Religious Freedom and Assisi
Religious Freedom has been one of the most hotly debated topics among Catholics since the proclamation of Dignitatis Humanae by Pope Paul VI during the Second Vatican Council. In this dialogue, Robert Sungenis and John Pacheco discuss whether Dignitatis Humanae and other Church documents supports the inter-religious events at Assisi.
Sungenis comments in red. Pacheco responds in blue. Selections from Dignitatis Humanae are in purple.
First Round:
"RS" / "JP"
Second Round: "RS2" / "JP2"
Third Round: "RS3" / "JP3" (latest)
On CAI's website, you will read Robert's latest response which is prefaced by "RS3". For those who have been following this discussion, I have inserted Robert's third response ("RS3") below and added my rebuttal, "JP3".
RS: As for Assisi being justified by DH, first, apparently you have had a major shift in thinking since the last time we talked about this less than a year ago, and second, would you mind telling me what statement in DH supports the idea that Catholics are to direct pagans to pray to their gods for world peace?
I hope, John, that since you offered DH as the justification, that you won't be tempted to dismiss my inquiry with a "I don't want to get into a discussion right now" kind of statement. If you really believe DH supports Assisi, I think you're obligated to show why, especially since you took an opposite view not to long ago.
JP: Well, I guess you could say that I asked for it, huh? OK. Kimosabe. Let's start with your statement above. You said: at Assisi "Catholics are to direct pagans to pray to their gods for world peace."
Where exactly did the Church "direct" pagans to pray to false gods? Let's be precise about this. There is a difference between "directing" and "permitting". If you insist on the "directing", then this discussion likely cannot go any further since it is a question of fact. I don't believe that the Church "directed" the pagans to pray to false gods. It did, however, TOLERATE them doing so.
RS: First, the fact that you know that "directing" them to pray to their false gods would be wrong, you admit the potentiality of an abomination at Assisi. Hence, you are now forced to prove that there was no "directing" at Assisi. If you can't, then you have just indicted the pope.
JP: Sure, there is a potentiality in many things. But we are not dealing with potentiality but actuality :)
RS2: Of course, the actuality comes when you can’t disprove that the pope was directing the pagans to pray to their false gods, which, as you will see later in this dialogue, you admit to.
JP2: I hate to break this to you, Kimosabe, but the onus is not on me to "disprove the pope's direction" but on you to prove it. I'm the defense. You're the prosecution. Imagine if you got up in a court of law, as a prosecutor, and used the line you just did on me? "Your honour, our case is air tight. The defense cannot disprove our allegations!" Sorry, Robert, that's not how it works. I am defending the Pope. Ergo, the onus is on you to prove your case. For what it's worth at this point, I never conceded anything of substance at all so I am bit puzzled at your comment. The Vatican might have hosted the event, but that is a far cry from saying that it agrees with the false views of its participants - which is what you are trying to convince us of.
RS3: The fact remains that if you have no evidence for making a distinction between “directing” pagans to pray to false gods, and “inviting” them to come to Assisi to pray to their false gods, then you have no basis for saying that the Vatican was not directing pagans to pray to false gods. The fact that you resort to such hairsplitting distinctions (between “directing” and “inviting”) in order to justify Assisi shows how desperate your position is.
JP3: So what you are saying, Robert, going back to the original exchange, is that you had no business in shifting the burden of proof, right? Right. So it is really you (and not me) who must prove your case.
And as far as “hairsplitting distinctions” goes, Catholicism is all about distinctions. You just simply refuse to accept this particular one. The Church never directed or invited anyone to practice a false religion. Instead, it recognized that, in accordance with DH, man has an intrinsic religious need to pray, and this need cannot be subverted or coerced in anyway by any human power. As such, while it is necessary to always witness to the truth of the Gospel, the Church must nonetheless live in civil harmony with those who profess a different faith. In order to do so, adequate provision must be made to respect the right of everyone to exercise their religion. If this right is not respected, no civilization can hope to survive. At Assisi, the Pope tried to live up to this by making an authentic provision for this religious liberty. He showed the world that men of different religious confessions can still live together, and indeed worship along side of one another, while still disagreeing with one another. If this foundation is not understood or acknowledged, what possible hope do any of us have? Have you ever thought of the reprecussions for Christians living in Muslim lands if the Pope had preached the “repent or be damned” gospel? You’re a smart guy, Robert. I don’t think I need to draw you the picture.
