UK Diocese Celebrates Muhammad, Eastern Guru

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LONDON (ChurchMilitant.com) - A south London diocese is marking the third Sunday of Advent by honoring the founders of Islam and Sikhism alongside Christ.

The archdiocese of Southwark is promoting a "Christmas, Milad and Gurpurab Celebration," a Dec. 15 "interfaith event" scheduled to be held at St. Matthew's Catholic Church in the borough of Lambeth.

"If you are local to the church please consider going along in order to join in building friendships among people of different faiths," read a recent archdiocesan social media post advertising the celebration.

"Honoring the births of Jesus Christ, Muhammad and Guru Nanak," the gathering will include "speeches by Christian, Muslim and Sikh speakers, Christmas hymns, Islamic nasheeds and Sikh Gurbani poetry," as well as "Hindu devotional songs of praise for Jesus and Muhammad."

The "interfaith event" reflects a growing "interreligious" trend within the Church in the West. Throughout 2019, for example, the Vatican has devoted increasing energy to Christian-Muslim "dialogue" — a push many faithful Catholics are denouncing as a thinly-disguised promotion of religious indifferentism.

Last week, Pope Francis joined with Ahmed el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Egypt's al-Azhar Mosque, to petition the United Nations to declare Feb. 4 the annual World Day of Human Fraternity.

The day would commemorate the duo's signing of the "Document on Human Fraternity" in Abu Dhabi earlier this year — a declaration that sparked consternation among many Catholics with its assertion, "The pluralism and the diversity of religions are willed by God in His wisdom."

In their message to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, the two leaders also called for the U.N. to convene — in collaboration with the Vatican and Cairo's Al-Azhar University — a "World Summit on Fraternity."

In 2007, Bp. Martinus Petrus Maria Muskens, former head of the diocese of Breda, the Netherlands, instructed his flock to refer to God as "Allah."

"Allah is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn't we all say that from now on we will call God 'Allah'?" he asked. "If Muslims and Christians address God with the same name, this contributes to harmonious living between both religions."

In a 2018 article for the Catholic World Report, Professor William Kilpatrick slammed the "looming scandal" of "the Church's facilitation of an Islamic takeover of much of the Western and non-Western world."

"For years now, Catholic leaders — the pope, bishops, priests, Catholic media, and Catholic educators — have covered up the large gap that divides Islam and Christianity," he observed.

"Instead they have poured all their energies into emphasizing the similarities between the two faiths, while simultaneously decrying 'Islamophobia' — a term which seems to refer to any criticism of Islam," he added.

Kilpatrick warned that "bishops whose sense of sin is limited to man-made climate change and the building of border walls are less likely to notice the approach of other types of evil."

Looking forward, he also forecast: "It is probable that clerics who saw no danger in the rise of homosexual networks in the Church will also see no danger in the spread of a supposedly 'peaceful' fellow religion — even though that religion has a long history of subjugating other cultures and religion."

"By the time that they do notice the danger, a great deal of — possibly irreversible — damage will have been done," Kilpatrick added.

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