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CV NEWS FEED // Cardinal Blaise Cupich defended Pope Francis’s comments about inter-religious dialogue made during his papal visit to Singapore.
In the October 2 commentary written for Chicago Catholic, the Cardinal commented on the following remarks from Pope Francis that were given at a gathering for young people on the subject of interreligious dialogue. The Cardinal quoted the Pope as follows:
One of the things that has impressed me most about the young people here is your capacity for interfaith dialogue. 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?”
When a youth responded, “destruction,” the Pope answered,
Yes, 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.
The Cardinal urged Catholics to remember that the comments were within the context of a question-and-answer session in a country with a small minority of Catholics, and that the Pope “rightly noted that one doesn’t begin a dialogue by telling others how they are wrong.”
Cardinal Cupich stated that Pope Francis’s call to begin dialogue with beliefs held in common is “in keeping with Catholic teaching.” The Cardinal then quoted the Catechism (842-843) to support this, which in part reads:
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 Cardinal stated that Pope Francis’s comments referenced the common origin and end of man, emphasizing unity so that people can go on to pursue truth.
The Cardinal then quoted the Catechism’s teaching that anything good in any religion comes from God, and thus that non-Christians can be saved if they lack knowledge of Christ through no fault of their own, and if they sincerely seek God and try to perform His will (CCC, 847).
The Cardinal added that Pope Francis’s statements do not detract from the Catholic teaching that “all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church, which is his Body” (CCC 846).
As CatholicVote previously reported, Archbishop Charles Chaput responded to Pope Francis’s comments in an article for First Things, writing: “Not all religions seek the same God, and some religions are both wrong and potentially dangerous, materially and spiritually.”