RS: Also, when you say "tolerate," this means you know instinctively that praying to a false god is wrong, otherwise there would be no reason to "tolerate" it, since we only "tolerate" things that are not good.
JP: Of course.
RS: As for the distinction between "directing" and "permitting," because the Church recognizes by divine revelation that man has a free will, she has always "tolerated" the fact that pagans pray to their false gods. Outside of preaching the gospel to them (which states that praying to false gods is wrong), there is little the Church can do to stop them. She has no right to force them.
JP: Agreed.
RS2: So then, you are agreeing that praying to false gods is wrong.
JP2: Yes. But restraining someone from exercising their conscience (provided that public order is maintained) is also wrong.
RS3: So you agree that praying to false gods is wrong, yet you believe it is not wrong for the pope to invite pagans to pray to their false gods. For the audience, that is now part of the record. Further, it is amazing to see how you can make such a fine- line distinction between “directing” and “inviting,” yet fail to make the same distinction between the Church “allowing” a pagan to pray to his false god in his own land and “inviting” the pagan to pray to his false god at Assisi. In other words, when its convenient you make distinctions, but when its not convenient, you dispense with distinctions.
JP3: Robert, you are operating under assumptions that you need to recognize. The Pope is not preaching to a bunch of American fundies with Jack Chick pamplets in their shirt pockets, OK? You operate under a rubric which ASSUMES the security of your person and the right for you to speak without the fear of punishment or even death. You need to wake up and recognize the assumptions behind your arguments. If you were looking at the GLOBAL situation, your tune would quickly change from “repent or be damned” to “let’s start to have a little respect around here and please don’t rip out my tongue after I preach to you.” The latter comes before the former.
And if you think John Paul II's apparent ambivalence to the explicit Gospel message is "unprecedented" in certain forums, go and read about what happened to Catholics when Pius XII became a little too vocal in his opposition to Naziism. People live and die by what the Pope says.
RS: But when you give a formal invitation to pagan religions to come to a holy Catholic place, under the auspices and authority of the Catholic Church, and request that they publically pray to their false gods for a physical blessing;
JP: But Robert, the Church has never directed anyone to pray to a false god. Rather, at Assisi, the Church directed persons of different religions to come and pray to the one true God, while tolerating the misconception of who that one true God is.
RS2: So what you are saying, John, is that the Church now directs pagans to pray to the true God by telling them to pray to their false gods.
JP2: No. The Church does not "tell them to pray to their false gods." That is simply a mere assumption on your part, Robert. As you are fond of telling me: prove it. Give me the text where the Holy Father or the Vatican TOLD the pagans to do this. This is what you need to do in order to establish your case. If you cannot, then please desist from spreading false information about the Church. As far as I can tell, what the Vatican did was simply to TOLERATE their false conception of God. You are all for being precise when it suits you, but not so concerned when precision looks favourably on the other guy.
RS3: I don’t know what happened to you between JP and JP2, but you certainly have an air of condescension about you. From my perspective, you’re the one in hot water, since you are condoning praying to false gods, which is a direct violation against everything we have ever been taught in Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium. Second, please show us how it is possible to conclude that, when the pope directed each false religion to go to separate rooms and pray to their false gods, that this is NOT “telling them to pray to their false gods.” Please tell us where the pope said something to the effect: “I’m not going to tell you to pray to false gods, but here is a room where you can do so. And if you do, being the good Catholic I am, I will ‘tolerate’ your abomination.”
JP3: If the Church allows the Muslim to do his thing in Iran, why should he not be able to do the same thing at Assisi? Your big solution to this question is simply to not invite the pagans to Assisi. But, here’s the thing you need to consider. Our mission is to preach the Gospel to ALL of the world, right? And how, pray-tell, do you expect to go into nations of the Muslim world which are not receptive to Christianity? Are you going to air drop missionairies with AK-47s? How about just strolling up to the border with a bible in your hand and letting them know that you are a Christian bible thumper who wants to share the Good News with them? Do you think that will work? Please. Let’s get real here. We need a foundational approach that will allow the Gospel to be preached in these countries in the century ahead without the threat of violence.
RS2: In other words, you are telling me that the Catholic Church has a new way of teaching people to approach the true God that has never been taught in all of Catholic history. The new way is: we can now dispense with the formality of removing the false gods and actually begin promoting their use in order to have quick access to the true God for personal favors. And thus, for two thousand years we’ve been doing it all wrong when we told the pagans to destroy their idols and stop praying to them.
