Pope Francis Says That Jesus Doesn't Matter

Amazing Gospel this Sunday, wasn't it? Mark 8:27-35

Peter started to remonstrate with him. But, turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said to him, ‘Get behind me, Satan! Because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.’

This came directly after Pope Francis told children in Singapore "All religions are paths to reach God".

Tell that to the Incans or the Mayans Holy Father!

The Vatican tried to nuance this by altering the Pope's words when they published a transcript, but given that it was recorded on video, and everyone was wise to it, they eventually changed it back (do they or the Pope have any credibility left to squander?).

Obviously he (the Pope) was trying to avoid offending non Catholics but if you can't expect the Pope to talk about Jesus, what on earth do you expect him to talk about? If you believe that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and that none can come to the Father except through Him (see Jn 14:6), how does it help to avoid offending those who do not know that truth? You see the basic contradiction here? And while it might be easy enough to excuse a lay person in dialogue or speaking the the Singaporeans an omission such as this, can the same truly be said of the Pope?

Some have tried to say that this is simply an extension of what Vatican II teaches, but I beg to differ. It stands in direct contrast to Vatican II, although it is a well known misdirection that some tried to subvert the council with. See for some examples:

"some there are who, living and dying in this world without God, are exposed to final despair. Wherefore to promote the glory of God and procure the salvation of all of these, and mindful of the command of the Lord, "Preach the Gospel to every creature",(130) the Church fosters the missions with care and attention." Lumen Gentium #16

"The Church has received this solemn mandate of Christ to proclaim the saving truth from the apostles and must carry it out to the very ends of the earth.(133) Wherefore she makes the words of the Apostle her own: "Woe to me, if I do not preach the Gospel",(134) and continues unceasingly to send heralds of the Gospel until such time as the infant churches are fully established and can themselves continue the work of evangelizing." Lumen Gentium #17

"the Church is compelled by the Holy Spirit to do her part that God's plan may be fully realized, whereby He has constituted Christ as the source of salvation for the whole world. By the proclamation of the Gospel she prepares her hearers to receive and profess the faith. She gives them the dispositions necessary for baptism, snatches them from the slavery of error and of idols and incorporates them in Christ so that through charity they may grow up into full maturity in Christ." Lumen Gentium #17

"The obligation of spreading the faith is imposed on every disciple of Christ, according to his state." -- Lumen Gentium #17

"the Church both prays & labours in order that the entire world may become the People of God, the Body of the Lord & the Temple of the Holy Spirit, & that in Christ, the Head of all, all honour & glory may be rendered to the Creator & Father of the Universe." - Lumen Gentium #17

Dominus Iesus condemns the pluralism promoted by Pope Francis: "On the basis of such presuppositions, which may evince different nuances, certain theological proposals are developed - at times presented as assertions, and at times as hypotheses - in which Christian revelation and the mystery of Jesus Christ and the Church lose their character of absolute truth and salvific universality, or at least shadows of doubt and uncertainty are cast upon them." Dominus Iesus #4

"it must be firmly believed that, in the mystery of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God, who is “the way, the truth, and the life”‌ (Jn 14:6), the full revelation of divine truth is given: “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him”‌ (Mt 11:27); “No one has ever seen God; God the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has revealed him”‌ (Jn 1:18); “For in Christ the whole fullness of divinity dwells in bodily form”‌ (Col 2:9-10)." - Dominus Iesus #5

Were the children the Pope spoke to not worthy of this message? Were they not important enough to receive it? If it is truth, why withhold it from them?

Lumen Gentium & Dominus Iesus are documents which directly attack the exact position taken by Pope Francis in these comments (and others he made while on this trip). They were born out of a time when some misguided Catholics were pushing in a Universalist, pluralist direction. For those that are interested, the discussion is perhaps best summed up as it pertains to Lumen Gentium #8.

Some thought LG #8 meant that the council was willing to acknowledge that although the Church of Christ is the Roman Catholic Church, the Kingdom of God is wider than just this. As Schmaus has it; although the official Church is the very channel and instrument for the Holy Spirit’s work, the Holy Spirit is not bound Himself by the structure of the Church and blows where He will (cf. Jn 3:8).

