I rarely talk about controversies involving Pope Francis because there's a lot of people who already do that but I really felt called to say something about his recent comments given the different reactions I've seen to them on the Internet first let's look at the controversy according to the Catholic media Outlet the pillar Pope Francis prompted controversy Friday with remarks at an inter-religious meeting in Singapore that some have taken as a departure from Catholic Doctrine on the role of Jesus Christ and salvation all religions are a path to reach God they are I make a comparison
like different languages different idioms to get there but God is God for everyone Pope Francis told a gathering of young people September 13th at an interreligious meeting at the Catholic Junior College of Singapore according to a text of the speech published by the Vatican the pope continued and since God is God for everyone we are all children of God but my God is more important than yours is this true there is only one God and our religions are languages paths to reach God some are sik some are Muslim some are Hindu some are Christian but
they are different paths now this sounds like the heresy of pluralism or religious indifferentism that's the idea that it doesn't matter what religion you belong to because all religions are just different paths that Ascend the same mountain and get to the same place God but Christianity is different than any other religion while other man-made religions try to reach God by their own merits Christianity teaches that God reached out or came down to us by becoming man and dying on the cross for our sins indifferentism is especially Insidious because it makes Christian Martyrs fools because they
could have gone to heaven anyways if they accepted the false religions being imposed upon them in Dominus Yus the congregation for the doctrine of the Faith said the following it would be contrary to the faith to consider the church as one way of Salvation alongside those constituted by the other religions seen as complimentary to the church or substantially equivalent to her even if these are said to be converging with the church toward the eschatological kingdom of God I think it's important at the outset to say it is not good the pope said these things it
just isn't refusing to admit that is a clear example of Pope splaining it's confusing and as The Shepherd of Christ Church the pope shouldn't confuse his flock or the faithful now some people will say statements like these don't matter because they aren't ex cathedr or they're not infallibly declared but we still have to submit to the Pope's ordinary teachings however not not only is the pope not teaching infallibly in this case he's not even teaching at all or if he is it carries negligible magisterial weight the pope was giving an informal address to a group
on an overseas trip the second Vatican Council said submission to the Pope's authentic magisterium His official teaching is given according to his manifest mind and will and his mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents from his frequent repetition of the same Doctrine or from his manner of speaking in other words a one-off comment in an informal setting has no magisterial weight in comparison to many official statements that say the opposite in francis's encyclical joy of the Gospel he said no one is saved by himself or herself
individually or by his or her own efforts and evangelization is first and foremost about preaching the gospel to those who do not know Jesus Christ or who have always rejected him in a 2016 homy the pope said thus it is all very clear one cannot enter into eternal life through another way that is not the door that is which is not Jesus I often speak off the cuff at conferences or on Catholic answers live and I don't always phrase things the best way that kind of thing happens to everyone but if I said something scandalous
that was getting spread all over the internet I would make a statement I would say I apologize for any confusion I've caused I misspoke I meant to say this instead and Pope Francis should do the same thing for the good of the church I mean the Pope's advisers knew a correction could be warranted because they briefly changed the official English translation of his remarks they added phrases like other religions are seen as paths trying to reach God and languages that try to express and approach God now that is much more in harmony with the church's
teaching that other non-Christian religions have some truth in them that can bring people closer to God but not salvation in Acts 1723 St Paul told the Greeks I found also an altar with this inscription to an unknown God what therefore you worship as unknown this I Proclaim to you in other words a person could be directing worship to the true God but not know it because they are ignorant of God's true nature Beyond basic facts like there being one God who is the creator the catechism likewise says the following in paragraph 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 quote a preparation for the gospel and given by him who enlightens all men that they may at length have life as for criticizing people for saying my God is better than your God hopefully what he means is that we shouldn't be obnoxious or triumphalis towards non-christians and treat them as if
God doesn't love them yet or that they have any relationship with God instead we should find sensible common ground with the aspects of God they do recognize and then lead those people to a fuller understanding of the Triune God hopefully the sensible message is what the pope meant but the problem is that that's not clear at all from what the pope actually said which is why the translators changed his English response back to all religions are paths to God and the Italian original actually means paths to arrive at God which is is really problematic now
the pope may have meant other religions are incomplete paths towards reaching God and so Christians should build on those incomplete paths to help people fully know Jesus Christ who is the path or way of salvation but that wasn't clear in the Pope's address and the pope should provide that additional Clarity for those who were understandably confused by his words he's done that before On Blessing people rather than same-sex unions and even Pope benedi the 16th clarified comments he made that caused confusion about the morality of condom usage so what does that mean for the rest
of us when it comes to non-catholics saying the pope is confusing therefore Catholicism is false is a terrible argument because the Bible is far more confusing than the pope and unlike a living magisterium the Bible cannot issue any clarifying statements about itself or what its authors meant now a Protestant might make a softer argument and say that the Pope's statements show Catholicism has no advantage over protestantism because Catholics and Protestants both have to use private judgment when interpreting their teaching Authority be it the Bible or the church and I agree it's a bad argument to
