Restless Pilgrim

Surah 11:1 says that the Qur’an is a fully-explained book, but nobody seems to known what “Alif-Lãm-Ra” means.

Surah 3:35 says the Virgin Mary is the daughter of Imran (who was the father of Moses!)

Surah 3:7 says that parts of the Qur’an are unclear.

Surah 3:93 speaks of the Torah as though it is present and uncorrupted

Surah 105 is utterly imcomprehensible without the Hadith

Surah 1:54 says a man dies and nobody knows

Surah 2:62 says Christians are okay, but Surah 3:85 suggests that they’re in trouble

Surah 2:85 says you can’t just believe part of the earlier Scriptures

Surah 9:29 says that persecution is allowed on the basis of belief

Surah 4:24 says slaves are allowed

Surah 33:56 says Allah and the Angels pray? for Muhammad?

Surah 4:48 says that Shirk will not be forgiven but Surah 4:153 shows that it can be forgiven.

Surah 4:65 says you have to submit to all of Muhammad’s teachings (which are spread across multiple volumes of hadith)

Surah 4:167 denies the crucifixion. What happened? Does this mean that Allah is responsible for Christianity’s existence Surah 5:47 tells Christians to judge by the Gospel, implying that Gospel is still inexistance.

Surah 5:3 says that Islam was completed and perfected on this day, but this isn’t the last verse of the Qur’an revealed. Doesn’t that mean it’s incomplete and perfected later? Isn’t that a contradiction?

Surah 7:143: Allah enters creation?

Surah 19:28: The Virgin Mary is sister of Aaron?!

Surah 20:85: A Samaritan led the worship of the Golden Calf?!

Surah 22:6 Allah says he is “The Truth”…a title claimed by Jesus.

Surah 24:35 comes Allah to many things he has created (and I’ve heard it said often that you can’t do this)

Surah 26:196: Claims that the Qur’an has been foretold in the previous scriptures

Surah 40:55, Surah 47:19, and Surah 48:2 all seem to say that Muhammad sinned, despite the common Islamic belief that he was sinless.

Surah 47:7: You can help Allah?

Surah 55:56 the rewards of Jenna

Surah 16:44 says that Muhammad will explain the revelation he’s been given and Surah 59:7 says Muhammad will explain what is allowed and forbidden (outside of the Qur’an?).

Surah 98:6 and Surah 8:55 Those who don’t believe in the Qur’an are the “worst of creatures”

Surah 5:45 quotes “the Torah” but doesn’t match either Exodus 21:24, Leviticus 24:20, or Deuteronomy 19:21

Surah 21:105 says it’s quoting the Psalms but adds an extra word (“servants”) in Psalm 37:29

Surah 28:38: High towers are built out of baked clay?! And has it confused Haman from the story of Esther?

Surah 61:6 says that Jesus gave “good news of a messenger after me whose name will be Aḥmad”

Surah 66:12 has translations which obscure the word “vagina”. Mary protected it and it was breathed into. It also claims that Mary was the daughter of Imran.

Surah 33:36: Muhammad is a decision partner with Allah (shirk?!)

There are three main problems with what’s said here:

1. As with most scientific miracle claims in the Qur’an, A LOT is read into a vague text. All it says is that “the heavens” and “the earth” were once together and that God separated them. It’s a BIG jump from this basic statement to the Big Bang Theory (a theory first suggested, not by a Muslim reading this Qur’an, but by a Catholic priest).
2. The idea of God (or the gods) separating and organizing creation isn’t unique to the Qur’an. If this is a proof, then many other religions of the world are vindicated.
3. Most importantly, the Qur’an says that EVEN UNBELIEVERS recognize that the heavens and the earth were separated. If this was common knowledge among unbelievers, what is exactly is the miracle of the Qur’an?

I’ve always found this to be a very strange argument…

I can’t write a poetry like Shakespeare – does that mean his poetry is divine revelation? Of course not.