JP2: Robert, there is no "new way of teaching at all." Why are you setting up a caricature which does not exist. No one "directed" the Assisi participants to pray to false gods so I categorically reject your presentation. The participants showed up to pray for world peace, or have you forgotten St. Peter's message?
So is it your belief that God-fearing people who do what is right are not accepted by God?
RS3: You’re wrong, John. Acts 10:1-4 says that Cornelius was praying to God, not to false gods. It is precisely because he was praying to God that God answered him with an angel visitation. Besides, you already admitted that the pagans of Assisi were praying to false gods, and that praying to false gods was wrong, and that the only reason it could be tolerated was not because God listens to prays made to false gods, but only that the pagan had the “religious liberty” to pray to his false gods, which we Catholics must “tolerate.”
JP3: You are dodging. The point is that Cornelius was not a Jew. He was not a Samaritan. He was not a Christian. He is simply described as a “God fearing gentile”, which is more or less what a Muslim is. Is it your position that God will not hear a “God fearing” Muslim? On what basis? And how is that substantially different from the case of Cornelius? Appealing to what the bible does not say about Muslims does not cut it.
RS2:John, I have to tell you, I am absolutely flabbergasted by your views. You were with CAI just about a year ago telling everyone that, of all the things the pope had done which were questionable, the one thing you could not tolerate was the Assisi event, and you were helping to organize “Jeremiah’s Call” against it. But now you turn 180 degrees the other way. It’s like you are another person whom I don’t know. It seems you have been so throttled by people like Pete Vere into thinking that anything the pope does cannot be questioned, that you resort to the absurd rationalizations that I read above. My heart breaks for you, John, because you have simply lost your way. Pete Vere is a modernist bureaucrat who will never change. But you? I’m in shock.
JP2: Robert, none of this is germane to the topic at hand. We all change our views from time to time. I bet you that there are former Protestants who you used to associate with that are "shocked" that you went from the Reformed confession to the Catholic one. That's a long trip, Robert. At least my journey has never led me away from professing the same Faith. As for Pete, he's a good guy who's already been where you are and then some. In due time, you might do the same thing he did and bail on the views you now hold as a Traditionalist. He's a good guy, and you come up now and again in our conversations. He inquires about you and genuinely cares. I know that him being a "modernist bureacrat", you don't consider that really important, but I thought I would share that bit of information with you just the same. You can think badly of both of us if you like, but that doesn't change the fact that we love you and want you back DEFENDING us instead of attacking us 'cause that's what ROMAN Catholic Apologists do, remember?
RS3: I’m not going to defend pagan idol worship, and I will continue to speak out against people like you and Pete Vere who support it.
JP3: Oh please, spare me. We do not support or promote pagan idol worship. We support the right of people to search for the truth of Jesus Christ unencumbered by civil or ecclesiastical coercion. If that begins in a different religious confession, then so be it. Not everyone is born Catholic. And we also support the mandate to preach the Gospel to all nations, recognizing that some situations require delicate and shrewd moves to make the Gospel’s explicit proclamation a reality in due time. What we don’t support is the isolationist and insulationist fantasy that you can blindly apply the same approach across centuries, civilizations, cultures, and religious traditions in a foolish, irresponsible, one-size-fits-all approach. THAT’S WHY WE HAVE A CHURCH TO GUIDE US FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE. It's not all about paper dogma. God takes an active role in the affairs of the Church also.
I told you this before and I will tell you again. Unless you are personally prepared to preach the fire and damnation gospel in Algeria and forfeit your life and the lives of thousands of Christians, then you really should be less confident in your one-size fits all evangelization program.
RS3: I can conclude nothing except that you and Vere have resolved in your mind that whatever this pope does in public must be defended, whether it is right or wrong. You have completely dismissed the possibility that he may be wrong. Canon Law, Vatican I, and all the saints and doctors who wrote on this subject say that he indeed can be in error. In fact, Alexander VII, in 1665, condemned the notion: "Although it is evidently established by you that Peter is a heretic, you are not bound to denounce [him], if you cannot prove it." You, on the other hand, are simply playing the “all or nothing” game that Vere forced you into, and thus we have two John Pacheco’s to deal with now: one who drafted Jeremiah’s call, and the one who has been convinced that the pope can do no wrong.
