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September 15, 2024 - 7:30pm
The current Pope is rarely out of the news. The latest crop of headlines feature his call for American voters to choose the lesser of two evils — i.e. Donald or Kamala. However, that wasn’t the only Francis controversy of the weekend.
The first kicked-off on Friday when, during an interfaith meeting in Singapore, he said that “every religion is a way to arrive at God”. (Or rather, that was the live translation from the original Italian.)
But in whatever language, his words have caused widespread consternation. Conservative Catholics, like Gavin Ashenden, are dismayed and so are other Christians. Rod Dreher (who is Orthodox) condemns the Pope’s universalism as a “rank Christian heresy”. Father Calvin Robinson (whose affiliations are complicated) calls the statement “counter-scriptural”. The satirical Babylon Bee (broadly Evangelical) imagines Francis challenging Jesus Christ “to a debate on how people can get to heaven”.
So where does this leave rank-and-file Catholics, like me? Do we have to accept that the head of our church — the one holy Catholic and apostolic Church — is a heretic?
No. Or rather, not quite. For a start, it’s obvious that Francis can’t have literally meant what he so carelessly said. Clearly, he doesn’t believe that all religions are paths to God. For instance, not even the flakiest theologian could think that sacrificing 20,000 captives to a sun god is an edifying spiritual exercise.
But assuming that Francis was only referring to the mainstream non-Christian religions, isn’t that bad enough? Are the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Saint John — “I am the way, and the truth, and the life… no man cometh to the Father, but by me” — not clear enough for him? Wouldn’t it be a problem if the Pope were to imply that Jesus can be bypassed?
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SubscribeIs the Pope a Catholic?
Apparently not!
But where does he go to the bathroom? Inquiring minds want to know!
Well, he does wear a dress.
Unfortunately too many Catholics believe themselves to be Pope.
Depends which one you mean I suppose
He is out of his depth, is probably the best answer I could give you.
One can only sympathize with the Catholics. Their Pope is an idiot.
I wonder what Ben’s thinking…
….and let’s not get started on the proclivities of their Priests.
At least they aren’t trolls.
I would have said trolling a few Micks is less bad than fiddling a few kiddies, but I acknowledge that is a personal view.
Sad
I take it from your comment that you would disagree with the view that the Catholic Priesthood is essentially a social club for child molesters.
He is not an idiot but he is out of his depth. The mistake (an understandable one) he has been making has been to try to keep both wings of the Church together but that is no longer possible. The next Pope will, I hope, recognise and accept that a schism is not only inevitable but in the best interests of the Church. If he comes from the Catholic wing, the whatever-you’re-having-yourself-wing will have to leave. If he represents the other wing, the Church will cease to exist and become a global NGO. So, big decisions lie ahead.
The assistant priest of my parish thinks, Pope Francis is a heretic, ever since he introduced blessings for single sex couples.
At the beginning I had lots of expectations of Francis as he took the name of Saint Francis and moved out of the opulence of the Vatican. I was quite affected as he shook hands with the parishioners after celebrating his first mass in Rome, a humble gesture as the new good shepherd.
In the meantime I think he behaves like a typical left wing Jesuit from South America picking up subjects of the current zeitgeist and having “official” opinions on politics and scientific subjects like “man made” global warming.
I am not a Catholic, but my understanding is that a “Pope” outranks an “Assistant Priest”.
There is no “spiritual outranking” in the Catholic Church. It is not a military organisation. Many saints criticised the pope of the time. After all Pope Francis patron Saint and role model was only a lowly monk and living in poverty.
He’s as corrupt and worldly as the popes of the Renaissance. And anyone with a good grasp of Church history knows how that ended.
Pope Benedict had humility, I have seen no evidence to suggest Pope Francis has that virtue.
I had enough of the Catholic institution about 30 years ago. The philosophy is good but there are too many nice apologists. And the current pope is one.
I just love it when various Popes have demanded that the West take in as many migrants as possible. Such conceit. These clergy and religious leaders are so ensconced in their plush, ‘bubble’ lives, that they are incapable of empathy for ordinary people, nor do they understand much of ordinary life and how fragile communities are. One can only despise people like the pope.
I think it has more to do with identifying with the down trodden. And of course economic immigrants are not the downtrodden.
The Catholic Church would have more cred in that regard if it directed some of its vast wealth to the benefit of the poor.
For a start, it’s obvious that Francis can’t have literally meant what he so carelessly said.
It’s obvious? Are you sure?
Satan is the father of chaos. Incompetence is a form of chaos.
Incompetence is a characteristic of bureaucracy and institutionalism.
Hell is frequently depicted as an over bearing, malicious bureaucracy. The term, “banality of evil” comes to mind.
Is there an acceptable list of religions that are ‘a way to God’? Mormonism? Scientology? Zoroastrianism? The National Health Service (satire)?
Do we really want religious strife to be increased?
Wokeism and climatism.
Pastafarianism is the one true faith.
Does all this mean that Frank is about to join the ranks of the Antipopes?
You should use the past tense of that verb…
It is not so clear how to interpret Christ’s reported words “No man comes to the Father except by me”. It might mean, as it is usually taken to mean, that explicit faith in Christ is required to come to the Father, or it might mean that everyone who comes to the Father does so in some unspecified sense “by way of” Christ, perhaps indicating that Christ is essential to any human connection to God, but not necessarily implying that this essential role must be explicitly understood and/or acknowledged.
We need to check the tape to hear what Jesus really said. Else everything is second-hand or worse.
Oh, wait….
God is Christ and Christ is God, neither confounded nor divided.
The Bible is full of false horizons, mirages, paradoxes and will-o-the-wisp trails apt to deceive and mislead anyone who would instrumentalise it for worldly ends or circumscribe God’s unfathomable grace.
