'Is the Pope Catholic?' A Response to the Universalism of Pope Francis

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.

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[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, 2^nd ed., rev. (London: Williams and Norgate, 1902).