Pope Francis told an ecumenical group of young people today that their diversity of religious identities “is a gift from God.”
In a video message released September 17, Pope Francis addressed assembled youth of the “Med24” meeting in Tirana, which has the theme of “Pilgrims of Hope, Builders of Peace.”
The meeting forms part of a weeklong Mediterranean series in Albania. The previous iteration, which Pope Francis attended in person, was held in Marseille, France in September 2023.
Aimed at young people, the meetings focus on promoting messages of inter-religious harmony, “building peace” and the issue of migration.
Diverse religions ‘a gift of God’
Addressing the gathering in his video, Francis hailed them as “pilgrims of hope, walking in search of the truth, living our faith and building peace – because peace needs to be built.”
“God loves every man; He makes no differences among us,” he commented. “The fraternity between the five shores of the Mediterranean that you are establishing it is the answer – really it’s an answer – the best answer we can offer to the conflicts and the deadly indifferences.”
Urging a growth in “unity,” Francis described the varied religious backgrounds of the participants as a “gift of God,” stating:
I invite you to learn together to discern the signs of the times. Contemplate the difference of your traditions like a richness, a richness God wants to be.
Unity is not uniformity, and the diversity of your cultural and religious identities is a gift of God. Unity in diversity. Let mutual esteem grow among you, following the witness of your forefathers. {Emphasis not original}
Francis encouraged the conference participants to prioritize care of migrants, the poor, and “all those who suffer to be regarded as a burden or a trouble.”
He ended with a call for them to imitate Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart and referenced the influx of immigrants coming to Italy and Europe via the Mediterranean Sea. Francis called on the youth to be “unresting pilgrims of hope and to follow the signs of God, so that Mediterranean area may recover his best feature: the expression of fraternity and peace, and it could be no longer a graveyard!”
Catholic teaching
In contrast to Francis’ remarks, the Church teaches that all souls must “belong” to the Church to be saved: “All are obliged to belong to the Catholic Church in order to be saved.” {Baltimore Catechism Q 166.}
The Catholic Church also notes that it is possible for those remaining outside the Church “through no grave fault of their own” and who are somehow unaware that the Church is the true Church, to still be saved “by making use of the graces which God gives them.” However, salvation in these cases of “invincible ignorance” is not found through other churches, but is through the Catholic Church as the channel of grace, as taught by St. Thomas Aquinas.
Pope Leo XII pronounced the primacy of the Catholic Church clearly in his 1824 encyclical letter Ubi Primum:
It is impossible for the most true God, who is Truth Itself, the best, the wisest Provider, and the Rewarder of good men, to approve all sects who profess false teachings which are often inconsistent with one another and contradictory, and to confer eternal rewards on their members. For we have a surer word of the prophet, and in writing to you We speak wisdom among the perfect; not the wisdom of this world but the wisdom of God in a mystery.
In 1832, Pope Gregory XVI subsequently wrote his encyclical Mirari Vos condemning the error of “indifferentism.” He warned that:
This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained. Surely, in so clear a matter, you will drive this deadly error far from the people committed to your care. With the admonition of the apostle that “there is one God, one faith, one baptism” may those fear who contrive the notion that the safe harbor of salvation is open to persons of any religion whatever.”
Singapore and Abu Dhabi
Francis’ comments today are quite representative of his controversial February 2019 Abu Dhabi declaration on Human Fraternity, a document described as seeking to “overturn the doctrine of the Gospel” due to its promotion of equality of religions in a form of “fraternity.”
The Abu Dhabi text attests that “the pluralism and the diversity of religions” are “willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings” – a statement that contradicts Catholic teaching. Astana’s Bishop Athanasius Schneider has said that by implementing the Abu Dhabi document without correcting its erroneous affirmation on the diversity of religions, “men in the Church not only betray Jesus Christ as the only Savior of mankind and the necessity of His Church for eternal salvation, but also commit a great injustice and sin against love of neighbor.”
He later added, “It contradicts Divine Revelation to say that, just as God positively wills the diversity of the male and female sexes and the diversity of nations, so in the same way he also wills the diversity of religions.”
Schneider did win a private clarification from Francis in March 2019, when Schneider recounted that Francis stated “that the diversity of religions is only the permissive will of God. He stressed this and told us: you can say this, too, that the diversity of religions is the permissive will of God.”
Schneider pointed out to Francis that diversity in sexes is the direct or positive will of God, while the diversity in religions cannot be similarly described.
However, though Schneider obtained a private clarification on the matter, the Vatican has not issued a public statement or correction of the passages. Schneider later commented:
One cannot justify the theory that the diversity of religions is positively willed by God by adducing the truth of the deposit of faith regarding free will as a gift of God the Creator. God has granted man free will precisely so that he may worship God alone, Who is the Triune God. God has not given man free will in order to worship idols, or to deny or blaspheme His Incarnate Son Jesus Christ, Who said: “He who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (Jn 3:18).
Francis’ comments to the youth in Albania come less than a week after he caused controversy with similar remarks promoting religious pluralism.
Addressing an inter-religious gathering of young people in Singapore during his Asia voyage, Francis stated:
Every religion is a way to arrive at God. There are different languages to arrive at God, but God is God for all. And how is God God for all? We are all sons and daughters of God. But my god is more important than your god, is that true?
There is only one God and each of us has a language to arrive at God. Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, they are different paths.
The comments caused instant outrage and consternation, with millions of Catholics viewing Francis’ remarks in recent days. He has since been accused of promoting religious pluralism, religious indifference and of being “objectively heretical” in his words.