JP3: And who is to say whether the Pope is right or wrong on any particular question? Robert Sungenis? Of course! How many people have fallen into this same trap throughout the centuries? The hermeneutic you should operate under is the one you used to indict Honorius: a future pope and council will make that decision. Until then, you are playing Russian roulette with your soul, and gambling away your salvation. If you are not sure about any particular teaching or action of the Pontiff, then raise it discreetly. If you are still unsatisfied with an answer, say nothing about it but pray. And wait for as long as it takes. Obedience comes before understanding. God wants a docile, obedient son before He grants the treasures of knowledge sought after. Or perhaps you think this maxim is unbiblical? You know, Robert, there is really only one difference between a Catholic and a Protestant. The Catholic is obedient and is a team player. The Protestant is neither. The doctrines that separate us are simply the product of this one simple rule. Which one do you fall into?
RS2:Being Catholic for you is no longer searching for the truth, it is merely working under the premise that the pope is to be followed in everything he does, whether it is right or wrong. And if it looks wrong (as you said of Assisi was last year) you will now do your best to make it look right.
JP2: I am sorry that you think this way about me, Robert. I do concede, however, that I'm pretty impressed with your ability to read souls. What's next for you - stigmata and bi-location? :)
RS3: 1 John 4:1: Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 John 9-10: If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; 11 for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds.
JP3: “We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said.” (Acts 15:24)
RS2: If a Protestant has organized something akin to Assisi you would be on him like a wet blanket, and I’ve seen you do it.
JP2: Sure. That might very well be. I don't dispute that, but then again that's why I believe in the papacy and I am guided by and obedient to not only the office but the officeR. Catholicism is about obedience and faith...and humility. I am very proud to sing a different song if the Lord asks me to - otherwise I'm just my own Pope.
RS3: No, this is not about whether you or John Paul are the pope, but about whether you can admit that John Paul may be wrong on certain things he says and does. It is precisely because you have failed to make the distinction between the “office” and the “officer” that you are now taking the position of defending Assisi. St. Paul made that distinction when he upbraided Peter for false ecumenism with the Jews (Gal 2:10), but you seem to be incapable of doing so, and try to disguise the inability by calling it “loyalty.” Quite frankly, John, you’ve just admitted that the rationale for your defending Assisi is blind obedience to the pope. Hence, I’m sure you would have been first in line to agree with Honorius that Jesus only had one will, and agreeing right along with John XXII that saints don’t enjoy the beatific vision. You would have denounced anyone who spoke against the pope’s teaching because, as you say, you believe in the “officerR.”
JP3: When you can claim some apostolic authority for yourself and show me your pallium, I’ll be all ears, Robert. Until then, you’re just blowing in the wind. As for the two examples you cited, your position on Honorius is not at all established. I have a different view of the events. And John XXII eventually recanted his view, if I am not mistaken. Do you think that John Paul II is likely to recant, Robert – especially considering all of the V2 material he uses to draw on for his teaching? Dream on. It’s time for you and the rest of the traditionalist crowd to clue in. The Church and many, many subsequent Popes in this millenium will use Vatican II and JPII’s teachings as the foundation of the new evangelization. You need to hit the “fast forward button” on the show, and quit wasting your formidable talents. You could continue doing so much good for the church, and instead you want to cook up sola scriptura again with an integrist side dish of tradition.
RS2:But let the pope do it, and suddenly you think we are being showered from heaven with “new insights” and “new methods” and “new development of doctrine.” I believe your problem is the same thing that appears in the way you argue this present discussion about Dignitatis Humanae - you consistently fail to make the proper distinctions.
JP2: I have no problem with distinctions, Robert. In fact, that's why I am winning this debate. Here is one distinction that you need to deal with: tolerating error vs. embracing error.
RS3: I can always tell when my opponent is desperate – he starts claiming victory in the debate. If you’re so in favor of making distinctions then why didn’t you make the proper distinction, as I pointed out above, between the Church “allowing” a pagan to pray to his false god in his own land and “inviting” the pagan to pray to his false god at Assisi?
JP3: Because that distinction is completely bogus! That is what I have been trying to get you to understand. You seem to think that geography has some kind of mystical power behind it like some kind of Middle Age magic. The “pagan land” that you keep referring to is right across from your house, Robert, at the local mosque. The Church is merely acknowledging that the pagan’s right to practice his religion supercedes this silly geographical anachronism which you are irrationally clinging to.
