Pulse
16 September 2024
During his recent visit to Singapore, Pope Francis took part in an interreligious dialogue with young people at the Catholic Junior College. This event, which drew a crowd of 600 participants, was also attended by religious leaders of the different faith communities.
In response to one of the questions posed by a youth participant on how he views the different religions, the pontiff replied (through an interpreter):
If we start to fight among yourselves and say my religion is more important than yours, my religion is true and yours is not, where would that lead us. It is okay to discuss, because every religion is a way to arrive at God. Analogously speaking, religion is like different languages to arrive at God. But God is God for all. And if God is God for all, we are all sons and daughters of God. ‘But my God is more important than your God’. Is that true? There is only one God, and each of us is a language, so to speak, to arrive at God. Muslim, Hindu, they are different paths. Understood?
Here, Francis made a remarkable statement which is at odds with the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. In this brief article, we examine Francis’ statement and compare it with the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church as presented in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the documents of Vatican II.
At the interreligious dialogue event, the pope stressed that we should not say ‘my religion is more important than yours, my religion is true and yours is not.’ This suggests that all religions are of the same value and that the different truth-claims they make are all equally valid.
The teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, however, is much more complex than the statement of the Pope suggests.
In the first instance, the Church has always believed that the fullness of God’s revelation and salvation is found exclusively in Jesus Christ and the Church. This is encapsulated by the statement ‘Outside the Church there is no salvation’, which is attributed to Cyprian of Carthage (d. 258) and emphasised by the Fourth Lateran Council (1251).
This position is repeated in the Vatican II document, Lumen Gentium (1964) which states that:
Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it (14, Italics added).
This statement clearly emphasises the point that saving knowledge of God is found in Christ and the Church. To be sure, Lumen Gentium also indicates that those who do not know the Gospel through no fault of their own may also be saved:
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience – those too may achieve eternal salvation (16).
This second statement, which presents the possibility of salvation apart from the Church, so to speak, does not contradict the first. It merely points to the mercy that God may show to those who through no fault of their own have not encountered the Gospel.
The key document of Vatican II on non-Christian religions, Nostra Aetate (1965) speaks of the ‘true’ and ‘holy’ in other religions due to God’s general revelation. It states that the Church does not reject these, but stresses that they must be measured by the ‘Truth which enlightens all men’, that is, Jesus Christ.
The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a way of that Truth which enlightens all men (2).
In none of these documents do we encounter the ‘democraticisng’ of religion and religious truths suggested by Pope Francis’ statement.
Next, Pope Francis asserts that ‘every religion is a way to arrive at God.’ Using the analogy of the different languages, Francis states that ‘… religion is like different languages to arrive at God.’
The view that Pope Francis has articulated is described by scholars as religious pluralism. It is a view which says that all religions lead to God, just as all roads (in the ancient world) lead to Rome.
But the Roman Catholic Church has roundly rejected this theory of religion, and has consistently emphasised that the fullness of truth and salvation is to be found only in Jesus Christ.
For example, in the document Dominus Iesus (2000), the point is made that although ‘elements of truth’ may be found in other religions, they do not offer the fullness of revelation. This document has received the ire of many liberal Catholic theologians.
The document also categorically states that ‘It must therefore be firmly believed as a truth of Catholic faith that the universal salvific will of the One and Triune God is offered and accomplished once for all in the mystery of the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Son of God’. It adds: ‘Hence, those solutions that propose a salvific action of God beyond the unique mediation of Christ would be contrary to Christian and Catholic faith’ (14).
In fact, the passage from Nostra Aetate quoted above which says that the Church rejects nothing true and holy in other religions goes on to stress that the Church
… proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to himself (2).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992) also underscores the exclusive nature of salvation in Christ:
The one mediator, Christ, established and ever sustains here on earth his holy Church, the community of faith, hope, and charity, as a visible organisation through which he communicates truth and grace to all men (771).
Pope Francis’ statements at the interreligious event at the Catholic Junior College in Singapore do not reflect the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.
This could simply mean that Francis was sloppy in his replies. It could have been that he was attempting to be diplomatic (since it is an interreligious dialogue event) – but at the expense of the Church’s teachings.
Since it is quite improbable that he is not sure what the Catholic Church actually teaches, it could also mean that he is expressing his own views – which, as we have seen, are inimical to the teachings of the Church.
Whatever the reason or reasons, the ‘democratising’ of religious truth and the levelling of the different religions might have a negative effect at an event which includes religious leaders from other faith communities.
Some may take offence at this naïve and mostly modern western approach which fails to take their religions seriously on their own terms and disregard their rich histories and traditions. Others may view it as an exercise of superficial irenics which may be good for optics, and nothing more.
In the final analysis, the approach taken by Francis does not only misrepresent the Catholic Faith. It also makes interreligious dialogue – which ought to be conducted with undisguised conviction, and which must never paper over differences – superfluous.
Dr Roland Chia is Chew Hock Hin Professor at Trinity Theological College (Singapore) and Theological and Research Advisor of the Ethos Institute for Public Christianity.