On May 18, R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, was featured as a guest columnist for the online Christian Post with an article entitled “R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Should Christians ‘Respect’ Other Religions?” The burden of his piece was to respond to remarks made by Pope Benedict during his recent visit to the Middle East. This is enough of Mohler’s response to grasp his argument:

The Vatican’s official transcript of the Pope’s comments at the Amman airport records him as saying:

My visit to Jordan gives me a welcome opportunity to speak of my deep respect for the Muslim community, and to pay tribute to the leadership shown by His Majesty the King in promoting a better understanding of the virtues proclaimed by Islam.

There are so many different angles to this situation. First, we have the spectacle of a Pope being received as a head of state. This is wrong on so many counts. Second, we have the Pope speaking in diplomatic jargon, rather than in plain and direct speech. Third, we have the Pope speaking of “respect” without any clear understanding of what this really means. Does the Pope believe that Muslims can be saved through the teachings of Islam?

Actually, he probably does — at least within the context of a salvific inclusivism. The Roman Catholic Church officially teaches that Muslims are “included in the plan of salvation” by virtue of their claim to “hold the faith of Abraham.”

In the words of Lumen Gentium, one of the major documents adopted at Vatican II:

But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohamedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.

The same language is basic to the current official catechism of the church as well. Within the context of the document, this language clearly implies that Muslims are within the scope of God’s salvation. While the Roman Catholic Church teaches that Islam is both erroneous and incomplete, it also holds that sincere Muslims can be included in Christ’s salvation through their faithfulness to monotheism and Islam.

Thus, when the Catholic Pope speaks of “respecting” Islam, he can do so in a way that evangelical Christians cannot. …

Let’s see what we have here. First of all, the pope is a head of state. Since to Mohler, a Baptist, the pope is no spiritual authority at all, he is nothing other than a head of state. Certainly Mohler can understand why a head of state would be welcomed as such on a foreign visit. However, when Mohler says that it is wrong for the pope to be welcomed as a head of state, he saying that it is wrong for someone in the pope’s spiritual position — a position Mohler does not recognize as real — to be treated that way. Either there is an actual spiritual office the pope holds or there is not. To Baptists there is no such thing as the papacy. Now, if there really is and Mohler wants to address the way the office is handled, that is one thing, but to claim an office does not exist and then criticize the way it is carried out is as silly as criticizing a bald man’s hair style.

Second, the pope is not speaking in diplomatic jargon. The pope is not speaking in euphemisms or coded language. The pope is being forthright, but with kindness and tact. The kindness and tact recommended in that book that Evangelicals claim is their “sure norm”: “Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person” (Col. 4:6) and “[A]lways [be] ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence” (1 Peter 3:15).

Third, Pope Benedict XVI really does understand what respect means. Mohler is the one with the problem.

Mohler says: “Thus, when the Catholic Pope speaks of ‘respecting’ Islam, he can do so in a way that evangelical Christians cannot.” His detour into the teachings of Vatican II and the Catechism very conveniently separates that criticism and claim of difference from the actual words that the pope said. It’s convenient because it allows time for the reader to forget what the pope actually did say — which was nothing at all about respecting Islam! Look again at the quotation from the pope:

My visit to Jordan gives me a welcome opportunity to speak of my deep respect for the Muslim community, and to pay tribute to the leadership shown by His Majesty the King in promoting a better understanding of the virtues proclaimed by Islam.

Respecting the Muslim community — those made-in-the-image-of-God human beings who are adherents to Islam — is not the same thing as respecting Islam. Mohler knows this; really he does, because later on the article he says:

Thus, evangelical Christians may respect the sincerity with which Muslims hold their beliefs, but we cannot respect the beliefs themselves. We can respect Muslim people for their contributions to human welfare, scholarship, and culture. We can respect the brilliance of Muslim scholarship in the medieval era and the wonders of Islamic art and architecture. But we cannot respect a belief system that denies the truth of the gospel, insists that Jesus was not God’s Son, and takes millions of souls captive.

In order to pretend that there is some great divide here between the Evangelical viewpoint and that of Catholics regarding the Muslim faith, Mohler has to ignore what the pope actually said, (which he quoted!) and ignore his own quotation from Lumen Gentium — which does not say that Muslims are included in the plan of salvation “by virtue of their claim” to hold the faith of Abraham. It does not even say that Muslims hold the faith of Abraham, merely acknowledges that they claim to.