RS3: As for “tolerating error vs. embracing error,” I’ve already made the distinction. We, as a Church, can tolerate a pagan praying to his false god in his own land. Apart from preaching the gospel to him that such practices are wrong, there is little we can do to stop him. But we don’t invite the pagan to our sacred grounds to pray to his false god. When you do such things, John, then you have more than “tolerated” their error. You have “embraced” their error.
JP3: This is just proves my point. You said “there is little we can do to stop him”. Is that how the Church defines its teaching? By what She can or cannot do? Good grief, Robert. Can’t you see how silly your position is? To be consistent, you should say that the pagan does not have a right to practice his false religion REGARDLESS if the Church can stop him or not! And anyway, what kind of “toleration” is that? There is no significance to “toleration” if the Church is not present in these “far away lands” because the Church is not there to tolerate them! Toleration ONLY has meaning when the Church is confronted with error in “Christian lands”. Your position essentially amounts to tolerating the Muslim worshipping in Iran but not in New Jersey or Assisi, for that matter.
By the way, how do you define “embracing”? Simply by the act of tolerating the error irrespective of geographical location? I hardly think that is a legitimate argument. Embracing the error would mean subscribing to its teachings. Show us where the Church has done this. And please, be specific.
Also, you keep going on about allowing these people to pray on “our sacred grounds”. But that is what Pius XII allowed in monasteries and convents during the Second World War, so what is the problem?
RS2:In regards to the pope, you consistently fail to distinguish when he is teaching truth from when he makes mistakes. In regards to DH, you consistently fail to make the proper distinctions between the civil right to religious freedom and the morality of it.
JP2: In regards to the former, who is to say when he is doing either? You? Is that what the Catholic faith teaches? No, that is not what it teaches at all:
RS3: Lumen Gentium says we submit to “authentic teaching authority,” not the pope’s personal opinions. If and when the pope makes an authoritative declaration that inviting pagans to Assisi comes under the “authentic teaching authority” of the papacy, then we are required to submit to it. But so far, Assisi is about as “inauthentic” as papal actions come. Not only has the pope not made any authentic authoritative statement about Assisi, but he has contradicted every “authentic teaching authority” of past popes, councils, saints, doctors, and Scripture on the subject.
You might be able to see the distinction between a pope’s “authentic teaching authority” and his personal opinions if you read the rest of Lumen Gentium 25. After “decisions made by him,” the part you cut out says, “conformably with his manifest mind and intention, which is made known principally either by the character of the documents in question, or by the frequency with which a certain doctrine is proposed, or by the manner in which the doctrine is formulated.” In other words, John, “authentic teaching authority” is when the pope is teaching a “doctrine,” not when he is giving his personal opinion or engaging in his own personal actions. I don’t know anywhere the pope has declared that Assisi is a “doctrine” of the Catholic Church.
JP3: The Pope did not merely give his “personal opinion”. He involved the Church and spoke on behalf of the Church at Assisi. If it were merely “personal”, he would not have involved the Episcopacy in it. In regards to his “manifest mind and intention”, can you honestly say that you submit to John Paul II’s decisions with “sincere assent”? I don’t think so. As far as Assisi being a “doctrine of the Church”, the relevance comes into yielding to Dignitatis Humanae, Nostra Aetate, Ad Gentes, and Evangelii Nuntiandi along with other Encyclicals which support Assisi:
A vast field lies open to dialogue, which can assume many forms and expressions: from exchanges between experts in religious traditions or official representatives of those traditions to cooperation for integral development and the safeguarding of religious values; and from a sharing of their respective spiritual experiences to the so-called "dialogue of life," through which believers of different religions bear witness before each other in daily life to their own human and spiritual values, and help each other to live according to those values in order to build a more just and fraternal society. (RM, 57)
These rights are rightly reckoned to include the right to religious freedom together with the right to freedom of conscience. The Second Vatican Council considered especially necessary the preparation of a fairly long declaration on this subject. This is the document called Dignitatis Humanaem, in which is expressed not only the theological concept of the question but also the concept reached from the point of view of natural law, that is to say from the "purely human" position, on the basis of the premises given by man's own experience, his reason and his sense of human dignity. Certainly the curtailment of the religious freedom of individuals and communities is not only a painful experience but it is above all an attack on man's very dignity, independently of the religion professed or of the concept of the world which these individuals and communities have. (Redemptor Hominis, 17)
All of these sources taken collectively are clearly pointing to Assisi. Robert, do these latter two encyclicals qualify as an “authentic exercise” in the Pope’s Magisterium? Yes or no? And if they do, then how can you possibly divorce these teachings from the events at Assisi which are a mere reflection of the words written in these Encyclicals? For instance, RM 57 above has Assisi written ALL OVER IT.
