The ever-winsome Representative from Minnesota, Ilhan Omar, on Thanksgiving posted on Twitter a video of herself reading out an Islamic prayer praising Allah inside St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Washington, D.C.
The occasion for Omar’s taking the podium at St. Peter’s was a “multi-faith gathering” that attracted quite a few members of Washington’s Democratic Party glitterati, including House Speaker Nancy “I Don’t Hate Anyone, I’m Catholic” Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rep. Donna Shalala (D-Fla.), and many others.
As the assembled elites looked on, Omar said: “There is a prayer in Islam that says, ‘Allah, put courage into my heart, and take away all that might hinder serving you. Free my tongue to proclaim your goodness, that all may understand me. Give me friends to advise and help me, that by working together our efforts may bear abundant fruit. And, above all, let me constantly remember that my actions are worthless unless they are guided by your hand. Allah, may everything that I do start well and finish well. Sustain me with your power.”
Through all this, a priest sat off to Omar’s left, occasionally consulting a large book he held in his lap, perhaps to follow along with Omar’s words of wisdom. And speaking of wisdom, as he sat there listening to her, did he reflect upon the wisdom and prudence of inviting into his church a speaker who would publicly proclaim her faith in a religion that denies the Incarnation, Resurrection, and Redemption of Christ, all of which are supposed to be core Catholic tenets? Did he hesitate at all to bring in a speaker who has asserted that “Israel has hypnotized the world” and made numerous other anti-Semitic statements?
Was this priest in the slightest degree concerned that his parish might be tarred by association with an open anti-Semite who apparently also endorses Sharia, the Islamic law that mandates that she keep her head covered and also denies basic rights to the Christians (including Catholics) under the hegemony of Islam?
He likely wasn’t worried about this, and he needn’t have been. A Catholic priest who invited into his church an opponent of jihad terror and Sharia oppression of women would never hear the end of it, not only from the establishment media, but from the Catholic hierarchy and maybe even from the top dogs in the Vatican. But an anti-Semitic, pro-Sharia congresswoman? No one will mind at all. In fact, the priest was likely sitting there congratulating himself over being the wokest priest in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.
Meanwhile, you may be wondering when we will see a big mosque in Washington reciprocating this generous act of “outreach” by inviting in a lot of Christian speakers to praise Jesus, and the answer to that question, of course, is “Never.” Omar’s appearance inside this Catholic church illustrates a great deal of what’s wrong with the “interfaith dialogue” that all too many Christians, especially Catholics, so enthusiastically endorse today. The Muslim groups with whom Catholics play at “dialogue” often announce that they hope to “build bridges” with non-Muslims. “Building bridges” is also a frequently enunciated goal of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Such bridges, however, are really just proselytizing mechanisms to convert the Christians to Islam, not an attempt to engage in genuine dialogue — as the Muslim Brotherhood theorist Sayyid Qutb explained:
The chasm between Islam and Jahiliyyah [the society of unbelievers] is great, and a bridge is not to be built across it so that the people on the two sides may mix with each other, but only so that the people of Jahiliyyah may come over to Islam.
Was it in this spirit that Ilhan Omar stood up in St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Washington and praised Allah? Of course, no establishment media “journalist” would ever dare ask her such a question. Nor would the Catholic officials who invited her there. It seems as if all too many Christians today are far more interested in presenting a sanctified version of the Democratic Party platform than they are in presenting the Gospel. Ilhan Omar’s appearance at St. Peter’s was not a bug, but a feature of Pope Francis’ New Age Catholic Church. Catholics can expect a great deal more of the same.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
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