Yes, the Catechism says that God’s plan of salvation “also includes… the Muslims.” That’s because the Catechism says that all men are included in God’s plan of salvation! Nowhere does it make the assertion Mohler is trying to attribute to it: that sincere Muslims can be included in Christ’s salvation “through their faithfulness to monotheism and Islam.” What the Catechism does say is reasonable, balanced, and scriptural; read it for yourself and see:

841 The Church’s relationship with the Muslims. “The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.”

842 The Church’s bond with non-Christian religions is in the first place the common origin and end of the human race:

All nations form but one community. This is so because all stem from the one stock which God created to people the entire earth, and also because all share a common destiny, namely God. His providence, evident goodness, and saving designs extend to all against the day when the elect are gathered together in the holy city. . .

843 The Catholic Church recognizes in other religions that search, among shadows and images, for the God who is unknown yet near since he gives life and breath and all things and wants all men to be saved. Thus, the Church considers all goodness and truth found in these religions as “a preparation for the Gospel and given by him who enlightens all men that they may at length have life.”

844 In their religious behavior, however, men also display the limits and errors that disfigure the image of God in them:

Very often, deceived by the Evil One, men have become vain in their reasonings, and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and served the creature rather than the Creator. Or else, living and dying in this world without God, they are exposed to ultimate despair.

In addressing the issue of how those who do not hear the Gospel might come to be saved, the Church does not attribute salvific power to any false belief system, whether Islam or any other, but rather to God’s mysterious ability to sow faith in Himself into every human heart that sincerely seeks HIm. But even this acknowledgment of God’s power does not diminish the world’s need to hear the Gospel:

848 “Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men.”

It was just such evangelistic zeal that motivated the Holy Father’s historic visit to the Middle East, where over and over he turned men’s attention to Christ as the hope for peace. One of his themes was the need for honest, humble dialogue based upon respect for the dignity of every person. I submit that contrary to Mohler’s assertion that the pope is “without any clear understanding of what [respect] means,” the pope’s understanding of it surpasses that of Dr. Mohler. The pope understands that one of the first requirements of respectful conversation is to seek to clearly understand and then to fairly represent the position of another.

On a recent pilgrimage, my daughter and I took a detour to see if we could find the hospital in which I was born. The map was confusing, the traffic was pressing and we waived off for lunch. There, over our meal, we looked up to see the building we sought across the street, with its sign hidden by the surrounding trees. We just smiled at the irony, finished eating and headed home.

The decades between that first drawn breath and now have been complicated in ways, and yet remarkably straight-forward in others. The first maternal embrace and swaddled welcome gave way to an unforeseen abyss as death intervened, and the essential motherly tasks were undertaken by others. God provides, and yet the yearning for a reliable sanctuary has ever been with me, for those who are deprived feel keenly what others may take for granted.

God is good, and in His almighty plan the perfect sanctuary endures even when the smaller icons of it slip from our horizons. Thus if a person needs a mother, father, food, shelter and a lamp to light his path, then such things can be found — in both concrete expressions and the supernatural echoes that point their true meaning.

When it comes to the essential tasks of motherhood, the Church — the bride of Christ — stands ready to scoop up the wayward souls in search of peace and order, and to swaddle them in truth and love. The door is open, her arms reach down and she gives freely from her storehouse of nourishment to all who ask. The fact that this bride first “drew breath” in Jerusalem should draw special attention to the pilgrimage that the Holy Father is making to Israel this very week — for supernatural echoes abound in that holy place.

Benedict will see many things during his visit, and three faith communities will parse his every word and gesture. Interestingly, while all three look to Jerusalem as a city integral to their worship of God, only Catholicism puts weight on the maternal dimension of that place.

Layers of the mystery unfold when we recognize that the temple built by Solomon was precursor to both the bride of Christ and the heavenly Jerusalem to which all our churches here on earth point. There are also deep implications tied to Mary, the mother of God, who is herself related to that city. “Mary, in whom the Lord himself has just made his dwelling, is the daughter of Zion in person, the ark of the covenant, the place where the glory of the Lord dwells” (CCC 2676).

