Pope Francis prompted controversy Friday with remarks at an interreligious meeting in Singapore that some have taken as a departure from Catholic doctrine on the role of Jesus Christ in 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 Sept. 13, 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 Sikh, some are Muslim, some are Hindu, some are Christian, but they are different paths.”
In light of that claim, the pope encouraged young people to religious dialogue, and to avoid bullying, so that “young people will go forward with hope.”
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The Catholic Church teaches that the “goodness and truth” found in non-Christian religions can be seen as a “preparation for the Gospel,” but it also emphasizes the unique role of Jesus Christ in salvation.
“It must be firmly believed as a truth of Catholic faith that the universal salvific will of the One and Triune God is offered and accomplished once for all in the mystery of the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Son of God,” the declaration Dominus Iesus declared in 2000.
“It is clear that 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 complementary 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,” the declaration added.
But while the pope’s remarks Friday have caused controversy among those who regard them as religiously relativistic, the Vatican’s own publication of the pope’s text has heightened a sense of ambiguity about the matter.
The text published in Italian identifies non-Christian religions as being “paths to arrive at God,” — and video published of the event confirms the pope saying that.
But despite what the pope said on video, an officially published English translation of the text replaced the pope’s word with a more nuanced comment, attributing to Francis the remark that non-Christian religions “are seen as paths trying to reach God.”
While the difference may seem slight, to theologians it is not insignificant, given Christian doctrine’s insistence on the unique mediating role of Jesus Christ in achieving unity between God and human beings, and the universal divine call of human beings to Christian conversion.
That call is expressed in the Second Vatican Council, whose document on the Church explained that “all men are called to this union with Christ, who is the light of the world, from whom we go forth, through whom we live, and toward whom our whole life strains.”
“This Sacred Council,” Lumen gentium stated, “basing itself upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition, teaches that the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation.”
The pope’s remarks came toward the conclusion of an 11-day papal trip to four countries in Asia and Oceania: Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. Huge crowds thronged to see Pope Francis at each stop of the trip, and Indonesian officials have confirmed that they arrested several people in early September who were believed to be plotting an assassination attempt on the pontiff.
The Vatican has not yet issued comment on the pope’s remarks.
