CARDINAL DOLAN CALLS LENT 'OUR CATHOLIC RAMADAN'

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 Cardinal Dolan advertises Ramadan and Lenten fasting while eating a cookie

New Zealanders were nauseated by the sight and sound of Prime Minister Luxon pandering to Islam, wishing Kiwis "a blessed Ramadan". Perhaps he doesn't know that the endemic Muslim violence against Christians rises markedly every year in what Luxon praised as "a holy month". 32.3% of Kiwis are Christian; 1.5% are Muslim. Is Luxon shooting himself in the foot again, or is he banking on Muslim immigrants breeding faster than so-called Christians (as they indubitably will)?

Now consider how the Catholic world feels about a prince of the Church - New York's Cardinal Timothy Dolan - calling the start of the holy season of Lent, Ash Wednesday (two days away) 'kind of our Catholic Ramadan'. Specifically, how do Catholic Nigerians feel about it? As since 2009 over 52,000 Nigerian Christians have been murdered by Muslims? "Let’s unite with our Islamic brothers and sisters in prayer and fasting," says +Dolan - while munching on a cookie.

It's true that 'the spirit of Vatican II' has all but eliminated the essential practice of Lenten fasting. But Christ told us that a certain kind of devil "is not cast out but by prayer and fasting"(Mt 17:20). In the translation used in many NZ Novus Ordo churches the words "and fasting" are deleted. Which goes a long way towards explaining the demons that beset the post-Vat II, Novus Ordo, Synodal Bergoglian sect which has insinuated itself into the Vatican.

Cardinal Robert Sarah - a popular pick for pope 

The Catholic archbishop of New York has announced the beginning of Ramadan, likening it to Ash Wednesday.

 

Cardinal Timothy Dolan made the announcement to Catholic viewers over X (formerly Twitter) today on Friday, February 28, asking his audience if they realized that Ramadan, the Islamic “season of penance,” begins “tomorrow.”

 

The cardinal praised Muslims for taking their observances “seriously” and added that Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, is “kind of our Catholic Ramadan.”

 

Holding what appeared to be a pastry or biscuit, the cardinal told the viewers an anecdote about a Muslim cab driver who would not accept his offer of water because it was Ramadan and he “couldn’t take water until sunset.”

 

“That’s how seriously they take their fasting and prayer. Now, I tell you that to shame you because Ash Wednesday’s coming up, alright? Ash Wednesday is coming Wednesday, and that’s kind of our Catholic Ramadan, so let’s unite with our Islamic brothers and sisters in prayer and fasting.”

 

https://x.com/CardinalDolan/status/1895498566657053160?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1895498566657053160%7Ctwgr%5E936136b8802b3da7dcfeced63961402893634da1%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lifesitenews.com%2Fnews%2Fcardinal-dolan-falsely-likens-ash-wednesday-to-catholic-ramadan%2F

 

This is not the first time Cardinal Dolan has intertwined Christian and Islamic calendars while speaking on X. In March 2024, the archbishop of New York said, “Spring is the time of the triumph of light and life, OK, and that of course is what Good Friday and Easter Sunday is about. That’s what Passover is about. That’s what Ramadan is about.”

 

He added that they were about “the renewal of God’s life within us that we actually share in God’s constantly reinvigorating power in the world as we see in nature during spring. So Ramadan, Passover, Holy Week in Easter, it’s all sort of a supernatural springtime.”

 

Christian fasting practices, which were downplayed in the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), predate the month-long, dawn-to-dusk Ramadan abstinence that began in 662 AD. Christians have fasted since Apostolic times, and the observance of a period of Lenten fasting is also of great antiquity, although its length changed from place to place and developed through the first three centuries AD.

 

The 40-day Lenten fast was, however, fixed by 400 AD, and it has never included, as does Ramadan, nightly feasting and a predawn meal.

 

According to Alban Butler in The Moveable Feasts, Fasts, and Other Annual Observances of the Catholic Church (1839):

 

The primitive Christians in Lent broke their fast only after sunset, and then usually only with herbs, roots, and bread. At least all were obliged to abstain not only from flesh meat, but also from fish, and whatever had life; also whatever is derived from flesh, as eggs, milk, cheese, butter, according to the ancient canon.

 

Likewise from wine, which in the primitive ages was no less forbidden on all fasting days than the use of flesh meat itself … Some mitigations were introduced in part of abstinence in the sixth century … Fish was in the same age allowed, but not of the dearer and more dainty kinds.

 

 By the 20th century, Catholics were certainly not expected to subsist solely on bread and vegetables during Lent; fish was permitted by the ninth century. However, before the Second Vatican Council, Catholics over age seven were forbidden by the “Law of Abstinence” to eat meat or meat broth during Lent, although eggs, cheese and butter were permitted – as they were not (and are not today) permitted in the Orthodox Church.

 

Catholics between ages 21 and 60 were forbidden by the Law of Fasting from eating one full meal a day although they could have a small amount of food in the morning and the evening.

 

After the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI greatly diminished the expectations of Catholics regarding Lenten penances. In his 1966 Apostolic Constitution Paenitemini, Pope Paul VI reduced the fasting days of Lent to Ash Wednesday and Good Friday while preserving the penitential character of “all Fridays.”

 

However, Paul VI also gave provisions for bishops to substitute “abstinence and fast wholly or in part with other forms of penitence and especially works of charity and the exercises of piety.”

 

These provisions led to the abandonment of the Friday fast and, in many places, Friday abstinence from meat, leaving Ash Wednesday and Good Friday as the sole obligatory fasting days of the Catholic year.

 

To fulfill the obligation, one must abstain from meat and eat only one large meal and two smaller meals that, if combined, would not create a full meal. This is binding on Catholics ages 18 to 59. In the U.S., Catholics age 14 and up are asked not to eat meat on Fridays in Lent, whereas in Canada, Catholics may substitute “special acts of piety or charity” instead of abstention from meat.

 

 

 

Meanwhile, Catholics chimed in on Cardinal Dolan’s X account, some wondering why, if the Cardinal wished to encourage Christian fasting practices, he did not mention the Byzantine Catholics or Orthodox churches, groups that do honor traditional penitential practices.

 

“It’s the ‘I’m shaming you’ part that really bugs me,” wrote Lisa Marie-Christ is King. “The bishops relaxed all the fasting rules for Lent & now we’re supposed to be ashamed? Plus he can point to our Byzantine Catholic brothers & sisters to emulate for rigorous fasting. They rarely get any acknowledgment.”

 

Moreover, as the Islamic scholar Robert Spencer explained, Ramadan is a season in which Islamic attacks against non-Muslims, including Catholics, increase every year.

 

“If the Ramadan imperative is to become more devout, the Muslim who applies himself diligently to the Ramadan observance will simultaneously become more both merciful to his fellow Muslims and more severe against the unbelievers,” he wrote.

“Murdering infidels thus doesn’t contradict the spirit of Ramadan; it embodies it,” he added.https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cardinal-dolan-falsely-likens-ash-wednesday-to-catholic-ramadan/?utm_source=twittercat