The only figure in the Bible who we know our Lord said would be with him in Paradise was the penitent thief. What did this man know of theology, of creeds, of sacraments. He died “unhousel’d, disappointed, unaneled” but “Jesus said unto him, Verily…, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise”.
“What shall I do to inherit eternal life” and “Who is my neighbour?” Said the Pharisee while trying to ensnare Christ over a ritual and legalistic nicety. His response gives us the immortal parable of the Good Samaritan.
It doesn’t take long for anyone seeking to define and describe The Elect to end up intruding on God’s prerogative and circumscribing His Grace.
We know that we are told that Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life. That is all we need to know.
Guffaw…
And yet you seem strangely compelled (not unlike Nicodemus) to return to these discussions around the Christian religion time and time again…
“Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît poin”
That’s because religion is a “scourge” (get the biblical reference?) on humanity. I return in the spirit of someone seeking to eradicate disease.
Religion is a part of life. It’s sad you think of it as scourge.
The two are not inconsistent.
I can’t speak for Lancashire Lad, but I occasionally get the urge to immerse myself in a hearty discussion with a Christian.
Could you not just check what he actually said? If the translator is adding words into a sentence that isn’t wrong per se (literal vs dynamic translation) but in theological matters it would be helpful if they were accurate.
The translation is accurate.
In earlier times there was a grander faith. For the kingdom of God was a kingdom of priests. Not only the ‘four and twenty elders’ before the Throne, but the innumerable souls of the sanctified upon whom ‘the second death had no power’ were ‘kings and priests unto God.’
What does God think about religion? Do any of the religious ever ask themselves that? In Isaiah 1 God reports himself thoroughly sick of religion. It is a wearisome burden to Him.
If God is to write His laws on human hearts, what is the purpose of religion? Yet even with this many among the clergy and the laity see the purpose as creating an harmonious society. A worldly Utopia, not the City of God. Good people, not priests and kings around the Throne.
The Ecclesia Dei had originally orbited Jerusalem. With the destruction of the Temple, the limits of the Ecclesia Dei became identified with the world; the Roman Empire being ‘the empire of the whole earth’.
With the end of the Rome, Christian organisation was virtually the only institution of the old world that survived the flood. The municipality may be under the rule of a Teutonic king but it was still the bishop’s see. The bishop’s tribunal the only one where the laws of Empire could be pleaded in integrity. The bishop’s dress that of the Roman magistrate and the language of Empire a protest at the ‘degeneracy’ of the vulgar tongue.
To the ‘pagani’ of Gaul, Spain, and to the Germanic tribes that came to squabble over the British Isles, the Christian clergy were probably only known as a special class, assuming a special status, living a special life, and invested with special powers; giving them a still more exceptional position especially in remote places where Roman civilisation had barely reached and where Roman organisation had been to the countryfolk only what English rule had been to the masses of India.
Out of all this comes the need for the harmony of Roman organisation, world rule. And alongside it grew the Christian clergy. How far had all this come from Paul telling his Corinthian converts that they were defined not by class but by spiritual power. And, whatever spiritual forces underlay all faiths and all civilisations, just as in their own city of Corinth, which while being in a fastidious civilisation possessed a moral corruption so notorious that it gave rise to a phrase in Greek, ‘to Corinthianise’, that not all religions lead to the Christ of God.
The Pope may not have given a water-tight definition of what he meant, but his statement, although sloppy, isn’t exactly unusual. My Catholic education taught that non-christians who lead good lives are also pleasing to God. I believe Pope John-Paul said this, too. Unfortunately, unclear papal statements on religion confuse many people, while those that are clearly iterated lead others to rage in disagreement.
it is, of course, all nonsense – in the service of those unable to think for themselves.
Pride comes before a lot of things
If he is incompetent, he should resign. In such an eminent role, netither weakness nor mediocrity are tolerable.
Joe Biden?
Citizenship, as we understand it, is downstream of the French Revolution as far as I know: a result of the “modern” state. Catholic Church predates the modern state. There were no border checks, not long ago into the USA for this timeframe.
So does the Islamic teaching on government by the way. I see parallels in Erdogan’s openness to migrants (there are upwards of 4 millions migrants in Turkey from all around the world) and the Pope’s. Erdogan, a devout Muslim, has been openly disdainful of the modern secular Turkish state (modelled originally after France).
For people who’re conditioned to think in terms of what the modern state gives them, such openness may be a shocking idea. Some people may just have memories of a longer history.
Not sure which competences are being measured here. What does a competent Pope look like? Competent human being or competent Catholic human being? Can anyone point to a fully competent former Pope? Reading their biographies, they all had serious flaws….even JP2.
If one adheres to a religion in which one man heads the entire Church, it becomes difficult to deal with a situation where that one man says something one doesn’t like.
I thought his utterances on theological matters were officially infallible.
No doubt there’s some explanation incoming on why this doesn’t qualify within the realm of what’s deemed infallible though.
What a complete load of nonsense. Every bit as bad as the C of E. One the one hand, the founding principles of the religion say that it is the exclusive and only way. On the other hand, they now claim that all religions are equally valid … . The cowardice and duplicity are every bit as bad as the media. Just be honest about who you are and what you believe and you might earn some respect.
I used to think that all his utterances were infallible too, but it is apparently only certain of his utterances to which infallibility applies.
I never believed any of this BS about infallibility. Some Vatican apparatchiks dreamed this all up in the nineteenth century to curry favour with the then pope. See Lytton Strachey’s marvellous biographical chapter on Cardinal Manning.
Only when the Pope speaks ‘ex catheda’ which loosely means within the context of the Church hierarchy. Just another made up rule in an attempt to legitimize what the Church/Pope says.
There is a difference between the religion and the current management.