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“There is one God, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4:5.)
“Whoever is not with Me is against Me,
and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” (Lk 11:23.)
“Without a doubt, they will perish forever,
unless they hold the Catholic faith whole and inviolate.”
(Symbol of Saint Athanasius)
Pope Francis has taken advantage of his trips to countries with pagan, Muslim or Buddhist majorities to insist on his theory that God wants all religions, that all religions are good for leading people to salvation and fostering “reciprocal respect and mutual love.”1 On these occasions, he leaves aside the ambiguity that usually cloaks his statements.
This happened on February 3-5, 2019, during his trip to the United Arab Emirates when he signed the Abu Dhabi Declaration. In it, he affirms that “[t]he pluralism and the diversity of religions…are willed by God in His wisdom.”2
If God wills all religions, logically, they are all good since they come from God’s will. Therefore, it follows that all religions, however different they may be, form a whole that proceeds from God.
Different “Spiritual Sensibilities”
Francis made this idea clearer during his recent trip to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore from September 2 to 13, 2024.
Speaking at the Istiqlal Mosque in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta,3 he referred to the “coexistence between religions and different spiritual sensibilities,” adding “that religious experiences may be reference points for a fraternal and peaceful society and never reasons for close-mindedness or confrontation.”
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Talking about spiritual sensibilities and religious experiences in this context is reminiscent of the language of the Modernist heresy.4
The “Tunnel of Friendship,” the One Root Common to all “Religious Sensitivities”
Continuing in his speech, he refers to the “underground tunnel…connecting the Istiqlal Mosque and the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption” so that “all of us, together, each cultivating his or her own spirituality and practicing his or her religion, may walk in search of God.” He goes on to say that, just as the cathedral and the mosque are connected by a tunnel, so also, underlying the different practices and rites of each religion “that what lies ‘underneath’, what runs underground, like the ‘tunnel of friendship,’ is the one root common to all religious sensitivities.”
In the line of gestures, it is worth mentioning the blessing Francis gave, which he claimed was “valid for all religions.” In it, he did not make the sign of the cross nor mention the Holy Trinity.5
All Religions Are a Path to God
In a relaxed conversation with young people of different religions at the Catholic Junior College (Singapore) on Friday, September 13, 2024, Francis made his thoughts even clearer by saying that all religions are a way to reach God:
“All religions are paths to God. I will use an analogy; they are like different languages that express the divine. But God is for everyone, and therefore, we are all God’s children. ‘But my God is more important than yours!’ Is this true? There is only one God, and religions are like languages, paths to reach God. Some Sikh, some Muslim, some Hindu, some Christian. Understood?”6
An Absurd Religious Theory
Francis’ religious theory, given above, can be summarized thus:
- God wants all religions (Abu Dhabi Declaration);
- Underlying all religions is a “tunnel of friendship” that connects them all;
- That tunnel is at the root of all religions;
- We shouldn’t say that one religion is truer or better than another;
- All religions are paths that lead to God (“some are Sikh, some Muslim, some Hindu, some Christian”…)
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When Francis says that God wants all religions or that all religions are a path that leads to God, he makes no restrictions on the nature of the religion, its doctrine, morals, practices, etc. Thus, a religion that believes in the One and Triune God and worships the Holy Trinity would lead to God, as would one that denies this fundamental dogma of Catholicism, such as Mohammedanism, or a polytheistic religion such as popular Hinduism7 or a non-personal God, as in Buddhism, or animistic or pantheistic religions that worship the forces of nature, such as “mother earth” (as in the case of Pachamama, who was worshipped in the Vatican), etc.
Besides contradicting Divine Revelation and the whole of the Church’s bimillennial Magisterium, this theory also contradicts a fundamental principle of human thought, that of non-contradiction, whereby something cannot both be and not be at the same time and from the same point of view.
Therefore, one falls into contradiction by admitting a God who is both Trinitarian and unitary; a God that is only one (monotheism) and a plurality of gods (polytheism); a Personal God and another confused with nature and the natural forces of the universe. Such a “god” would not be the Supreme Wisdom, the subsistent Truth, the source of all truth. This “god” could not be Holy and the source of holiness. In a word, such a contradictory “god” could not exist.
