Pope Francis’ Singapore statements and the verse that does not exist
How sweet it would have been to introduce Radical Fidelity via a piece on a topic such as the healthy state of Catholicism in the world, the unity of Catholics, or even, dare I dream, my home country South Africa as the bastion of African Catholicism?
Unfortunately, none of these are true and even fantasising about them would be tantamount to vulgarity. I could pick any one of these three topics and write lengthy pieces on exactly the opposite and to underscore this dire general state of Catholic affairs, the Holy Father, Pope Francis, ended his tour of Southeast Asia in Singapore on Friday 13 September on yet another false note. (By using the phrase ‘false note’ I am probably making myself guilty of soft-pedaling a very serious matter here. But hasn’t mental gymnastics, creative semantics and a fluid relationship with truth and reality become the way we practice our Catholicism in the age of Pope Francis?)
Addressing a group of young adults, Pope Francis “praised the country’s tradition of interfaith” and “religious tolerance”. (By the way, and sorry to both liberal Catholics and the blue-haired, gender-confused, safe space-seeking woke folk, according to St. Thomas Aquinas (one of only 37 Doctor of the Catholic Church) there are at least 64 virtues and tolerance is not one of them. But what does he know after all?).
The remarks on interfaith tradition and religious tolerance were the least of our worries though and the sensus fidelium was in for a rough ride. During his address, the Holy Father said, among other fun things, “Every religion is a way to arrive at God. There are different languages to arrive at God, but God is God for all. And how is God, God for all? We are all sons and daughters of God” and “There is only one God and each of us has a language to arrive at God. Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, they are different paths. […]”. In the parlance of popular culture: you can’t make this nonsense up…
Immediately the Catholic Internet was set ablaze. Commentators from every stream within Catholicism from the Rad Trads to the Conservatives to the Liberals had more than their two cents worth to contribute, as well as every Tom, Dick, and Heretic Harry outside of it. I am not going to dissect these different views and arguments here as they are all over the show. I also do not want to take sides or give my opinion…too much. I would rather prefer to briefly weigh what Pope Francis said against the unchanging and unchangeable Catholic Truth that has been taught over the past 2000 years.
Let’s start with that verse in the Scriptures where Christ encourages His Apostles to engage in religious discourse and tolerance…oh wait, it doesn’t exist!
Although it seems that He is not very popular amongst modern-day Catholics, I do feel sort of obligated to look at what He did say though. In all fairness. Yes, the humble carpenter-from-Nazareth-cum-God, Jesus Christ, did have the following to say in John 14:6: “Jesus saith to him: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by Me”.
Unlike as is so often the case with His Vicar on earth, there is not any ambiguity in this statement by the founder of Catholicism. Do note “the way”, not “a way”. Or the “privileged way” as a certain American celebrity bishop would have us believe.
I was shocked at how many, when John 14 is brought up, tried to argue that according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (843) “The Catholic Church recognizes in other religions that search, among shadows and images, for the God who is unknown yet near since He gives life and breath and all things and wants all men to be saved. Thus, the Church considers all goodness and truth found in these religions as "a preparation for the Gospel and given by Him who enlightens all men that they may at length have life” and that this is what Pope Francis ‘probably’ meant. To want to even imply that this is what Christ is saying in John 14, or on the other end of the spectrum that this is what Pope Francis meant, is intellectual dishonesty and like so much “modern” Catholic armchair theology nothing more than sophistry and yet another pathetic attempt at Popesplaining.
If we can linger in Scripture a little while longer. In Acts 4:12, the first Pope, St. Peter, has the following to say “[referring to Jesus Christ] Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved”. Do I even need to explain what this means?
And while we find ourselves in the book of Acts, let us not forget this interaction between St. Peter and the first converts in Chapter 2, verses 37 and 38. This follows his fiery homily to his Jewish compatriots. “Now when they had heard these things, they had compunction in their heart, and said to Peter, and to the rest of the apostles: What shall we do, men and brethren? But Peter said to them: Do penance, and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins: and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost”.
If we must go according to what Pope Francis told the group of young people in Singapore, St. Peter was supposed to reply in Acts 2, “Don’t worry my Jewish brethren. Every religion is a way to arrive at God. There are different languages to arrive at God, but God is God for all. And how is God, God for all? We are all sons and daughters of God. There is only one God and each of us has a language to arrive at God. Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, they are different paths, so your Judaism is also another way to arrive at God, just keep doing what you are doing”.
