THE POPE''S COMMENTS ABOUT BEING SAVED THROUGH OTHER RELIGIONS

 

Pope Francis in a crowd

Photographer: Clemens Van Lay

Royalty free photo on Unsplash

In our fractious times in which certain groups of people seem to enjoy reacting with outrage and telling everyone else about it, our poor Papa is being criticized for his poor wordsmanship once again.

This time it is because he said that "all religions are paths to God," during a trip to East Asia and Oceania.

Apparently, he went on to say, "they are like different languages that express the Divine," and the outrage gang promptly lost their minds.

Mostly, I think that our Pope tries to paraphrase the Catechism, and it gets lost in the translation. It seems to me that he appears to be trying to express a nuanced, complex thought in more simple language.

Author Tom Hoopes points out something similar in his September 19th article, Did Pope Francis Just Say That all Religions are Equally True? in a Media & Culture Newsletter of Benedictine College in Atkinson, KS,  and his recent book What Pope Francis Really Said. [See: ARTICLE LINK]

If you read the short article, he talks about the process he uses to analyze the Pope's comments. He deconstructs the comment, and figures it out, but especially with the latest comment, it is clear that our Pope is not deviating from the Catechism:

"Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation."

This topic immediately brings to mind my own conversion from Hinduism to Catholicism.

I am today a committed Catholic BECAUSE of a Hindu group that introduced me to the Catholic mystics. I was a nun, living very comfortably in a Hindu-based convent, where I was led to read extensively about the Catholic contemplative saints, such as Teresa of Avilla, Jane de Chantal, Francis de Sales, Brother Lawrence, Thomas Merton, and others. I had a massive conversion experience and left the convent to get Baptized and become Catholic.  It was VERY difficult for me to leave that place because I LOVED the life. I was very comfortable there. Although it was a group monastic experience, we all had a certain amount of private time to ourselves and, for me, the balance was just right, especially because of the 4 to 5 hours a day that was available for meditation, which I loved.

Through that Hindu-based group, and especially through Swami Swahananda, I was also able to attend a small meeting between Pope John Paul II and religious leaders from other religions in 1987, in which my Hindu teacher, the Pope, a Zen monk and a Jewish rabbi all delivered remarks about ecumenism and related topics. I had been invited to the meeting by my Hindu Swami, since he was one of the speakers on the dais, even though I had left the Hindu convent. He knew I was leaving to become Catholic.

I was GOBSMACKED by the suffering evidenced so exquisitely by the obviously saintly pope, who appeared to be a walking sacrifice to the Lord. God definitely introduced me to some of the finer points of the mystical life and the magnitude of the Catholic mysteries through that Hindu faith and my Bengali teacher.

Another interesting feature of this situation is that, when this group set up the convent rules and routines, they copied the Catholic convents, using them as their model for the new Hindu convent, which was established sometime around 1950, in Hollywood, I believe.

Based on my experiences, my personal view on this topic is that our great Lord is elegant in his expressions of allurements to Him. It makes perfect sense to me that He can and DOES use the vehicle of other religions to carry some of His truth. After all, is there any place in which God is not allowed to reside? Indeed, can one keep Him away?

He has certainly spoken to me through other religions. I left my religion-hating home when I was 17 and immediately began my spiritual search, going first into Scientology, then Nicheren Shoshu and Zen Buddhism, then Vedanta style Hinduism, and now, for many years, Catholicism. I have read about other religions, such as Tibetan Buddhism, without setting foot on those paths, as well.

Sometimes the Lord has "spoken" to me by discouraging me from avenues that were clearly going in the opposite direction of where He intended me to go. But sometimes He makes me work very hard for something, just to impress upon my mind how very much it means to me. For example, my road into the Catholic Church was EXTREMELY difficult because there is a tendency among some members to treat it as if it is an exclusive country club meant only for "cradle Catholics" of a certain background.

It is easy for me to believe that, for those people whose desire for the True Lord is sincere, He takes them from where they are and leads them. I do not see why those people who yearn for God would be ignored by our Blessed Lord. Surely, He loves us too much for anyone to be lost simply because they took the wrong train to their desired destination (their "desired destination" being the One True God.)

After being raised by religion-hating, immoral and unloving people, it would have been easy for me to have been tripped up by any one of a number of religions I studied or practiced. 

The outrage police would be astonished at how many similarities in thought and spiritual practice many religions share among them. Truth is, indeed, "seeded" throughout.  

So, I do hope that our dear Pope's detractors will soon find some peace of soul within themselves and stop this constant fault-finding.

God bless us all.

Silver Rose

SAINT OLGA AND SECOND CHANCES

Jesus is the Lord of second chances, and third chances and on and on and forever. The most unlikely people have become saints - not because they never did anything wrong, but because they repented and intentionally moved toward the Lord. My 34th great grandmother, for instance, is a stark example.

Saint Olga, "Equal to the Apostles"

879-969

My 34th great grandmother

Saint Olga (called "Equal to the Apostles" by the Orthodox Church) killed an entire ethnic minority of people in her land, in retaliation for their having killed her husband. She was devious and deliberate, and murdered them all. The same force, intention and will that was brought to bear on those awful deeds, was later directed to God and carried her to sainthood.

We can redirect our energies to that which is all good, and join the Lord, or we can direct them to that which is evil and go elsewhere. If we walk toward Him, Jesus opens the gates for us. If we deliberately choose evil, thinking that God will forgive us for doing so, we will be on another road, going to that other place, and, even though Jesus is standing at the gates, waiting for us, we will not be there. We have taken another road.

