The traditionalists on social media are really very bold, usually beyond their competence. I'm not going to dress this one up for you folks. This is a comment I received, and what I particularly want to draw your attention to is my response.
At its heart, my response was not really targeting the commenter, even though I was addressing him. The ones I really want to see that post are other Catholics. Because when truth confronts a lie—which is the mission of The Forge and Fire Branded—people are edified, encouraged, and strengthened. In short, they're preserved from a deception that attempts to take them away from their eternal destiny.
Let's do it, people
The Facebook Post
The Comment, and Response
You are de facto attacking SSPX but where were you when Pope Francis declared that there are multiple roads to salvation (he used the term paths) including other religions? That implied that Jesus came here sort of unnecessarily and was wrong saying that you can come to the Father only through Him). Show your readers your post condemning that.
Response:
You changed Pope Francis' words in a very significant way there.
What he said was "All religions are paths to God.”
First, let me get this out of the way. I think it was an incredibly imprudent thing to say. I'm not supporting that he said it. But let's look at it in the light of truth instead of fabrication, drama, and rhetoric.
- His statement was not Magisterial: he said this at an interfaith gathering. It was not a teaching, and it did not carry any magisterial authority. It was basically his personal phrasing.
- Not incorrect: Technically, just about anything is a path to God by God's permissive will and his active providence. We get converts from Protestantism all the time. We get converts who used to be atheists, occasionally Buddhists, Jews, and occasionally even Muslims. All of these people started from somewhere. They weren't just culturally religious. What led them to the true Church was God's providence operating through their lived religious experience.
- "In other religions, everything that's true comes from God. Everything that's false comes from man. " That's Fulton Sheen. There are truths in other religions, and all truth can guide a person to truth himself, Jesus Christ. All truth does indeed come from God, but only we have the fullness of the Truth He has revealed. Pope Francis said something similar on another occasion.
- The Holy Father never said, "Salvation is found anywhere but through Jesus Christ." He just literally never said that, and he never even implied it.
Pope Francis’s statement was careless, but his own doctrinal teaching rules out the meaning his critics assign to it:
“Christ opens for us the door of freedom, and becomes, Himself, the way"
-Placuit Deo, a doctrinal letter on Christian salvation
"There is no salvation there: it is in the name of Jesus.… He is the one Saviour"
Homily in 2013
Catholics, pay attention. Because the only one doing the real work here is me. It's very easy for liars to distort Pope Francis' words, the teaching of the Church, or objective Church history.
But the one doing the real work of giving you the truth is me. Because one of us actually cares about you, while some others only care about their agenda, and they don't care if they're distorting the truth and disfiguring their brethren by repeating distortions. They believe the ends justify the means. But I believe you guys are the saints in the making, and you deserve to know and understand the truth so that it can transform you.


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