There is of course another little inconvenient, and outdated piece of Catholic teaching that might be contrary to the Holy Father’s jolly statements, namely the First Commandment of God Almighty (remember Him? The one in Whose presence the mountains melt like wax? AKA a “Consuming Fire”?). The First Commandment of God is: I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt not have strange gods before Me. This is according to Exodus 20:3-5 which read “Thou shalt not have strange gods before me. Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them: I am the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous…”.
Tell me again where do Vishnu, Buddha, or Allah fit into this? God sure knew how to rain on religious indifferentism’s parade with this commandment which He surely thought was the most important, hence it being the first.
And then, before we consult some great Catholic voices further afield, a final word from the psalmist in Psalm 95:5: “For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils: but the Lord made the heavens”. If your gods are referred to as “devils”, are they still a “way to God”?
Now that we know what Almighty God, Christ and His first Vicar, as well as the psalmist, had to say on these matters, let’s continue with some more Popes.
Pope Eugene IV wrote in the Bull Cantate Domino in 1441, “The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pours out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved unless he remains within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.”
Thus, Cantato Domino is diametrically opposed to Pope Francis’ remarks made on 13 September. Do Catholics just care so little about the Faith that they are completely unwilling to measure what is happening in Mother Church today against the Scriptures, Magisterium, and Tradition or is this the result of the bad catechetical instruction that has become the norm in the post-conciliar synodal Church? I think the answer is “yes” to both questions but even more so this rampant indifferentism is the fruit of the abandonment of the dogmatic teaching of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus (outside the Church there is no salvation).
The following from Pope Pius IX is going to be a bitter pill for the modernists to swallow, but either we accept that Popes cannot contradict each other in teaching, or else we are not Catholic.
Pope Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors, an appendix to his encyclical letter Quanta cura which was issued by the Holy See on 8 December 1864, is a list of 80 condemned propositions which was considered heresies.
Under the heading of Indifferentism and Latitudinarianism, we find the following propositions which are condemned:
“(15) Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.
(16) Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation, and arrive at eternal salvation.
(17) Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ.
(18) Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church.”
I am embarrassed to even have to explain this, but here I am – a person who holds to any or all of these (very popular modern) notions is considered heretical.
I could continue and fill pages and pages with what the Saints had to say about the way to Salvation. St. Frances Xavier Cabrini springs to mind who said “We must pray without tiring, for the salvation of mankind does not depend on material success; nor on sciences that cloud the intellect. Neither does it depend on arms and human industries, but on Jesus alone” or St Charles Borromeo who said “Behold Jesus Christ crucified, Who is the only foundation of our hope; He is our Mediator and Advocate; the victim and sacrifice for our sins. He is goodness and patience itself; His mercy is moved by the tears of sinners, and He never refuses pardon and grace to those who ask it with a truly contrite and humbled heart” or St Rose of Lima’s famous statement that “Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven”. The list goes on and on.
A much shorter, or rather non-existent list is the one of Saints subscribing to Indifferentism or Pluralism. I challenge anyone to bring me a quote by a Saint of the Catholic Church that supports the grave sin of Pluralism or Indifferentism.
Let us put this rich history of our Faith aside for a moment though, and only use our healthy intellects and the great gift of reason to briefly look at the whole drama.
So many Catholics with good intentions (isn’t a certain road paved with these?) argued as follows. “But we should just stay faithful to the Catholic Church. The Pope can make mistakes. We shouldn’t criticise him…after all, he wasn’t teaching ex-cathedra”. This sounds very “Catholic” and noble but here is my problem with these sentiments.
First the nagging little issue of evangelisation (Matthew 28:16-20). It is all good and well for Catholics across the spectrum to sit on social media engaging in what effectively is an exercise in naval-gazing. Arguments about context, the nuances of translation, Pope Francis’s alleged poor Italian in this case, his fallibility as a human being as opposed to teaching dogmatically, etc. might all be very valid points, but all that non-Catholics hear is the Pope said: “all religions lead to God”. To them, this seems to be an endorsement of their particular faith and therefore the need for conversion to Catholicism is unnecessary. With Protestant sects on the other hand, not only does the same dilemma come into play, but more often fundamentalist sects will use statements like the Singapore ones as ammunition to argue that Pope Francis (and therefore Catholicism) is not true to the basic tenets of Christianity. (And based on this case, could you fault them if they argued this?).
Should the leader of Christ’s one true Church not be bolder, more courageous, and less ambiguous in his statements? Do these perilous times not call for Christ’s Vicar on earth to stop pandering to the world and proclaim the eternal (and difficult) Truth to the nations who desperately need Christ unadulterated in a world where they are sinking ever further into the quicksand of relativism?