Perverse Indifferentism
On his trip to Asia, by his words, deeds and omissions, Pope Francis preached religious indifferentism as condemned by Pope Gregory XVI (1831-1836) in the Encyclical Mirari Vos on Liberalism and Religious Indifferentism (1831):
“We consider another abundant source of the evils with which the Church is afflicted at present: indifferentism. This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained. Surely, in so clear a matter, you [the bishops] will drive this deadly error far from the people committed to your care. With the admonition of the apostle that ‘there is one God, one faith, one baptism’ (Eph 4:5.) may those fear who contrive the notion that the safe harbor of salvation is open to persons of any religion whatever. They should consider the testimony of Christ Himself that ‘those who are not with Christ are against Him’ (Lk 11:23.) and that they disperse unhappily who do not gather with Him. Therefore ‘without a doubt, they will perish forever unless they hold the Catholic faith whole and inviolate. (Symbol .s. Athanasius).”8
Jesus, the Only Savior
While saying that all religions are “different languages that express the divine,” Francis fails to emphasize the role of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Church in the Salvation of mankind, both of which are absent in Francis’ speeches and gestures during this trip.
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Some bishops, such as Most Rev. Marian Eleganti, former bishop of Chur, Switzerland, have pointed this out. He wrote on his blog:
“Pope Francis speaks of the fact that there is only one God, the Creator, and that we are therefore already by nature as his creatures, brothers and children of God. Where is Jesus Christ in this relationship without which, in His own words, we do not have the Father (the Creator)? Where is the talk of Jesus Christ as the only door to the Father? Where is the talk that Jesus Christ has given us the power to become children of God? So that we are not without Him. Where is there talk that we pray in His Spirit, which He has given us: Abba, Father? Pope Francis conceals all this and also avoids the cross in blessing in order not to take over anyone, not to alienate feelings or to stimulate a debate in the sense of a critique of religion and a missionary impulse to face with the claim to absoluteness of Jesus. Today, we understand tolerance as a renunciation of beliefs and truth claims.”9
On September 13, 2024, based on Dominus Iesus, a document issued by the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith on August 6, 2000, Most Rev. J. Strickland, former bishop of Tyler, Texas, cut straight to the chase by commenting on social media:
“Dominus Iesus, (The Lord Jesus). This is what the Catholic Church teaches regarding the unicity of Jesus Christ. The only way to God the Father is through His Son Jesus Christ. To deny this is to deny the Catholic faith, this is called heresy.”10
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Criticizing theologians who present all religions as equal and leave aside the role of Christ and the Church, the aforementioned document Dominus Iesus says:
“These [thesis] are contrary to Catholic faith because they deny the unicity of the relationship which Christ and the Church have with the kingdom of God.”11
“Confirm Thy Brethren”
When warning the Apostle Peter of the temptations he would undergo during the Passion, Our Lord said to him, “But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren”12
This is the mission of every successor of Saint Peter: to confirm his brothers in the faith by transmitting the true doctrine of Jesus Christ and His Church and not be carried away by the world’s fantasies and errors. When he is not faithful to the mission he has received and to the graces of the Holy Spirit, the pope abandons his mission and, instead of confirming his brothers in the faith, leads them to eternal perdition.
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But Our Lord watches over His Church, and every believer receives the graces necessary to keep to the true faith taught by the Church throughout her two thousand years of existence.
The “Sensus Fidei”
The “sensus fidei” or “sense of faith” is that marvelous help of grace that stems from fidelity to the virtue of faith and enables the faithful to distinguish between true and false or confusing teaching.
According to the Vatican’s International Theological Commission, “The sensus fidei fidelis arises, first and foremost, from the connaturality that the virtue of faith establishes between the believing subject and the authentic object of faith; namely, the truth of God revealed in Christ Jesus.”13
The Theological Commission continues: “Alerted by their sensus fidei, ‘individual believers’ may deny assent even to the teaching of legitimate pastors if they do not recognize in that teaching the voice of Christ, the Good Shepherd… …For Saint Thomas, a believer, even without theological competence, can and even must resist, by virtue of the sensus fidei, his or her bishop if the latter preaches heterodoxy.14 In such a case, the believer does not treat himself or herself as the ultimate criterion of the truth of faith, but rather, faced with materially ‘authorized’ preaching which he or she finds troubling, without being able to explain exactly why, defers assent and appeals interiorly to the superior authority of the universal Church.”15
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Confidence in Our Lady’s Fatima Promise
However difficult it is to live amid the reigning confusion—that is most likely part of the punishment Our Lady predicted at Fatima if people do not convert. In the face of this perspective, the faithful can be certain of the divine intervention the Blessed Mother promised in 1917: Finally, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.