say Catholics don't rely on private judgments but Protestants do have to rely on that I had to use private judgment to determine Catholicism was true before I converted to it 22 years ago but we can say Catholicism has an advantage in providing doctrinal Clarity that relies the least on private judgments for example Catholicism strongly teaches the existence of hell and its eternity but protestantism has no standard that can determine whether the error of universalism or that everyone's going to end up in heaven is just a Divergent Christian belief like the Armenian calvinist debate whether it
is a Christian heresy or whether it represents a total rejection of the Gospel it can't say that because the Bible does not say which doctrines it teaches are essential and which Christians can reasonably disagree about which is a point I've addressed in previous episodes in fact some of the Bishops have a liberal streak especially when they speak off the cuff but I've noticed that the Holy Spirit if I may presume ends up leading them to fairly conservative positions but that's not the case in protestantism even redeem Zoomer who I've had on the show before to
have a great dialogue with and hopefully will again in the future he recently announced he will no longer engage in Protestant apologetics because he feels like protestantism has to fix its own liberal me first before it invites Catholics and Orthodox to it he wrote on X why did virtually every historic Protestant institution get hijacked by liberalism and Catholic Eastern and Oriental Orthodox ones didn't some vaguely woke statements from the pope are nothing like the majority of Pastors in every Mainline Protestant denomination being lgbtq affirming and Universalist so that's what I would say in regards to
non-catholics when it comes to Catholics I would encourage you to not fall into despair every time a bishop or or the Pope says or does something dumb when Napoleon bonapart threatened to destroy the Catholic Church Cardinal ER consalvi is alleged to have said in response if in 1800 years we clergy have failed to destroy the church do you really think that you'll be able to do it many theologians including Pope Benedict the 16th say the Holy Spirit only permits certain popes to be chosen and that God doesn't directly choose popes but in the Book of
Judges God directly chose Israel's leaders and some of them turned out to be awful engaging in sins as bad as idolatry but God was able to use those flawed people to guide his chosen people so I would encourage you to pray for the pope including that he will amend his behavior and be a better leader and I just hope that this will not take your peace and look I know that's not easy advice to give but what else can we do praying to God is always better than whining to ourselves or to others if you
read the Psalms you'll find all kinds of passages with the psalm basically complains to God and pleads for help God is not a boss that you or I have to constantly please or be on our toes about we can be honest with God about our struggles that's what I love about our Lord and we can be honest about the things we struggle with including the pope 1 Peter 5 6-7 says the following humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that in due time he may exalt you cast all your anxieties on him for
he cares about you for example I am mad Pope Francis says Donald Trump and KLA Harris are both against life because Trump supports deportation and Harris is pro-abortion and he says Americans should vote for the lesser of two evils but he won't say which is which but this gives cover to those who say that they are equally wrong on life which just isn't true for example the Pope says it's a grave sin to turn migrants away but Harris says that she will secure the border which obviously involves turning migrants away and the Biden Harris Administration
deported more people than Trump did does that mean Harris is bad on immigration and abortion and show she's the greater of two evils and while direct abortion is always wrong and the pope calls it assassination deportation is not intrinsically evil I have a whole episode on that linked below the pope even said in a 2024 interview with 60 Minutes that deportation unlike direct abortion can be justified the migrant has to be received thereafter you see how you're going to deal with them maybe you have to send him back I don't know but each case ought
to be considered humanely right so while Trump and Harris both want to turn away migrants and Deport people Trump wants to make it possible for states to protect The Unborn and Harris wants to make it impossible for states to do that that should be very clear but the pope has made it anything but clear on these issues and that angers me it's confusing on really important issues but in the midst of that anger I remember what scripture says in Ephesians chapter 4 therefore putting away falsehood let everyone speak the truth with his neighbor for we
are members one of another be angry but do not sin do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil put away falsehoods and don't hold on to anger the problem is that the internet teaches us to do the opposite of those things and that's really bad for our souls for example some people accuse me of being a pope ainer or Pope splaining or they say I'm naive because I won't just say the obvious which according to them is that Pope Francis is a heretic trying to cover his
tracks and this is all part of his plan to destroy the church and that I should say that or I'm being naive well I'd rather be a naive member of the elect than a calumnious member of the Damned I see so many Catholics online making the worst kinds of accusations calumny against people that's a grave sin and they're saying this not just about the pope but about all kinds of people for example they'll say a certain non-catholic apologist knows he's wrong and so he lies to his audience about the evidence because he's too proud to
admit that he's wrong or they'll say a certain priest is soft on LGBT issues because he's gay or he's engaging in sex acts with other men or they'll say the Pope says the things he does because the pope wants to destroy the church it's easy to make these kinds of accusations online especially when you have an anonymous account but you and I are not Anonymous to God which is why Jesus said on the day of judgment men will render account for every careless word they utter in James chapter 3 says the tongue is a little
member and boasts of great things how great a forest is set Ablaze by a small fire and the tongue is a fire the tongue is an unrighteous world among our members staining the whole body setting on fire the cycle of Nature and set on fire by hell for every kind of Beast and bird of reptile and sea creature Can Be Tamed and has been tamed by humankind but no human being can tame the tongue a Restless evil full of deadly poison with it we bless the Lord and father and with it we curse men who
are made in the likeness of God from the same mouth come blessing and cursing my brethren this ought not be so so let's take our anger frustration our fear let give that back to God in prayer and not turn it into calumny or into curses that we give online and we should graciously use technology though we can use things like email or responsible social media use to ask our pastors to give the faithful as well as those who are inquiring about the faith the clarity that leads to a knowledge of Jesus Christ so thank you
all so much for watching and I hope you have a very blessed day
