Demonizing other religions

This is a reaction to the column titled “Popularly accepted” by Jun Ledesma. I quote: “While we Christians demonize Muslims as though they invented terrorism, the truth is worldwide where extremism and terrorism had taken place, the huge majority of the victims are Muslims.”

Our Lord Jesus Christ tells us to love our enemy. Matthew 5:43-48 says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”

The true followers of Christ don’t demonize other religions. And it is so careless to use the word Christians when we are contradicting the teachings of Jesus Christ Himself. History tells us that the early Christians were persecuted because of their faith.

A Wikipedia entry noted that Pope John Paul II made many apologies. During his long reign as Pope, he apologized to Jews, Galileo, women, people convicted by the Inquisition, Muslims killed by the Crusaders and almost everyone who had allegedly suffered at the hands of the Catholic Church over the years.

Even before he became the Pope, John Paul II was a prominent editor and supporter of initiatives like the Letter of Reconciliation of the Polish Bishops to the German Bishops from 1965. As Pope, he officially made public apologies for over 100 of these wrongdoings, including:

--Catholics’ involvement with the African slave trade;

--The Church’s role in burnings at the stake and the religious wars that followed the Protestant Reformation;

--The injustices committed against women, the violation of women’s rights and for the historical denigration of women;

--The inactivity and silence of many Catholics during the Holocaust;

--The execution of Jan Hus in 1415 (When John Paul II visited Prague in 1990s, he requested experts in this matter “to define with greater clarity the position held by Jan Hus among the Church’s reformers, and acknowledged that “independently of the theological convictions he defended, Hus cannot be denied integrity in his personal life and commitment to the nation’s moral education”);

--For the sins of Catholics throughout the ages for violating “the rights of ethnic groups and peoples, and [for showing] contempt for their cultures and religious traditions;

--For the actions of the Crusader attack on Constantinople in 1204 (To the Patriarch of Constantinople he said, “Some memories are especially painful, and some events of the distant past have left deep wounds in the minds and hearts of people to this day. I am thinking of the disastrous sack of the imperial city of Constantinople.”).--