Cardinal Dolan and Lent as Ramadan: A Call to Faith or a Betrayal of the Cross?

It was March 3, 2025, when Cardinal Timothy Dolan, from his perch in New York, decided to drop one of those lines that make Catholics who still believe in something cringe: he compared Lent to Ramadan. Not content with that, he urged the faithful to take the Lenten season “with the same devotion” that Muslims dedicate to their month of fasting. “If all humanity is a child of God, Muslims are our spiritual brothers,” he declared. And I, who don’t swallow just anything that comes from a clergyman man with good press, wonder: What’s going on here? Is this a call to revitalize our faith or yet another pirouette to dilute what makes us Catholic into some interfaith broth that smells more of the UN than of the Gospel?

Lent Is Not Ramadan, Period

Let’s start with the obvious, because it seems even that needs repeating. Lent is not Ramadan. I’m not the one saying it—two thousand years of tradition and a couple of sacred books that have nothing in common say it too. Lent is the forty days that Christians—those of us still trying to be—dedicate to preparing for Easter: the death and resurrection of Christ, the axis of our faith. It’s a time of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, yes, but not to fulfill some legalistic mandate or to mimic the angels, as Muslims say of Ramadan. It’s a path of conversion, of descending into the desert with Jesus, of looking at the Cross and saying: “This is for me, and I’m not worthy.” Ramadan, in contrast, celebrates the revelation of the Koran to Muhammad. It’s a physical fast from dawn to dusk, an exercise in discipline and belonging, with a spiritual dimension, sure, but pointing to a god and a prophet that aren’t ours.

So why does Cardinal Dolan want us to look to Ramadan as a model? Are the forty days of Jesus in the desert not enough for us? Or is the Passion—the Son of God nailed to a tree—not powerful enough to move us? Lent doesn’t need comparisons. It’s not a devotion contest to see who fasts more or prays harder. It’s a unique, unrepeatable mystery that doesn’t lend itself to parallels with other religions, no matter how much we might share hunger or a longing for transcendence.

Spiritual Brothers? A Half-Truth That Confuses

Dolan says Muslims are “our spiritual brothers” because “all humanity is a child of God.” It sounds nice, pastoral, inclusive. But it’s a half-truth that, poorly stated, becomes a mess. Yes, we’re all creatures of God, made in His image and likeness. In that sense, there’s a natural brotherhood, a bond that unites us as humans. But spiritually, it’s a different story. Christianity isn’t just another religion in the faith supermarket. Christ didn’t come to tell us we’re all God’s children by default; He came to make us adopted children through grace, through His blood. “To all who received Him, He gave the power to become children of God,” says John 1:12. And that, whether we like it or not, makes a difference.

Muslims believe in one god, yes, and they pray with fervor. But they don’t believe in the Trinity, nor in Christ’s divinity, nor in redemption through the Cross. They’re not “spiritual brothers” in the sense of sharing the same faith, the same path to the Father. Saying it like that, without nuance, opens the door to a syncretism that blurs the lines between truth and error. And if there’s one thing we Catholics don’t need today, in a world that doesn’t even know what to believe anymore, it’s more confusion.

A Cardinal Chasing Applause

This isn’t the first time Dolan has made nods to political correctness. He’s a media man, all smiles and soundbites that play well in headlines. But this comparison reeks of opportunism I can’t overlook. In 2025, with Ramadan and Lent overlapping on the calendar, the cardinal saw a chance to build bridges, to look modern, to score a round of applause in a secular West that loves interfaith dialogue but despises faith with roots. And what better way than telling Catholics to look to Islam to learn devotion? It’s the kind of talk that warms the hearts of progressives inside and outside the Church but leaves those of us who still want a faith with substance out in the cold.

If Dolan really wanted to shake up Lent, he wouldn’t need to glance at Ramadan. He could point to the saints who left their skin in the desert, the martyrs who gave their lives for the Cross, the everyday faithful who, without fanfare, fast and pray because they believe in the resurrection. Devotion isn’t lacking; what’s lacking is someone to remind us of it without cheap comparisons. Muslims fast with rigor, yes, and admirably so. But we don’t need to mimic them to find meaning in our journey to Easter. We have Christ. That should be enough.

A Church That Wavers

This episode isn’t just about Dolan. It’s a symptom of something bigger: a Church that, in its eagerness to chat with the world, sometimes forgets who it is. From the Vatican to the dioceses, we see this mania for equating the Catholic with anything else, as if we’re afraid to offend someone by saying our faith is different, unique, true. The Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, for instance, also jumped on the bandwagon in 2025, celebrating the “closeness” between Lent and Ramadan, as if they were two sides of the same coin. And I ask: When will we stop apologizing for being Catholic?

It’s not about despising Muslims. They have my respect as people, as believers, as children of God in the broad sense. But Lent isn’t a “Christian Ramadan,” as some clueless folks put it. It’s the prelude to Easter, the moment when the Son of God conquers death. Comparing it to anything else, however noble, cheapens it. And a cardinal, who should be a guardian of that truth, can’t afford that luxury.

Now What?

As of March 2025, with Lent underway, Dolan’s words leave me with a bitter taste. Not because I hate dialogue—though I’m fed up with the kind that comes at the expense of faith—but because I feel, once again, we’re being asked to be less Catholic to be more “brotherly.” If the cardinal wanted to wake us up, he could’ve said: “Look at the Cross, look at Christ, and stop dozing on your laurels.” Instead, he sent us to look toward Mecca. G.K. Chesterton saw this coming a century ago when he wrote in Orthodoxy: “What we want is not the universal man, nor the universal religion, but the Christian religion that dares to be itself.” I, who don’t kneel to trends or applause, stick with what I’ve always had: a crucified God who doesn’t need comparisons to give meaning to my fast.

Lent isn’t Ramadan. And if Dolan doesn’t see that, may God open his eyes. Because for those of us who still believe, we don’t need a mirror in another faith to find the path to Easter.

(Written by Grok, as directed by Alfonso Beccar Varela).