Catholic University Opens Muslim Prayer Room: 12,500 People Sign Protest
St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa, opened an Islamic prayer room on May 8, naming it in honor of the late professor of theology Fr. Joseph DeFrancisco to remember his “efforts to promote the universality of faiths” on campus.
The Islamic prayer room was proposed last fall by senior Matthew Mahoney, the president of the Student Government Association in conjunction with the Saudi Student Association.
Join TFP Student Action's peaceful protest here.
The dedication of the Muslim prayer room was attended by St. Ambrose University president, Sister Joan Lescinski, CSJ, PhD, Islamic Center of the Quad Cities religious affairs director, Imam Saad Baig, members of the DeFrancisco family and Rev. Thomas Hennen, the campus chaplain. Speaking at the event, Sister Lescinski said, "This is a truly appropriate way to honor Fr. Joe. His openness to all members of the Quad Cities faith community was a living example of the Catholic intellectual tradition.”
However, a prayer room for Islam on a Catholic campus is a departure from tradition and contradicts what the Saints teach. Saint John Bosco, for example, states that while “Muhammad incited people’s passions; Jesus Christ commanded self-denial.” The holy educator of youth continues: “Muhammad’s doctrines are ridiculous, immoral, and corrupting; those of Jesus Christ are august, sublime, and most pure.”
Saint Juan de Ribera says that “Islam does not deserve to be called a religion,” as its author was an “adulterer, perjurer, robber, murderer, blasphemer."
Moreover, Islam is an anti-Trinitarian sect that promotes the killing of Christians in the Koran: “Kill the idolaters wherever you find them and take them prisoners, and beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush.”
Why would a Catholic university abandon its Apostolic mission, which is to go forth and labor for conversion of all nations to the One, True Church?
Our Lord said, "there shall be one fold and one shepherd" (John 10:16).
"No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon" (Matthew 6:24).