Jean-Marc Aveline promotes 'Islamo-Christian' dialogue by substituting Qur'an for Bible in 'divine readings'

Monday 19 August — Pope Francis recently named a new archbishop for the major French city of Marseille on the Mediterranean coast: Bishop Jean-Marc Aveline, 60, best known for his commitment to 'Islamo-Christian' dialogue.

His nomination is a clear message to the large Muslim community of Marseille, both North African and Sub-Saharan. The northern districts of the city are infamous in France for their poverty and insecurity, violent crime, and drug-trafficking.

Jean-Marc Aveline, Archbishop of Marseille

Jean-Marc Aveline was since 2013 auxiliary bishop of Marseille; before that, he was its vicar general. He succeeds Bishop Georges Pontier, who was archbishop for 13 years and who will be formally replaced on September 15, when the new archbishop is installed at the Cathedral of La Major.

In 2017, Aveline was named president of the Council for Interreligious Relations of the French Bishops’ Conference.

Aveline promotes the concept of Lectio divina, or divine reading, which is the traditional monastic practice of prayerfully reading and meditating on sacred texts in order to promote communion with God and to increase the knowledge of His word.

It is normally done by reading the Bible. Substituting the latter with the purportedly 'sacred' texts of a false religion, such as the Qur'an, as Aveline has promoted, is antithetical to its purpose.

But this sort of exercise is at the heart of modernist 'Islamo-Christian dialogue', as it is officially practiced in France’s mainstream Catholic bodies, which, instead of promoting friendship and understanding between Catholics and Muslims in view of facilitating conversions to the true Faith, place their efforts in illusory 'sharing' between the Islamic and the Catholic faith as such, where theological discussions are presented as searching the truths and convergences in both, not taking into account their radical incompatibility.

La Croix, the unofficial daily of the French episcopate, also presents Jean-Marc Aveline as a 'faithful craftsman of interreligious dialogue' who will fit in well as head of the diocese of a 'plural city especially marked by the rise of rigorist currents of Islam.' It quoted Aveline as speaking of 'this atypical small Church which resembles that of the Maghreb'. It also indicated that Aveline has meetings with the imams of Marseille every six weeks.

Editor's comment - Has this 'Islamo-Christian' dialogue led to one Christian being saved from Muslim persecution? No. Has it saved one church from being destroyed by jihadists? No. All it has led to is the Qur’an being treated by some Christians as if it were a holy text. Has this been reciprocated by Muslims? Is the New Testament read in mosques? Of course not. The 'dialogue' is all dawah on one side and Useful Idiots, eager to be deceived, on the other.