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Cardinal Gerhard Muller
<font size="4"><b>Former Vatican head of doctrine: Christians ‘cannot pray like or with Muslims’</b></font><div class="gmail-article-content gmail-col-sm-10"><font size="2"><br></font>
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<p>ROME, May 21, 2019 (<a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/">LifeSiteNews</a>)
— <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former prefect of the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, </b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><b>said in a recent interview that <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)">Christians
“cannot pray </span><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)">like or with</span> Muslims.”</b></span></p>
<p>Cardinal Müller, who held the position once occupied by Pope Emeritus
Benedict XVI, gave a reflection in Verona on the theme “Prayer: A gift
from God.” Speaking on May 17, he told hundreds of listeners that “<span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><b>the
faithful of Islam are <span style="background-color:rgb(217,210,233)">not</span></b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>adopted children of God by the grace of
Christ</b></span>, <span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><b>but only his subjects</b></span>.” <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>Therefore, he said, with regard to
Christians, “We cannot pray</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>like or with</b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><b> Muslims</b></span>.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/drzhztfk8zma1jd/La%20Preghiera%2C%20dono%20di%20Dio_card%20MULLER_17maggio2019.pdf?dl=0">Cardinal Müller reflected that this is because</a>
<span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><b> “their faith in <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)">God</span> </b></span>and his self-revelation<span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><b> is not only different from </b></span>
<span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>the Christian faith in God,</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>but even denies</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>its formula</b></span>, claiming that
God does not have a Son, who, as the eternal Word of the Father, is a
divine person, and, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, is the One and
Trinitarian God.”</p>
<p>The former archbishop of Regensburg, Germany, said<span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><b> Muslims “can only
pray to a distant God, submitting to his will as an unknown destiny.
Their prayer expresses the blind subordination to the dominant will of
God. </b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>The Christian instead prays that the will of God be done, a will
that we do in liberty and that does not make us <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)">slaves</span>, but free
children of God.”</b></span></p>
<p>Speaking at the Basilica of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus in the
company of Bishop Giuseppe Zenti, Müller asserted that Christians,
unlike the adherents of other religions, “do not view their neighbors,
who do not want or cannot believe in God, as opponents or victims of the
Zeitgeist to be pitied, but as brothers whose Creator and Father is the
only God, the One who seeks them out.</p>
<p>“They [Christians] offer an honest dialogue regarding the question
that determines the meaning of being in general and of human existence
in particular, because they feel united to them in the search for a
better world.”</p>
<p>For Müller, “<span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><b>even Islam has faith in <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)">the one God</span></b></span>, <span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><b>but which is
understood as a natural faith in the existence o</b></span>f <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>God</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>and not </b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>as faith
as a virtue infused with hope and love, which makes us sharers in the
life of God, ensuring that we remain in him and he in us.”</b></span></p>
<p>The cardinal recalled that <span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><b>“even some atheists pray,” but “their turn
to themselves is typical of the atheistic prayer.” </b></span>He said the latter
is <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>“the opposite of</b> </span><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>Christian prayer,</b></span>” <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>because “if man himself is a god
to man [<em>homo homini Deus</em>], then he prays turning to himself in
the form of a meditation that always revolves around himself: Man is
both the subject and the object of prayer.”</b></span></p>
<p>Other theologians have pointed to similar essentia<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><span style=""></span></span>l differences
between Christianity and Islam. For example, the late Rev. James Schall
pointed out in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Islam-Chronological-Record-2002-2018/dp/1621641643/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=james+schall+islam&qid=1558451845&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull"><em>On Islam: A Chronological Record, 2002-2008</em></a>
that the book that Muslims revere is not from God. Christians
misunderstand Muslims’ views is because they misunderstand Islam, Schall
wrote.</p>
<p>To counter the spread of Islam and the migration of Muslims, Schall
wrote, “The first step needed, then, is the affirmation, from the
Christian side, that these views are as such false. They cannot be
divine revelations.”</p>
<p>According to Schall<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>, the problem with Islam is its “voluntarist
metaphysics” that leads Muslim terrorists, for example, to wage war on
t<span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)">he West</span></b></span>. Theological voluntarism asserts that God’s essence is a form
of will [<em>voluntas</em>] and whose decisions cannot be explained in
terms of reason. Voluntarists believe, Schall writes, that “[w]hat is
behind all reality is a will that can always be otherwise. It is not
bound to any one truth.” Consequently, God [Allah] is not limited by the
distinction.</p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><b>Muslims</b></span>, Schall writes<span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><b>, “affirm that<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"> evil</span> should not be done</b></span>. <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>But sometimes it should be done. In that case, evil becomes good.”</b></span></p></div></div>
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