Muslims & the Pope

Five articles on the subject:

I can understand the reluctance of Muslims to meet His holiness Pope Benedict. It is based on three mis-spokes within the last year. His words were not mitigators but provocateur of conflicts and Muslims were not clear about his intentions, they did not want to invite themselves unless they were invited.

To be a Muslim is to be a peacemaker, one who constantly seeks to mitigate conflicts and nurtures goodwill for peaceful co-existence. God wants us to live in peace and harmony with his creation; life and mater. Indeed, that is the purpose of religion, any religion.

Mother Teresa once said, “If you want to make peace, you go talk with your enemies, you don’t make peace with your friends”. God bless her soul for such wisdom.

I am glad CAIR is attending the event, if I had the invite, I would have been there too. We are all human and I would expect his Holiness will choose his words to nurture goodwill. For peace, we have to put things behind us. As a Muslim, I believe the best in people.

Continued at: http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2008/04/muslims-and-pope.html

Pope Benedict Visits America

Article follows my notes;

I am pleased that the Pope understands the dominant pluralistic traditions of America and am pleased that he is visiting members of different faith traditions.

Given his position as guardian of the Christian Catholic denomination, and given his conflict producing speeches recently, I hope he would not have a condescending attitude toward the other faiths and his dialogue would be based on giving full value to the other beliefs as he would give to his own belief set.

If we can learn to accept and respect every which way humans express their gratitude to the creator then conflicts fade and solutions emerge.

As beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, faith is in the heart of the believer.

Mike Ghouse
www.FoundationforPluralism.com
www.WorldMuslimCongress.com
http://www.mikeghouse.net/

What the pope will see in America
James A. Donahue Monday, April 14, 2008

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/14/EDJO105BE0.DTL

When Pope Benedict XVI sets foot on American soil today, he will find a Catholic Church and a Catholic community that very much reflects the country of which it is a part. His visit presents an opportunity for greater understanding - because one of the long-standing challenges in the relationship between the Vatican and the American church has been to understand the issues of American Roman Catholics as distinctive, and as an outgrowth of American culture.

The unifying power of the Catholic Church, represented primarily through the primacy of the papacy, has resided in its ability to speak in a common voice across nations and cultures. And though this goal of "universal" commonality has been significantly strained in the contemporary world, the American Roman Catholic community reflects a people who seek to identify across cultural divisions. There are many issues that may capture the pope's attention next week, but several stand out as the most significant.

Pope Benedict will see that American Catholic identity and beliefs are not monolithic. Rather, within a core set of beliefs, Catholic identities cut across race, class, gender and ethnicity. In California alone, Latino Catholics in Los Angeles are different from Catholics in suburban San Francisco, and also different from Catholics in rural Northern California.

The pope will see that religious pluralism is the primary context for Roman Catholicism in America. A recent Pew Foundation survey of American religious affiliation suggested that while most Americans ascribe to some religious belief, the forms that belief takes are significantly diverse and the patterns of practice and engagement are fluid. So American Catholicism finds itself in continuous conversation with other religious forms and beliefs, and the American Catholic experience is no longer either sectarian or mainstream, but a mixture of both.

The pontiff is well aware that the reality of religious pluralism in America presents the opportunity for interreligious dialogue to flourish. He signaled this as a priority in his first public Mass and has since indicated that dialogue among Christians, Muslims and Jews is important for the future of Catholic theological thinking. Indeed, his inclusion of visits to a New York synagogue and to a Washington meeting with Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and leaders of other faiths suggests the continuing importance of interreligious dialogue to the pontiff. While the dialogue could address conflict resolution and the search for harmony, the pontiff has indicated that the central point of dialogue is the search for truth of the Catholic tradition in relationship to the truths of other religious traditions.

The pope will find that American culture does not represent a hotbed of secular relativism, which he has articulated as a persistent enemy of the truths of the Catholic faith. He will see an American people, a church and Catholic communities in a country that is hungry for religious and spiritual meaning. The challenge for the American Catholic Church is determining in what ways it can meet these spiritual and religious longings. The church's attempts to modernize and appeal to the local customs of American culture while being faithful to tradition will be closely scrutinized by observers inside and outside the church.

Perhaps most significant for the pope to observe is that the American Catholic Church shares the impulse of American society for the dynamics of democratization in institutional and organizational life - which presents enormous challenges to the existing structural authority and organizational dynamics of the church. Pope Benedict will see that Americans desire and demand participation in the political processes, transparency in decision-making processes and accountability from their leadership. He might see the hierarchical, male-dominated decision-making of the Catholic tradition, the lack of structural accountability of leaders as manifested in the recent sexual abuse scandals, and the emerging interface of religion and politics as significant issues for the Roman Catholic Church in America to address. What remains to be seen is not whether, but how, the church can or should adapt to these demands.