While Benedict XVI is privileged to walk in the footsteps of Our Lord, we must remember that every Mass is itself a pilgrimage. “In the earthly liturgy we share in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the Holy City of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God” (CCC 1090). In each Mass we’re privileged to glimpse the wedding feast of the Lamb, which will take place at the consummation of the world.

Benedict has described his journey as a pilgrimage of peace — “the lasting peace born of justice, integrity and compassion, the peace that arises from humility, forgiveness and the profound desire to live in harmony as one” — and we pray that it bears fruit. Only through the blood of Jesus is lasting peace possible, and to that end Holy Mother Church offers her sanctuary of ordered love and humble service. She is the true witness — a signpost to the tranquility of heaven.

Pope Benedict [left] Rome [yesterday] for his historic pastoral trip to the Holy Land (May 8-15). The trip has six main purposes which may be summarized in a phrase: to build peace through speaking truth. We will publish a regular commentary on the events of the Pope’s trip.

The way for Israel to secure its future lies not through making war, but through building a just peace, the Archbishop of the Catholic Church in Baghdad, Iraq, Jean Benjamin Sleiman, told Inside the Vatican magazine on the eve of Pope’s departure for the Holy Land.

“This trip is very dear to Pope’s heart,” the archbishop said. “But it is also very important for Israel. The Pope in his addresses will layout the principles by which the Israelis and Palestinians in coming months and years can develop a lasting peace. The question is whether this message will be heard and acted upon. I think it is a historically dramatic occasion when one man will speak words which will, if they are listened to, change history.”

Sleiman, 63, a native of Lebanon, has been Latin-rite bishop of Baghdad for eight years, since 2001. He is considered one of the leading spokesman among Catholics in the Middle East for the continued presence of the Christian community of that part of the world. He spoke to Inside the Vatican (Photo below: Archbishop Sleiman with the author meeting in Washington D.C.) in Washington DC, where he was meeting with US Senators and Congressmen to discuss the life of the Christian community in Iraq and its prospects for a secure future.

The Archbishop is persuaded that, despite the difficulty facing the Christians of Iraq, there are profound reasons to stay there and, if they have left, to return.

“We have had a tremendous flight of Christians from Iraq,” he said. “This is what I told the Pope on my last visit with him.

“I explained that many of the young people who seek a better life in places like London and Paris and Stockholm end up losing their faith. Iraq society puts tremendous value on a close-knit family. When the young people leave Iraq and get off on their own, away from their parents and grandparents, they often lose their way.

“So from a pastoral perspective, I feel compelled as a bishop to encourage the Christians to stay in Iraq, even thought I understand their desire to seek a better life elsewhere. I know that the ‘better life’ for them would be to keep their faith.”

When the archbishop spoke of his talks with Pope Benedict, he became animated. “Pope Benedict is a holy man, a intelligent man, and a humble man,” he said. “He is kind and he listens attentively to those to whom he speaks.”

Sleiman was born in Lebanon, near Byblos. He is one of five children and grew up speaking French and Arabic (he also speaks excellent English and Italian).

He felt the first promptings of a religious vocation in the admiration  he felt for several of the priest who were his teachers. But later his vocation entered a deeper phase.

“I no longer simply wanted to imitate the life and character of the men I admired,” he said. “I wanted to commit myself totally to something higher — to the highest thing I could find. And that highest was the priesthood, conforming my life to the life of Christ.”

“The Muslims of the world are very confident that they will be the planet’s future,” he continued. “But I believe the future is in Christ. The Pope will proclaim this hope throughout his trip, to everyone in the Middle East, and to the whole world watching.”

Sleiman said he would have been in Jordan to greet the Pope upon his arrival, but the need to explain the  situation of the Christians in Iraq to U.S. officials was so urgent that he decided to take more than a week in the United States to make his case.

The man who discovered and promoted Sleiman for the position in Baghdad was the Italian Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, in 2001 the head of the Vatican’s Congregation of Oriental Churches, under Pope John Paul II. Silvestrini, a career Vatican diplomat who has since retired, visited Saddam Hussein personally to try to persuade him to come to a compromise with the Western powers before the 2003 war began.

Both Silverstrini and Pope John Paul II found in Sleiman a man with the diplomatic tact to work well in the explosive atmosphere of Baghdad and with the deep faith needed to be an effective pastor to the diverse Latin-rite community in the Iraqi capital (some 30,000 Poles, 6,000 Brazilians and many other nationalities).