136. Other religions

Other religions

YOUCAT Catechism + Catechism of the Catholic Church Lesson 136

Ave Maria series

136  How does the Church view other religions?

The Church respects everything in other religions that is good and true.  She respects and promotes freedom of religion as a human right.  Yet she knows that Jesus Christ is the sole redeemer of all mankind.  He alone is “the way, and the truth, and the life”  (John 14:6).  [841-848]

St. Paul delivering the sermon about the Unknown God to the Athenians at the Areopagus (Acts of the Apostles 17:22-28). Painting by Raphael (1515). …..136

Whoever seeks God is close to us Christians.  There is a special degree of “affinity” to the Muslims.  Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam is one of the monotheistic religions.  The Muslims, too, revere God the Creator and Abraham as their father in faith.  Jesus is considered a great prophet in the Qur’an; Mary, his Mother, as the mother of a prophet.  The Church teaches that all men who by no fault of their own do not know Christ and his Church but sincerely seek God and follow the voice of their conscience can attain eternal salvation.  However, anyone who has recognized that Jesus Christ is “the way, and the truth, and the life” but is unwilling to follow him cannot find salvation by other paths.  This is what is meant by the saying, Extra ecclesiam nulia salus (outside of the Church there is no salvation).  199

Religious Freedom:  The right of every man to follow his conscience in choosing and practicing his religion.  Acknowledgment of religious freedom is not saying that all religions are equal or equally true.

[841-848]

The Church and non-Christians

841 The Church's relationship with the Muslims. "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day."(Lumen gentium 16; compare  Nostra aetate 3)³³⁰ –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

842 The Church's bond with non-Christian religions is in the first place the common origin and end of the human race:

All nations form but one community. This is so because all stem from the one stock which God created to people the entire earth, and also because all share a common destiny, namely God. His providence, evident goodness, and saving designs extend to all against the day when the elect are gathered together in the holy city. . . (Nostra aetate 1)³³¹ –CCC

843 The Catholic Church recognizes in other religions that search, among shadows and images, for the God who is unknown yet near since he gives life and breath and all things and wants all men to be saved. Thus, the Church considers all goodness and truth found in these religions as "a preparation for the Gospel and given by him who enlightens all men that they may at length have life." (Lumen gentium 16; compare Nostra aetate 2; Evangeli nuntiandi  53)³³² –CCC

844 In their religious behavior, however, men also display the limits and errors that disfigure the image of God in them:

Very often, deceived by the Evil One, men have become vain in their reasonings, and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and served the creature rather than the Creator. Or else, living and dying in this world without God, they are exposed to ultimate despair.( Lumen gentium 16; compare Romans 1:21, 25)³³³ –CCC

845 To reunite all his children, scattered and led astray by sin, the Father willed to call the whole of humanity together into his Son's Church. The Church is the place where humanity must rediscover its unity and salvation. The Church is "the world reconciled." She is that bark which "in the full sail of the Lord's cross, by the breath of the Holy Spirit, navigates safely in this world." According to another image dear to the Church Fathers, she is prefigured by Noah's ark, which alone saves from the flood.(St. Augustine, Serm. 96,7,9:Patrologia Latina 38,588; St. Ambrose, De virg. 18 118:Patrologia Latina 16,297B; compare already 1 Peter 3:20-21)³³⁴ –CCC

"Outside the Church there is no salvation"

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? (compare Cyprian, Ep. 73.21:Patrologia Latina 3,1169; De unit.:Patrologia Latina 4,509-536)³³⁵   Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.( Lumen gentium 16; compare Mark 16:16; John 3:5)³³⁶ –CCC

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

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.( Lumen gentium 16; compare Denzinger-Schönmetzer 3866-3872)³³⁷ –CCC

848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."(Ad gentes 7; compare Hebrews 11:6; 1 Corinthians 9:16)³³⁸ –CCC

Apostle  Saint Paul