Also available for Pope Benedict to observe in America is that engaging youth - the next generation of American Catholics - will be a significant challenge. While the pope will address youth and leaders in Catholic higher education during his visit, the question is, will younger Catholics see the practice, worship or ethical behaviors of American Catholic life as relevant or as hopelessly "out of touch" with their own lives? The role of women in the American church, who have been theologically and pastorally excluded from leadership positions, will also be up front and center for Pope Benedict to consider, especially as many Americans have already voted in primaries for a candidate, who, if elected, will be the country's first female president. The church will be pressed to justify its exclusion of women from leadership positions, and it seems unlikely that the historical positions of the Roman Catholic Church on these matters will be satisfying to many in American society.

Pope Benedict visits America at a time of enormous ferment in the American church. He has shown careful and thoughtful attention to many of these issues. With firsthand evidence, he may see the challenges and the possibilities for renewed conversations between the Vatican and the American Catholic Church. The dialogue that could ensue could offer American Catholics - still the single largest religious denomination in the United States - the opportunities they seek for relevant participation in the church, and for religious and spiritual connection across diverse American Catholic identities. It could also offer Americans in general the chance for deeper understanding and tolerance of each other's religious beliefs and traditions.

James A. Donahue, a Catholic theologian with a specialty in theological ethics, is president and professor of Ethics at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif.

Protesting Pope's Visit

April 12, 2008

To: Forum for Protection of Religious Pluralism

Dear Valerie Tarico
Forum for Protection of Religious Pluralism
Phone: 847-462-4692
E-mail: protectreligions@gmail.com

Greetings (click)

We support the work you are doing, however, please bear in mind that your web site gives the impression that it is anti-Christian. Pluralism is an inclusive concept and not an exclusive program.

Religion teaches one to live a peaceful life and shows the ways to stay away from being ugly, most people get it and a few don't. It is the individual that does the wrong, not the religion.

It is a shame what is happening with the Cauvery layout in Bangalore, we need to go after the individuals as individuals without affixing a religious label to them. Our objectives in bringing justice to humanity will be well served if we go after the criminals. We can punish individuals and bring justice and stop or mitigate the crimes, but we cannot punish religion, religion is not the criminal nor is it a tangible thing to punish.

I would like you to include Muslim and Christian symbols in your website banner to be truly pluralistic. No Muslim and No Christian want bad things to happen to any, a few do, and every religion has their share of ugly people. It is not the religion it is the individual. Every war and every crime originates from an individual in the disguise of the religion, although the society has shamelessly allowed them to be use the religious label. It is time to strip it.

On your website you have insinuated that $10 donation to Ahmed could go to Terrorists, I hope you would re-consider that statement, those words do not mitigate conflicts. Let your organization defend every religion and every one's right, as opposed to creating one group v the other. Let's all focus on individual criminals and treat them as such.

If we had gone after Bin Laden the criminal, and not Bin Laden the Muslim, we would have gotten him cornered and no one would have given him the protection if we had singled him out as a criminal. We would have saved the world from destruction of millions of lives, kept the men from becoming widowers and women from becoming widows, children would have had a chance to life, neither half a million women would have gone on the street and our own men and women would not have been sacrificed for the whims of the few. Not only the world is suffering for our administration’s irresponsible actions, we as Americans are suffering too in terms of guilt we are going to by carrying for not doing anything about the genocide of the Iraqi people, our economy and the oil prices. Who is going to pay for the trillion plus dollar deficit?

A public dialogue with the Pope would be ideal than a protest, however, if the protestation brings awareness and helps stepping up for a dialogue, then we have taken one more step in the right direction. We do not want any one to dig in their heels.

Please do not alienate good people regardless of the faith, tradition and culture they espouse.

If you can address these issue, you can add the following two organizations as support

1) World Muslim Congress and 2) Foundation for Pluralism

Mike Ghouse, President
Foundation for Pluralism
http://www.foundationforpluralism.com/
Dallas, Texas

Our Mission is to encourage individuals to develop an open mind and an open heart toward their follow beings. If we can learn to accept and respect the God given uniqueness of each one of the 7 billion of us, then conflicts fade and solutions emerge. We believe that knowledge leads to understanding and understanding to acceptance and appreciation of a different point of view.

2665 Villa Creek Dr, Suite 206, Dallas, TX 75234 (214) 325-1916
Workshops Seminars Education News Letters

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NEW YORK, March 14 /PRNewswire/ -- The following was
released by Forum for the Protection of Religious Pluralism:

On April 18th, Pope Benedict XVI will address the United Nations General Assembly as part of his first visit to the United States as leader of the Catholic Church. In response to this event, the Forum for the Protection of Religious Pluralism (FPRP) (http://protectreligions.org) is organizing a peaceful march, which will proceed at 10 a.m. on Friday, April 18 from the United Nations building to the Gandhi statue in Union Square Park. Another demonstration and parade will be held outside Yankee Stadium during the Papal address there from 1-4 p.m., on Sunday, April 20. FPRP is holding these events to voice another view of religion, international politics, and civil rights.