Since the council, some theologians had developed the idea that the council had taught that “[the sole Church of Christ] may also be present in other Christian Churches”. Indeed it could be concluded that this position was almost universal among contemporary theologians. In 1985, the CDF clarified the position with a notification to Fr. Leonardo Boff regarding his book, which, it noted, was having “considerable influence...on the faithful” and so the notification would therefore be made public. The CDF makes explicit that the council did not teach this, but rather that 

"the council had chosen the word subsistit exactly in order to make clear that one sole “substance” of the true church exists, whereas outside her visible structure only elementa ecclesiae exist; these—being elements of the same church—tend and conduct toward the Catholic Church (Lumen Gentium, 8). The decree on ecumenism expresses the same doctrine (UR 3-4), and it was restated precisely in the declaration Mysterium Ecclasiae."

—CDF Notification to Fr. Leonardo Boff, OFM on Church: Charism and Power, 11th March 1985

The CDF goes on to assert unequivocally, that Boff’s ideas amount to ecclesial relativism. However, according to Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, it was not Boff’s ideas, but this CDF document that was met with stinging criticism then put aside. Perhaps one reason why the current Pontiff is so comfortable repeating the error publicly at this time? He did, after all, rehabilitate Boff in 2017!

Ratzinger explains clearly the flaw in Boff’s thinking; namely the idea that Jesus Christ could not have conceived of any Church, much less have founded one. Rather the early Church was born of a response to institutionalisation and pressure resulting from the loss of eschatological tension towards the immediate coming of the kingdom.

The resultant ecclesiology supposes that a universal Catholic Church could not therefore have existed, but rather individual local Churches, with different ministers, theologies and praxis. This idea has the wrong point of departure however, according to Ratzinger who places the unifying centre of the Church firmly within the sacrament of the Last Supper. It is through this sacrament that

"all who profess to be Christians can become one with him in a totally new way, so that Paul could designate this communion as being one body with Christ, as the unity of one body in the Spirit."— cf. Ratzinger, J., The Ecclesiology of Lumen Gentium.

The implications of this reality are a Church not conceived of and established by men, but created by the Holy Spirit and brought forth through the reality of Pentecost. This Church is manifest in the profession of faith, the sacraments and apostolic succession, thus the council intended not to introduce a form of ecclesiological relativism, but to acknowledge what a living miracle is the Church, spread across the four corners of the earth and present throughout history, always fragile (As Ratzinger puts it: “the Holy Spirit has continuously created her since Pentecost, in spite of being faced with every human failing, and sustains her in her essential identity.”) and yet always with us. The CDF returned to this question on 29th June 2007, when it published a document: Responses to some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church. Here it again clarified:

"In number 8 of the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium ‘subsistence’ means this perduring, historical continuity and the permanence of all the elements instituted by Christ in the Catholic Church, in which the Church of Christ is concretely found on this earth. It is possible, according to Catholic doctrine, to affirm correctly that the Church of Christ is present and operative in the churches and ecclesial Communities not yet fully in communion with the Catholic Church, on account of the elements of sanctification and truth that are present in them. Nevertheless, the word “subsists” can only be attributed to the Catholic Church alone precisely because it refers to the mark of unity that we profess in the symbols of the faith (I believe... in the “one” Church); and this “one” Church subsists in the Catholic Church."

This document takes issue with the direction many theologians had been taking, and the accompanying commentary makes clear that the reason “subsists in” was used instead of “is” does not represent a break with earlier ecclesiology of ‘one true Church’, but rather signifies greater openness to the ecumenical desire to recognise the truly ecclesial characteristics and dimensions of other Christian communities who are not in full communion with the Catholic Church. The council had recognised the scandal of disunity and its duty to restoring the unity of all Christians. It also expressed the truth about the one Church of Christ; the goal of ecumenism must be the 

“bringing about the complete unity of Christians in the Catholic Church” (McBrien, R., The Church (New York: Harper Collins, 2008), p. 179). 

Clearly, the challenge faced by all of us is in recognising the objective reality of the truth held in the Catholic Church, the fides quae revealed by God which is to be held and taught by His Church whilst holding in tension our desire to acknowledge what we recognise as being part of this deposit of faith in other Christian communities. These elements are what Lumen Gentium § 8 teaches are forces which serve to impel those outside the one true Church towards Catholic unity.

This is the wider context of this debate. Fundamentally people hear "another Gospel" (Gal 1:6) and it clashes with the Gospel they know. Where are we if we cannot rely on the Pope to preach Christ crucified? How firmly does Francis believe in the faith he is supposed to represent?

All this and more is discussed by Gavin, Katherine and I in our latest chat: