Last week we prayed for deceased clergy from the Shenango Valley. I meant for us to also pray for +Bishop Donald W. Trautman (2022), Deacon Jack Tupper (2018), and Monsignor John B. Hagerty (2013)- may their souls, and the souls of all the faithful departed, rest in peace. Amen.
As we move towards an increasingly pluralistic society, Christians have to coexist with other religions more and more. However, we need to keep the faith and spread the faith! Here is a very interesting article from Nov. 3, 2026. Alberto Fernandez writes for the National Catholic Register. Here is the article:
Polite Talk on Islam Is Not Going to Be Enough
COMMENTARY: Coexistence with Muslims is essential. Even more so is the propagation of the Catholic faith.
It was one of those online flare-ups common to our digital age. A "liberal" cardinal in the Catholic Church made some remarks, a "conservative" bishop responded, and the usual suspects lined up on one side or another.But underneath the ire of the moment lies a serious issue: What should Catholics know and do about Islam?
The clash began with an English translation of a Belgian interview with the cardinal-archbishop of Algiers, the Dominican Jean-Paul Vesco. The French-born Cardinal Vesco, who has spent most of his life as a priest in Algeria and now holds Algerian citizenship, said that "we are the Church of this people. Not a proselytizing Church, not a Church that is there to convert." He added that "in monotheistic religions, proselytism is poison, because it implies considering the other person's religion false."
Cardinal Vesco's remarks drew a sharp response from Bishop Robert Barron, who said that "no one thinks that this work of evangelization should be done in a browbeating, overbearing or disrespectful manner(proselytization), but for God's sake, let's not throw the baby out with the bath water."
Some online pundits then criticized Bishop Barron for supposedly being insensitive to the challenges of being a Christian in Muslim lands and said that Cardinal Vesco was just being prudent, only to have Cardinal Vesco clarify that his remarks were not about the situation in Algeria or even proselytization per se, but that he believed that "believers of the three monotheistic faiths have better things to do than try to convert one another."
Many critics pointed out that one person who is very much interested in conversion and evangelization is Pope Leo XIV himself, who said only six months ago that "evangelization must remain the fundamental motivation behind every action of the universal Church and of local communities."
Simultaneous with the online clash between Cardinal Vesco and Bishop Barron was a local controversy in Bologna, Italy, where Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, who is also president of the Italian Conference of Bishops (CEI), presented 11 fact sheets on Islam to be used by teachers and students in Catholic religion classes. The material was prepared by the CEI, the Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies, and representatives of various Islamic organizations in Italy in 2025.
The packet was presented by its preparers within the context of the 60th anniversary of the 1965 Vatican II document Nostra Aetate. That document declares that "the Church regards with esteem also the Moslems" a specific mention that was, at the time, the fruit of intense lobbying by Eastern Catholics and Arab regimes.
Despite criticism in some Catholic circles, the content is generally what one would expect in secular or academic circles: extremely respectful of Islam and presenting it as positively or as neutrally as possible, without passing into open advocacy. Cardinal Zuppi highlighted the study guides' utility in "learning about Islam to overcome prejudices and promote coexistence." He added that "there is notable ignorance" in Italy about Islam, that "the future is dialogue" and that this content is "the opposite of a clash of civilizations."
For those seeking to defend themselves or debate a Muslim seeking to convert them, or even to "evangelize"others, the texts are, at best, marginal if not actually harmful. Should the task of increasing awareness and strengthening one's own faith be important to Catholics? Or is it all about respecting the other, overcoming prejudice and promoting coexistence? The material is most certainly not Catholic apologetics in the face of the propositions of lslam.
One can understand the risk of seeking to evangelize in Algeria, but is there anywhere where Catholics can openly evangelize Muslims, say in countries where Catholics are at least on paper still a majority? Surely there should be no contradiction between respecting others of different beliefs and believing that those beliefs are wrong or, to be more diplomatic, incomplete.
In reading the comments of Cardinals Vesco and Zuppi, I was reminded of what that great Arab scholar Albert Hourani, in one of his early works, wrote that "the toleration which the present-day Moslem professes for Christians and Jews is too often not that of a humble believer for those whom he recognizes as serious seekers of the same truth but the contemptuous toleration of the strong for the weak. This must be changed."
Do Italian Muslims organize classes that respectfully teach their own faithful what Christians believe about Christianity, or do they rely on Quranic condemnations of Christianity?
The Quran is many things, but it is also a running commentary on the faith of others, Christians and Jews, sometimes respectful and sometimes deeply hostile. Many Muslims have sought to square that contradiction between spirituality and hostility.
The great Sudanese reformer Mahmud Muhammad Taha spoke of the two messages of the Islamic Revelation, one for all time, and another that was only of a specific time and place in seventh-century Arabia, concerning only the pagans and wars of that age. He was killed by the state as an apostate for that insight.
Mahmud Muhammad Taha is absent from these Italian teaching materials. So is St. John of Damascus, the sole Arab doctor of the Church who lived in what was then the capital of the global Islamic Empire and who saw Islam as a Christian heresy. His comments on the "heresy of the Ishmaelites" are certainly hostile, but he knew Islam well and actually deals specifically with some of the key Islamic misconceptions about Christianity. One would not know from the Italian texts that there is actually some scholarly research that seems to point to St. John of Damascus being right. This is the basic challenge: Coexistence is essential. Even more so is the propagation of the faith.
Saint Gertrude the Great, one of the great mystics of the 13th century, pray for us. Father Miller