Footnotes
- Interreligious Meeting Address of His Holiness, Istiqlal Mosque (Jakarta, Indonesia), Thursday, September 5, 2024, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2024/september/documents/20240905-indonesia-incontro-interreligioso.html, 9/5/24
- “A Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together,” February 4, 2019, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/travels/2019/outside/documents/papa-francesco_20190204_documento-fratellanza-umana.html; See also Luiz Sérgio Solimeo, Theological and Canonical Implications of the Declaration Signed by Pope Francis in Abu Dhabi, February 27, 2019, https://www.tfp.org/theological-and-canonical-implications-of-the-declaration-signed-by-pope-francis-in-abu-dhabi/ 9/16/24
- Interreligious Meeting Address Of His Holiness, Istiqlal Mosque (Jakarta, Indonesia), Thursday, September 5, 2024, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2024/september/documents/20240905-indonesia-incontro-interreligioso.html 9/5/24
- In his encyclical Pascendi, St. Pius X writes that for the Modernists, man “experiences within himself” a need of the divine that “excites in a soul with a propensity toward religion a certain special sentiment.” This sentiment unites man with God, the saint explains, and “it is this sentiment to which Modernists give the name of faith and which they consider the beginning of religion. … For Modernism finds in this sentiment not faith only, but with and in faith, as they understand it, revelation, they say, abides.”
In other words, for the Modernists, both revelation and dogma were the fruit of individual religious experience and thus vary according to the different “experiences” and cultures of different eras. That’s why, for them, we can’t talk about a single faith, a single true religion. - Michael Haynes, Pope Francis skips Sign of the Cross to imparting blessing “valid-for-all religions, https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-francis-skips-sign-of-the-cross-to-impart-blessing-valid-for-all-religions/ 0/8/24
- NTERRELIGIOUS MEETING WITH YOUNG PEOPLE. ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS. “Catholic Junior College (Singapore). Friday, September 13, 2024. https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2024/september/documents/20240913-singapore-giovani.html 09/17/2024 16:27
- Cf. Aiken, Charles Francis. “Hinduism.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 7. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07358b.htm; Wendy Doniger, Are Hindus Monotheists or Polytheists?, https://academic.oup.com/book/11527/chapter-abstract/160293697?redirectedFrom=fulltext 9/17/24
- Papal Encyclicals online, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832, n. 13, https://www.papalencyclicals.net/Greg16/g16mirar.htm 9/17/24
- Bishop Marian Eleganti, No access to the Father without JESUS CHRIST. Mission is an omission of Jesus, https://www.marian-eleganti.ch/blog (our translations) 9/18/24
- Bishop J. Strickland @BishStrickland, 10:04 AM · September 13, 2024 (X). See also https://vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html.
- CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH, DECLARATION “DOMINUS IESUS” ON THE UNICITY AND SALVIFIC UNIVERSALITY OF JESUS CHRIST AND THE CHURCH, n. 19, https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html
- (Luke 22:32).
- INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL COMMISSION, SENSUS FIDEI IN THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH*
(2014), n. 50, https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_20140610_sensus-fidei_en.html#2._Manifestations_of_the_sensus_fidei_in_the_personal_life_of_believers 9/18/24 - Document note: “Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum, III, d.25, q.2, a.1, qla 4, ad 3: ‘[The believer] must not give assent to a prelate who preaches against the faith… The subordinate is not totally excused by his ignorance. In fact, the habitus of faith inclines him against such preaching because that habitus necessarily teaches whatever leads to salvation. Also, because one must not give credence too easily to every spirit, one should not give assent to strange preaching but should seek further information or simply entrust oneself to God without seeking to venture into the secrets of God beyond one’s capacities.’ “
- Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum, III, d.25, q.2, a.1, qla 2, ad 3; Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, q.14, a.11, ad 2.