Italy's bishops have given the teachers of the country's Catholic religion classes a set of lessons on Islam, written jointly by Catholic and Muslim scholars. One is titled "The Qu'ran: Revealed Word of God."
The Italian Bishops' Conference and the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies presented the 11 "Schede per conoscere l'Islam," published in English as "Outlines for Learning about Islam," on Oct. 21 at Palazzo Borromeo, the seat of Italy's embassy to the Holy See. The volume was first presented at the institute on Nov. 10, 2025. Vatican News reported that a team made up equally of Christians and Muslims argued out its differences until it reached a shared text, and that the cards are meant as a tool for teachers.
Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, president of the bishops' conference, closed the presentation. "I would send everyone to school, because there is considerable ignorance," he said, according to the bishops' national office for Catholic religion teaching. He called the cards "the exact opposite of a clash of civilizations" and said "certain newspaper headlines are dangerous, dangerous of Islamophobia." He called the cards one of the fruits of John Paul II's 1986 Assisi meeting. Recalling his seven years as a religion teacher, he said, "The only clear thing was that you were not supposed to do catechism."
The Quran card states Islam's claim and then explains it. "According to Islam, the last and definitive revelation began in Arabia in the 7th century, when the Prophet Muḥammad (570–632) was visited by the angel Jibrīl," it says. On verses that cancel earlier verses, the card speaks in its own voice: "Far from indicating a kind of divine schizophrenia, in which God arbitrarily changes His mind, this instead shows how His revelation adapts to the different circumstances and needs that arose from moment to moment."
A later card takes up war. "But war, from a Qurʾānic perspective, is in general only defensive war," it says. It concedes "there are also verses that exhort to war without respite against the unbelievers (Q. 9:5)," then adds that such verses, "often used today by fundamentalists to justify their violence against unbelievers and by Westerners to denigrate Islam, must in reality be read in light of the context in which they were revealed." Another card calls third-generation Muslim immigrants in Western Europe "genuine citizens who are fully European and fully Muslim."
The Church has already answered the question the Quran card leaves open. "The Christian economy, therefore, since it is the new and definitive Covenant, will never pass away; and no new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ," the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches (CCC 66). It rests that teaching on Scripture: "In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son" (Heb 1:1-2). Christ, the Catechism says, "the Son of God made man, is the Father's one, perfect and unsurpassable Word. In him he has said everything; there will be no other word than this one" (CCC 65).
A book that arrives six centuries after Christ and denies he is God cannot be a further word from the same God. The bishops' own cards state the denial plainly: "For Muslims, Jesus (ʿĪsā) is neither God nor the Son of God, an illustrious prophet but nothing more than a man." Scripture names that denial for what it is. "Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father" (1 Jn 2:22-23).
The Church's teaching on the sacred books of other religions is equally clear. "The Church's tradition, however, reserves the designation of inspired texts to the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments, since these are inspired by the Holy Spirit," the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declared in Dominus Iesus (No. 8). Christ said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me" (Jn 14:6). Peter told the Sanhedrin, "And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).
The Second Vatican Council asked Catholics to regard Muslims with esteem, and the cards open with that passage of Nostra Aetate. Esteem for Muslims as persons is the Church's teaching. So is the confession that God's revelation is complete in Christ. A Catholic religion class exists to hand on the second.
The cards themselves quote John Paul II on the Assisi meeting Zuppi invoked: "One certainly cannot 'pray together,' that is, offer a common prayer, but one can be present while others pray; in this way we express our respect for the prayer of others and for their attitude before the Divinity, while at the same time offering them the humble and sincere witness of our faith in Christ, Lord of the universe."
That witness is what Italy's children are missing. Weekly attendance at places of worship among Italian children ages 6 to 13 fell from 70.3% in 1995 to 32.4% in 2023, Istat figures cited by Maurizio d'Orlando on Aldo Maria Valli's blog show. For many of those children, the hour of Catholic religion at school is the only time anyone will teach them the faith.
"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," Christ commanded (Mt 28:19). The bishops of Italy have that mandate. Their classrooms should carry it out.
