By Michael Byrne

I was born to devout Catholic parents and attended a Catholic school taught by devout priests and nuns.

We learned thoroughly our religious knowledge by means of the question and answer method called “catechism”. It consisted of 499 questions to which we memorized the 499 well-thought-out answers, word for word.
Our catechism dealt with all aspects of faith, morality and prayer. We attended Mass every Sunday and on seven other special yearly holidays.
Every day at home we prayed the Rosary, a meditation on the 15 most important events in the life of Jesus and his mother, Mary. We dearly loved our parents, our teachers, and our religion. We had a happy childhood.

When I was a teenager, there was a meeting of all the Catholic bishops of the world, about 2500 of them, in Rome. After the meeting, they published a book which said, among other things,

The Church regards with esteem also the Muslims:

• They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God.

• Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, his virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead.

• Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.

Since in the course of centuries not a few quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Muslims, this sacred synod urges all to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom.

After reading what the bishops had written, I decided to learn more about Muslims and Islam.

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