Indeed, Jesus even comes out onto the road to meet us, if we have chosen Him by doing His will. He and God the Father reside with us, when we demonstrate our love by 'keeping his word, i.e., obeying His commandments.

Jesus answered him, 'if anyone love me, he will keep

my word, and my father will love him, and we will

come to him and make our abode with him'

~ John 14:23 ~

All the major religious traditions are concerned with methods by which we may join the good and leave evil behind. This is a highly simplistic rendering, but true nonetheless.

Goodness is inclusive and generous, warm and embracing. Even if a person does not know Jesus but embraces goodness, he is already part of the body of Christ by doing so. The Catholic Church recognizes that God is goodness, itself, and welcomes that goodness in persons.

Some people, ignorant of the heart of the faith, choose the Good and travel the road toward God, keeping the commandments without knowing they are doing so, and find themselves being met by Christ and His Father on the road. Many have gotten a wonderful surprise after death, I would guess! Thus, there is no salvation outside of The Church, but The Church is an awful lot bigger than most people realize.

I once knew a woman who became enraged when I explained this doctrine of The Catholic Church. In the middle of a restaurant, she stood up and shrieked at me, "There is no salvation without Christ!" I tried to explain to her that she was right, but not in the way she believed she was right. Her legalism would exclude many good people who, through no fault of their own, did not know Christ but lived a life in keeping with Christ's commandments. She wasn't having any of it. She belonged to a legalistic, narrow church with a poor understanding of Christian theology.

The fact is that no one will ever be "good enough" to deserve Jesus, and, once you start inventing reasons to exclude people from heaven, there is no end to it.

"Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel

of Christ or his Church but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere

heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will and

they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may

achieve eternal salvation."

~ The Catechism of the Catholic Church~

The most important thing seems to be that we try to do His will. We will fail, of course, some of us many times, over and over again, but our Lord is the Lord of second chances, the Lord of Divine Love. He sees our hearts and knows our intentions.

The thing to examine during this time of Lent is whether or not we really ARE trying to do His will. Are we being obedient to everything, or have we rejected certain teachings because we don't agree with them? In this case, we have to ask ourselves why we think we are a better authority on the teachings of Jesus than His Church. What are our bona fides, our credentials? If we are honest with ourselves, we aren't the experts.

Our Lord is the Lord of second chances. Lent is the chance to take advantage of it. I pray you all make good use of it, and ask you to pray for me, as I pray for you.

God bless us all.

Silver Rose Parnell
(c) copyright 2018
All rights reserved.

THERE IS NO CASTE SYSTEM IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

I am blessed to have some extremely pious, devoted and intelligent Catholic friends. One of them is Mary Hammond, whose recent Facebook post clearly articulates the Truth of a truly pro-life point of view that I have been trying to write but which has eluded me.

With her permission, I am copying her words here. Thank you, Mary, for letting me do this, and thank you for your heart-felt words.

Who Is Worthy?

When last October, Fr. Pavone answered my objection to Donald Trump's anti refugee and anti immigration stance with his view that American babies dying in American clinics should come before Syrian babies dying from bombings or drownings because abortion of the most vulnerable was the greatest evil, he unwittingly defined my entire objection to his brand of "pro life" and opened a new avenue for pro euthanasia advocates to follow.

Why? Because he created a "class" of persons set apart from the rest.

The Church does tell us we need to defend those who are most vulnerable, or the weakest. But in her wisdom she did not create classes of these and rank them for us. What does the Church say?

"CC 2274 Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being."

Father Pavone and "the old guard pro life" have most of the sentence correct. It's that sticky last part he eliminates from the discussion: "like any other human being".

One of the concerns of anti euthanasia activists is that euthanasia will be used to clear out, if you will, those persons defined on a secular basis of being no longer able to contribute meaningfully to society. Which really means nothing more than they will not be working and paying taxes.

But secular aside, Catholics should be more concerned with the creation of classes in society by some pro life activists - the reason being is God does no such thing.

It is theologically incorrect to state that unborn children being aborted in America are deserving of more help and attention than unborn children being bombed or starved in Syria because abortion in the womb is worse than being bombed in the womb. Does God make these distinctions? No. Does the Church really, actually, make that distinction? No. Father Pavone makes that distinction and he is wrong.

And his view can also over take the anti euthanasia movement if supporters of Pavone's peculiar theology apply it to euthanasia.

God is not petty. He does not operate on some weird value system making one unborn child more deserving of help than another unborn child based on which type of unjust death they are dying.
One wonders if, in the March For Life, mothers holding signs really believe their born children are not as worthy of life defense as the unborn child. When pregnant, do mothers view their older children as less deserving of assistance than the child they are carrying?

Are older people with cancer more deserving of life defense than the 40 year old in a serious car accident and on life support? Secularists would say no. The 40 yr old might recover and go back to work. What would the old guard pro lifer say?

If we logically follow Fr. Pavone's thinking we can say Jesus was most deserving of love, care and attention before he was born and it was all downhill from there- He was no longer worthy of our attention.

His importance, His value, if you will, lessened when He reached an age where He could heal people and multiply loaves and fishes by Himself. Presumably Fr. Pavone would have found Christ adequately vulnerable and worthy of his attention when Christ was dying on the Cross. We won't know of course until he decides to comment fully on end of life issues.
But does God really think this way? I think we would be hard pressed to find any Christian faith of any denomination, much less the Catholic faith, who has such an insulting view of God or accuses God of such minimalist care.

Copyright (c) 2017 by Mary Hammond
Copied here with permission.