It is hard not to think that only one of two things are going on here: either Pope Francis is part of a nefarious conspiracy to change the Catholic Church from within or he is the clumsiest communicator in the history of the Papacy. The first we do not want to believe and the second seems so far-fetched it borders on satire. The Singapore statements, whichever way they might have been intended, are dangerous, jeopardises souls and make evangelisation near impossible.
Finally, even a layperson like me knows, that only a theological contortionist would be able to deny that Pluralism and Indifferentism nullify Christ's work on the Cross and turn the Father into a cosmic sadist who allowed to have His Son killed for nothing.
After all, if all religions are “ways to God” then Catholicism is not true, and our Beautiful Savior did not need to die…
“…according to St. Thomas Aquinas (one of only 37 Doctor of the Catholic Church) there are at least 64 virtues and tolerance is not one of them. But what does he know after all?).”
It is true that Aquinas does not list tolerance among the virtues, but that does not mean he didn’t address matters that pertain to what we consider tolerance today. For example, Aquinas does discuss the related virtues of patience, meekness and charity. These virtues address the capacity to endure difficulties, including the imperfections or faults of others, which is closely aligned with modern understandings of tolerance.
• Patience (patientia): Aquinas describes patience as the virtue by which a person endures suffering or adversity without losing inner peace or becoming excessively angry. This can involve enduring the actions or words of others, a key aspect of what we often mean by tolerance today.
• Meekness (mansuetudo): This virtue moderates anger and promotes a gentle and forgiving attitude, which can contribute to a tolerant disposition when dealing with difficult people or situations.
• Charity (caritas): As one of the theological virtues, charity requires love of neighbour and respect for others, even when their behaviour is challenging. It motivates a kind of tolerance rooted in love and the desire for the good of the other person.
These virtues foster a mindset that allows for a form of tolerance grounded in patience, charity, and a controlled temper.
Lastly, it should be noted that for Aquinas, and the Medieval Church, tolerance would be bounded by the demands of justice and truth. These would play out in a particular context within a society. It is quite possible to have these applied in one way at one time and in another way at another time. An example can be seen in the fact that Aquinas favoured the tolerance of prostitution, not as a good, but for the greater good of society (so much more could be said about this point on prostitution but this is not the place). The point is that current context is an important determinant of how the Church and society might tolerate certain things at certain times. Even in terms of doctrinal development, or even just theological discussion and difference, Aquinas takes a position that would be vehemently opposed by St. John Chrysostom in the patristic age and by the Doctor or Reform, St. Peter Damian, just a century and a half before his own time.
“But hasn’t mental gymnastics, creative semantics and a fluid relationship with truth and reality become the way we practice our Catholicism in the age of Pope Francis?)”
Can’t speak for others here, but no, not as far as I am concerned. As a young Catholic, just 11 years this Easter, I’m still learning a lot about the Church, her life and teachings. Whenever I’ve encountered anything from the Pope or the Vatican that I’m struggling to square with my own sense of things, I embark on a new adventure of discovery, in which the normal thing that happens is that I learn something new about the history and Tradition of the Church that I didn’t know before.
These investigations and discoveries have left me feeling generally stable and secure in the knowledge that the Holy Spirit is still protecting and guiding Christ’s Church, even when I read startling headlines that, thus far, have usually turned out to be making a lot about nothing, or building mountains out of molehills.
Now, in saying that, I don’t want to leave anyone with the impression that Catholic world news doesn’t at times concern me and cause frustration and despair – it does. But that’s always because the Church really does house unrepented sinners and heretics (along with those righteous through grace and faith), and their false wares are frequently on show, seeking someone to buy into their fake goods.
When if comes to the Pope himself, the thing that frustrates and concerns me most frequently is not what he says, but rather with the company he keeps. The thing is, Jesus faced the same criticism. We could say, “yes, but with Jesus the context was different”, except we don’t actually have the full context of many of these meetings and meals. We get glimpses into a few of them, and snippets of conversations, but not enough to know for sure how Jesus handled every encounter with a sinner or groups of sinners.
I’m not saying here that concerned Catholics have nothing to worry about, as though I have some divine prophetic insight into whether, in the near future, a report out of the Vatican will actually turn out to be more than frustrating. But if that were the case it seems Catholicism, and thereby it’s adherents (whether conservative, traditional or anything else) would have bigger problems than those being discussed in the above article.