The horrible, dangerous things the Catechism and Vatican II say about Islam.

ou may have read by now (for I wrote about it, behold, here) that cafe­te­ria Catholic Steve Sko­jec has pro­nounced the anath­e­ma of One Luther Five upon the Cat­e­chism and Vat­i­can II. (Or, at least, what those text have to say about Islam.) “Dan­ger­ous wish­ful think­ing!” Mr. Sko­jec cried on Twit­ter [in a since coura­geous­ly delet­ed tweet—SEA, 4/28/24]. “The Cat­e­chism isn’t infal­li­ble on the top­ic,” he insist­ed in anoth­er tweet [also coura­geous­ly delet­ed]. “Can’t be, inas­much as the Church has no author­i­ty to define anoth­er reli­gion.”

So always being will­ing to fol­low up a claim, I decid­ed to go and see for myself what dan­ger­ous errors the pil­lar and ground of truth is pro­mot­ing in such key texts.

Here is what I read:

• The “plan of sal­va­tion” includes Mus­lims (Lumen Gen­tium 16, CCC 841)

Well, you know, call me crazy, but the plan of sal­va­tion includes every­body. We’re not Calvin­ists here in the Catholic Church who believe that Christ died only for the Elect. No. Christ “died for all,” says 2 Cor. 5:15. Christ “desires all men to be saved,” says 1 Tim. 2:4.

Does this mean that Mus­lims will nec­es­sar­i­ly be saved? No, but Lumen Gen­tium does not say they will be saved. For that mat­ter, it does not say Catholics will be saved, it does not say Steve Sko­jec will be saved, and it does not say I will be saved or you will be saved.

• Mus­lims “pro­fess to hold the faith of Abra­ham” (Lumen Gen­tium 16, Nos­tra Aetate 3, CCC 841)

Well, of course they “pro­fess” to. One can “pro­fess” any­thing. Steve Sko­jec pro­fess­es to be ortho­dox. Fake Site News pro­fess­es to be jour­nal­ism. What does it mean that Mus­lims “pro­fess to hold the faith of Abra­ham”? It means they’ve made a claim. It means they believe it to be so. Well? End stop.

• Mus­lims “adore the one and mer­ci­ful God” (Lumen Gen­tium 16; Nos­tra Aetate 3, CCC 841)

Yes. Mus­lims believe in one God; they are monothe­ists. And the Koran calls God “the all-Mer­ci­ful.” (Prac­ti­cal­ly every chap­ter of the Koran invokes God by that name.)

• Mus­lims “do not acknowl­edge Jesus as God” but hon­or Mary and call on her with devo­tion (Nos­tra Aetate 3)

Yes. Check. The Koran says: “O Mary, God has cho­sen you, and puri­fied you; He has cho­sen you above all the women of cre­ation.”

• Mus­lims “await the day of judg­ment” and val­ue the moral life (Nos­tra Aetae 3)

Yes. Check again. The Koran says: “On that Day, peo­ple will come for­ward in sep­a­rate groups to be shown their deeds: who­ev­er has done an atom’s weight of good will see it, but who­ev­er has done an atom’s weight of evil will see that.” Again it says: “God will weigh everyone’s good and bad actions accord­ing to His Mer­cy and His Jus­tice, for­giv­ing many sins and mul­ti­ply­ing the reward for many noble deeds. One who excels in good­ness will be reward­ed gen­er­ous­ly, but one whose evils and wrongs out­weigh his virtues will be pun­ished.”

That’s it. That’s all the Coun­cil and the Cat­e­chism say. So Mr. Sko­jec is right to be alarmed.