During the papacy of Francis, I began to wonder if the rhetorical question, ‘Is the pope Catholic?’ was really a serious question requiring an answer. As an Evangelical, I find many points at which I find greater parity with Catholicism than with mainline Protestants. There are orthodox Catholics, but mainline Protestantism is now defined more (I would argue) by what it has rejected in orthodox theology and ethics than by what it still affirms, however loosely. Catholicism is an historic, Christian faith, and what happens in Rome is of interest and a concern for orthodox Christians. This does not mean, however, that those in an historic denomination are still orthodox. Those who are not may be true to what their denomination has become, and that may be something quite unorthodox.
Pope Francis’s public
statements from time to time raise an orthodox eyebrow, including those of orthodox
Catholics. His statements on
homosexuality have been both confusing and unorthodox, while he holds the line
on Catholic and historic, Christian teaching on pro-life positions, such as the
Church’s teaching that abortion is the killing of a human being. Francis is in the news again, this time for a
statement made in Singapore about religion at an inter-faith gathering. His translator translated his words as
follows:
... every religion is a way to arrive at God. ... an example would
be that there are sort of different languages to arrive at God. But God is God for all. And if God is God for all, then 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 [sic] a language, so to speak, in order to arrive at God. There are different paths.[1]
In these few
words, the pope denied the exclusive statement of Jesus that ‘I am the way, and
the truth, and the life. No one comes to
the Father except through me’ (John 14.6).
By speaking repeatedly about ‘arriving at God,’ he denied Christian
teaching about the need for God’s revelation of Himself to sinful humanity versus
human searching for God along different religious and philosophical paths. He also excluded from consideration the person
and work of Jesus Christ, and therefore also the teaching that ‘by grace you
have been saved through faith’ (Ephesians 2.8).
One might go on, for in just a few words that were intended to placate and
affirm other faiths by assuring them that Christianity is only one way to God,
the pope undermined many non-negotiable doctrines of the Christian faith.
Yet we might
still ask, ‘Is the pope Catholic?’
Having heard his statement, I pulled up two documents. First, I turned to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Outlining Catholic teaching on the First
Commandment, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God and Him only shall you serve,’
the Catechism does affirm God’s
revelation of Himself.[2] Yet the particular revelation of Yahweh to
Israel is cast to the shadows as God is defined more generically: ‘When we say “God”
we confess a constant, unchangeable being, always the same, faithful and just,
without any evil’ (paragraph 2086). Inexplicably,
a discussion of moral virtues based on faith, hope, and charity follows. Then, commenting further on ‘Him only shall
you serve,’ the Catechism discusses
adoration, prayer, sacrifice, promises and vows, the social duty of religion
and religious freedom (2095-2109). The
commandment, ‘You shall have no other gods before me’ is said to be a
prohibition against ‘honoring gods other than the one Lord who has revealed
himself to his people’ (2110). This is further
explained as forbidding superstition, idolatry, divination and magic, irreligion,
atheism, and agnosticism (2111-2128).
One might have expected a comment about other religions in the context
in which these commandments were given and then an extension to the early Church’s
rejection of Graeco-Roman religions as well as to contemporary religions. Yet just enough is said to tease the
reader. Is the Catechism excluding peripheral, religious views and activities but
not other, primary religions? One could
see how Pope Francis could drive his universalism through this landscape.
The other
document I thought worth considering in light of the pope’s comments in
Singapore was Nostra Aetate (Our Time), a declaration on the relation
of the Church to non-Christian religions.[3] The document is even more disappointing than
the Catechism. This was produced in 1965, with anti-Semitism
in Europe and World War II still fresh in living memory and as the world came
more into focus as a result of the world wars, decolonialisation, and greater
awareness of cultures due to literature (National
Geographic began in 1888) and television.
This brief document begins with an ecumenical value: ‘In our time, when
day by day mankind is being drawn closer together.... In her [the Church’s] task of promoting unity
and love among men, indeed among nations....’
Nostra Aetate bases what it
says on three beliefs: God made all people, God extends His providence, manifestation
of His goodness, and salvation to all men, and God’s goal (eschatology) is for all
nations to walk in His glorious light.
Nostra Aetate builds on
these beliefs, with no reference to salvation history that culminates in Jesus
Christ, in discussing the good in other religions. It says, ‘Religions ... that are bound up
with an advanced culture have struggled to answer the same questions by means
of more refined concepts and a more developed language’ (2). (There is that word ‘language’ again.) These religions are identified as Hinduism and
Buddhism (2), Islam (3), and Judaism (4).