*(LOGO 72dpi:
Send2Press.com/mediaboom/08-0314-FPRP_72dpi.jpg)

FPRP is devoted to raising public awareness of religions that have been victimized by aggressive proselytization campaigns that are grounded in religious exclusivism, which is there is only one way to God and all other ways are wrong and even evil that needs to be destroyed. Catholic, Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians looking to increase their numbers at any cost have had tremendous success in recruiting new converts by closely linking social services with deceptive and exploitative proselytizing. For example, schools have been built by evangelicals in other countries to provide an education to the poor, but the schools have also sought to persuade the children that their parents' spiritual beliefs are wrong and that Christianity is the only true religion. During natural calamities (tsunamis, earthquakes etc), services to the distressed are attached to proselytization campaigns. Weaker sections of the societies are targeted creating hatred, disharmony and tearing apart communities that lived together for thousands of years. These campaigns are funded through a combination of donations from churchgoers and government support, are still being conducted around the world with little interference. Such acts of intolerance violate the religious freedoms of many ancient traditions, and the FPRP is holding its events to bring attention to the injustices faced by them.

According to the events' organizers, religious exclusivism is at the root of religious injustice and sectarian violence around the world. This includes 9/11, Rwanda and other genocides, stolen generations of native cultures, suppression of women, gays as well as many lesser known violations committed in the name of God. In Bangalore suburb, new Christian converts from slum areas who were told by missionaries that their old neighbors worship demons put crosses at every street corner of the community of non-Christians and replaced their street names with Christian saints names. Residents live in fear as hostilities mount.

"We represent faiths, including several Christian denominations, that do not support proselytization and view the practice of it as a complete contradiction of their beliefs," says Jonas Trinkunas from the World Congress of Ethnic Religions (WCER), one of the organizations that is sponsoring the event. "When the members of the U.N. say that they support religious freedom and then give privileged treatment to the leader of a religion that regularly endorses deceptive proselytization campaigns at the expense of others, we feel that we are being penalized for remaining true to our faiths. If religious freedom is going to be shared by everyone, this unequal treatment must stop."


While this event is designed to focus on the rights of minority ethnic religions, other groups are encouraged to participate regardless of their religious or non-religious backgrounds. Hindu Collective Initiative of North America representing many Hindu temples and organizations is supporting the event. Religious groups such as Buddhists, Druids, Greek, Hindus, Romuva, Slavics, Wiccan, and other ethnic religions from Europe, Africa and various parts of the Americas have already confirmed their attendance at the demonstration, and the organizers are hoping that more groups will participate.

"We are not against any religion," says Satyanarayana Dosapati, one of the organizers of the event. "But the religious freedoms of cultures are being abused in many countries and their ancient traditions are being lost at an alarming rate. Mahatma Gandhi called proselytizations conducted by missionaries as the deadliest poison that ever sapped the fountain of truth. We can no longer afford to live in a world in which some religions spend billions of dollars each year to spread intolerance and injustice under the guise of humanitarian aid while ancient traditions disappear as the result. If religious pluralism is to have a future, we must act now."

FPRP plans to submit a petition signed by members of all religious groups to UN Secretary General calling for more active role by UN in protecting all the World religions and cultures.

detailed information is at
http://www.protectreligions.org.

Pope Benedict

Pope Benedict, is he Peace maker or a Provocateur?

I have been writing and re-writing the definition of a peace maker. "A peace maker constantly seeks to mitigate conflicts and nurtures goodwill for peaceful co-existence. His or Her words and actions do not make things worse, but bring some sense and understanding to the situation. God wants us to live in peace and harmony with his creation; indeed that is the purpose religion." Indeed, peace making is the duty of a religious person.

Did Pope's conversion event on Easter, mitigate or aggravate the conflict? With all due respect to his holiness, his words have not been that of a peace maker. There have been three incidents where his non-action or silence would have been better. The revival of comments made by the Emperor Constantine he delivered in Germany irritated his counterparts in Muslim world, then revising the prayer that was not kosher and now this. What was the need to make the conversion on Easter? Provoke?

His holiness Pope Benedict knew darn well, that Muslims will jump up and down and scream to his reactions. As a holy man, was that necessary? What is the gain? What is the need to ruffle the feathers? It is a shame that those Muslims react so wildly towards his words, they need to get in control of themselves and not let the Pope make them dance. If the Pope had not said the things he said, not done the things he did, would there have been a crisis?

Continued: http://wisdomofreligion.blogspot.com/2008/03/pope-benedict-bin-laden.html