In fact, when I read the Qu’ran, I found it very erratic and stilted, so producing something equal or better doesn’t seem hard. I think I would submit in response to this challenge the poetry of Kahlil Gibran.

However, the challenge is impossible to meet because by what standard would one judge one better than the other? The Qur’an doesn’t say…

There’s a post written by Joe Heschmeyer which neatly lays out which Church Fathers used the which Deuterocanonical books. The problem is, I keep forgetting where it is on his blog, so I’m linking to it here, and copying over the key collection of data:

	Es.	Tob.	Jud.	Lam.	Bar.	Wis.	Sir.	1 Mac	2 Mac	Esdras (Gk)	Ps 151
Amphilochius	N	N	N	?	?	N	N	N	N	N	N
Athanasius	N	N	N	Y	Y	N	N	N	N	N	N
Augustine *	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N
Carthage	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N
Cyril	Y	N	N	Y	Y	N	N	N	N	N	N
Jerome *	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N
John Dama.	Y	N	N	?	?	?	?	N	N	?	?
Laodicea	Y	N	N	Y	Y	N	N	N	N	N	N
Melito	N	N	N	?	?	N	N	N	N	Y	Y
Origen *	Y	N	N	Y	Y	N	N	?	?	N	N
Rufinus	Y	N	N	?	?	N	N	N	N	N	N
Synopsis	N	N	N	?	?	N	N	N	N	Y	Y
–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
Catholic	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N
Protestant	Y	N	N	Y	N	N	N	N	N	N	N

* Denotes that the Father described widespread use of the Deuterocanon in Church.

Yesterday I saw the unfortunate news that Fr. Frank Pavone had been laicized. I’ve already seen some Catholics on Social Media immediately posting “I stand with Fr. Pavone”. Their loyalty to Frank Pavone is touching, but the sentiment of such posts is unclear. I can see three possible interpretations:

1. They believe the reasons for his dismissal to be false
2. They believe the reasons for his dismissal are true, but they think the penalty is excessive
3. They believe the reasons for his dismissal may or may not be true, but they just don’t care

Unfortunately, I have a suspicion that most people fall in the last camp…

Earlier echos…

When Fr. Altman was in the news about a year ago, we saw lots of people posting similar sentiments because they saw him as bastion against “liberal” Catholicism. Unfortunately few of his supporters would acknowledge the authority of his bishop or try to address his words and actions. In their minds, the very fact that he stood up for “conservative” Catholicism gave him a free pass. However, just because someone does great good, doesn’t make it impossible for that same person to have done something incorrect or wrong.

We’ve seen a very similar phenomenon in recent years among some Trump supporters. While some Christians who voted for President Trump acknowledge that they didn’t like some of the things he has said and done, others don’t seem to give such behaviour a second thought as long as he continues to “own the Libs”.

Balanced criticism

Now, one might ask why it seems that “conservative” priests appear much more likely to be disciplined than “liberal” ones. It’s a good question and I agree that discipline does seem to slant in one particular direction. However, that doesn’t mean we can just ignore ecclesiastical law, and just because one bishop fails in his duty to correctly discipline his priests doesn’t mean that all bishops must cease to do so.

Required Watching

I would invite anyone vocally asserting Frank Provone’s innocence or complaining about the unjust nature of his punishment to first reading this Catholic World Report article which outlines the main facts, as well as this one from The Pillar.

Next, I suggest watching this video by a priest who previously worked with him:

I would also invite you to read the article referenced in the above video:

• Phil Lawler article in Catholic Culture (2011)

Here is one of the tweets which seems to have got him into trouble:

Since disobedience was was of the charges against him, it’s probably worth noting that the video below was posted the day after he claims to have first discovered the ruling from the Catholic News Agency. I hope that the video was recorded prior to confirmation of his laicization, otherwise it doesn’t bode well regarding his future obedience to this ecclesiastical ruling:

Finally, as always, watch this video from Michael Lofton where he offers some level-headed commentary on the situation:

…and I would strongly recommend reading the article referenced which on How St. Padre Pio responded when the Vatican silenced him.