The declaration’s overall claim is that
other religions found everywhere try to counter the restlessness of
the human heart, each in its own manner, by proposing "ways,"
comprising teachings, rules of life, and sacred rites. The Catholic Church
rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with
sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and
teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and
sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all
men [2].
A
charitable reading of this sort of statement would be that the claim is
restricted, perhaps along the lines of Paul’s speech in Acts 17 to the
Areopagus in Athens. Paul began by
noting some basic agreement with religious and philosophical views, even
quoting several in the process of making his initial connection with generic
religion. One author he does not quote
is Xenophon, who lived in the 5th - 4th century BC, and who may be taken
as fairly representative of general religious beliefs in the Graeco-Roman
period. Xenophon said
that humans create myths about the gods and imagine them to be like themselves
(Germans like Germans, Ethiopians like Ethiopians). He then says:
23.
There is one god, among gods and men the greatest, not at all like mortals in
body or in mind.
24.
He sees as a whole, thinks as a whole, and hears as a whole.
25.
But without toil he sets everything in motion, by the thought of his mind.
26. And he always remains in the same place, not moving at all, nor is it fitting for him to change his position at different times (Elegiacs 23-26).[4]
However,
Paul does not end his speech with general connections in religion. As soon as Paul introduces particular Christian
teaching about a final judgement and Jesus’ resurrection (Acts 17.31), he
divides his audience.
Ecumenism
leaves theological statements general, as high up as is necessary to find some
agreement and demotes the particular convictions of any given religion. The game of ecumenism takes places in the
clouds of generalities. Paul’s speech in
Athens began with generalities that concluded with some of the essential particularities
of Christian faith. The particularities
of Christian theology make it Christian, not generic religion. Paul was not seeking coexistence among
various religions and philosophies but conversion to the particular faith of
the Christian Church.
One
way to read these Catholic statements is the way that Pope Francis appears to
be doing, turning Christianity into a generic religion in its essence. The particularities that would differentiate it
from other religions might then be unspoken in ecumenical dialogue. Of course, this is classic Liberal Theology—a generic
religion about the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of mankind, and the
infinite worth of the human soul, with nothing to mention about Jesus Christ.[5] It is a humanly invented theism that cannot
be identified as Christ-ian or with
historic, orthodox Christian teaching.
So,
is the pope Catholic? Probably, on this issue
of universalism and theism, the answer is, ‘Yes’. At least, the answer is ‘Yes’ for some post-Vatican
II Catholics, but not for the orthodox holding to the faith once for all
delivered to the saints (Jude 3). With
orthodox Christians of every denomination, though, we would further have to add
that he is not Christ-ian in any
meaningful sense. His answer is that of
a a mere theist, with no reference to Christ and every religious path a human journey to find the same God, and a universalist, with everyone being saved in the end. Orthodox Christian, Biblical faith begins with God’s revelation of Himself to us in Jesus Christ.
Christians believe that the One, true God is not the God of other
religions but the God who has provided salvation for a sinful people who cannot
save themselves. Christians believe that
generic religious beliefs are inadequate, since the truth is only to be found in
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Thus, the
belief in One God is a belief that must be understood in the particularities of
Christian faith. As Paul says,
There is one
body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to
your call—5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and
Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (Ephesians 4.4-6,
ESV).
Paul
elaborates on the Oneness of God with the Christian teaching of the Triune God,
One God in Three Persons: Father, Jesus as Lord, and the Holy Spirit. He expands the Oneness of God in reference to
the one body, the Church. He directs
generic hope to the One hope associated with our call into the Christian faith,
our salvation. The particularity of the
One Lord, Jesus Christ, leads to a particular, Christian faith and particular
incorporation into Christ in Christian baptism. Only in the particularities of Christian faith, not despite them, can we
fully understand and affirm One God and Father of all.
[1] Pope Francis’s statement can be heard Youtube at the Catholic News Service; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ciUnpSqiOQ (14 September, 2024).
[2] The Catechism of the Catholic
Church; online https://usccb.cld.bz/Catechism-of-the-Catholic-Church/526/#zoom=true
(15 September, 2024).
[3] Nostra Aetate; online https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html
(accessed 15 September, 2024).
[4] Kathleen
Freeman, Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic
Philosophers (1948); online: https://sacred-texts.com/cla/app/app18.htm
(accessed 15 September, 2024).
[5] Cf. Adolf von Harnack, What
is Christianity?, trans. Thomas Bailey Saunders, 2nd ed., rev.
(London: Williams and Norgate, 1902).
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