By Cardinal Blase J. Cupich*
During his Apostolic Journey to Asia and Oceania, Pope Francis held a session in Singapore with a group of young people on the subject of interreligious dialogue. During that event, the Pope observed: “One of the things that has impressed me most about the young people here is your capacity for interfaith dialogue.” Then he posed the question, What if this dialogue begins “by arguing, ‘My religion is more important than yours…,’ or ‘Mine is the true one, yours is not true….,’ where does this lead?”
A young person replied: “Destruction.” “Yes,” the Pope said, “that is correct. 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. … There is only one God, and religions are like languages, paths to reach God. Some Sikh, some Muslim, some Hindu, some Christian.”
Surprisingly, his words riled some people, who accused the Pope of relativizing the Christian claim to truth and saying that all religions are the same. Some went so far as to charge the Pope with sowing confusion and undermining his Petrine office. Of course, the Holy Father said nothing of the sort.
Let’s keep in mind that Pope Francis spoke these words during a question-and-answer session designed to engage in interfaith dialogue a group of young people of various religions in Singapore, where a small minority of the population is Catholic. He rightly noted that one doesn’t begin a dialogue by telling others how they are wrong. Rather, dialogue begins with finding what we have in common.
In this regard, what the Holy Father said was in keeping with Catholic teaching. As we read in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), 842-843: “The Church’s bond with non-Christian religions is in the first place the common origin and end of the human race: All nations form but one community. This is so because all stem from the one stock which God created to people the entire earth, and also because all share a common destiny, namely God. His providence, evident goodness, and saving designs extend to all against the day when the elect are gathered together in the holy city. 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’ (Lumen Gentium, 16).”
The Holy Father began his dialogue with these young people fully in keeping with the Catholic Church’s recognition that there is a bond between all peoples that comes especially from the common origin and end of the entire human race. Pope Francis was inviting his interlocutors to recognize how they are united as sons and daughters of God, thus opening a path for them to pursue the search for the truth together. This is the kind of service the Church should offer to the world.
Again, the Catechism reminds us what we believe by stating, “Whatever is good or true in other religions comes from God and is a reflection of his truth.” For this reason, we also teach that “those who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ and his Church but sincerely seek God and, moved by grace, try to do his will as it is known through the dictates of conscience can attain eternal salvation” (CCC 847).
As the Second Vatican Council observed, nothing in this teaching or, for that matter, anything that Pope Francis said in Singapore, detracts from our teaching “that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church, which is his Body.”
Sadly, we have seen in the history of the Church proponents of a very narrow understanding of this core belief. In the last century, an American priest, Leonard Feeney, taught that only Catholics baptized in water could be saved. The Church rejected that teaching, for, as the Catechism makes clear, it is Christ, the head of the Church, his body, who saves. As Lumen Gentium notes: “The Holy Spirit, in a manner known only to God, offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this Paschal Mystery.” We should all be loath to seek to deny or restrict this breadth of God’s grace and mercy, or the pathways by which the Lord dispenses them. And we should be suspect of those who rush in all too eagerly to criticize the Successor of Peter by misconstruing his words.
* Archbishop of Chicago – Vatican News