JP2: As to the latter, religious freedom is not merely a civil right, but a moral one, having its foundation in the intrinsic dignity of man which is given to him by His Creator. Mind you, I am not saying that religious error is a moral right, only his freedom to choose is. There's another distinction for you :)
RS3: Freedom to choose is certainly a God-given right, but freedom to choose a false religion is not a moral right, unless, of course, you can tell us where Vatican II said religious freedom is a moral right. The only thing I find in Dignitatis Humanae is that “This right of the human person to religious freedom must be given such recognition in the constitutional order of society as will make it a CIVIL RIGHT” (The General Principle of Religious Freedom, Chapter 1, #2)
JP3: Robert, I have already cited the texts time and time again. I’ll cite it again for you:
There is NO SUCH THING as a civil right without an underlying moral right – otherwise you would be saying that the Church condones civil laws without the underlying moral foundation to them. If you read the paragraph carefully, you will see that freedom is based on the dignity of the human person AS KNOWN THROUGH THE REVEALED WORD OF GOD. That makes it a moral right having its foundation in Sacred Scripture. Having established the moral right to religious freedom, the Council goes on to insist that this moral right be recognized as a civil right by the State. One follows the other.
If you don't think so, ask one of your Trad buddies. I guarantee that they will agree with me on this point. Your position is heretical.
RS2: First of all, the passage doesn’t say anything about the Catholic Church inviting Muslims to a holy Catholic place and directing them to pray to Allah so that they can think they are making contact with the true God.
JP2: Here we go again with something that was never done. But, since you're on this kick, Robert, let's go full throttle with this one. Can you please explain how Cornelieus' prayer to "Allah" was heard?
Cornelius was not a Jew. Nor was he a Christian at the time. So how and why did God hear his prayer?
RS3: God heard his prayer because the text says he was praying to God. You don’t know anything about Cornelius to say anything different. Apparently, he was told by someone to pray to the true God. He was not told to pray to a false god, nor told that praying to a false god was the same as praying to the true God. Here is what the text says: “Now there was a man at Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian cohort, 2 a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, and gave many alms to the Jewish people and prayed to God continually.” You don’t see anything there about praying to pagan gods, do you John? And you don’t see anything in the context about Peter telling Cornelius to pray to a pagan god or that he had the “religious freedom” to do so, do you? No, what you see is Peter giving the rest of the gospel to Cornelius, Cornelius giving a profession of faith in the Christian God, and Peter baptizing him – something the pope hasn’t done for the 16 years between Asissi 1 and Assisi 2, and has no intentions of doing. What’s more, John, is that you have just trapped yourself, for in appealing to Acts 10 you are now stuck with it. If it doesn’t support what you are contending, then the very passage you cite will condemn you.
JP3: Now why would I want to run away from Acts 10? Acts 10 completely destroys your objection, Robert. You are simply not being a good sport and conceding that I might have a point. The fact is that Cornelius was praying to “God”. But Cornelius was not a Jew or a Christian. Therefore his conception of God was at least somewhat limited and incorrect. Now then, how is that substantially different from a Muslim? How is it that you can categorically say that God is not hearing a Muslim-Cornelius? The simple fact is: you can’t. You are simply limiting God’s grace and love to one non-Christian arbitrarily who just so happens to be described in Sacred Scripture. The fact that the bible only mentions one man DOES NOT mean that there cannot be others, especially considering that there are likely many Cornelius’ throughout the centuries.
Did you catch that, Robert? Now, what was that about the Pope not preaching baptism and repentance?
RS2:Furthermore, CCC 841 is quoting from Lumen Gentium 16. Paragraph 16 is dealing solely with groups of people who have not had the opportunity to hear the Gospel as yet. The first sentence of Lumen Gentium 16 says: “Finally, those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways.” It is talking about people who, residing in their own lands, through no fault of their own, have not had the opportunity to hear the Gospel from Catholic missionaries. So the question comes back: What is to be done with these people who have had no opportunity to hear the Gospel? Do they still have the opportunity to be saved? The answer is yes, because at least they acknowledge the Creator and adore him. God, of course, will determine the rest.
JP2: Agreed. But here is something that you need to come to terms with. For these people who adore the Creator, what is your disposition towards them before they accept the Gospel? Before they are culpably responsible for rejecting the Gospel? You've just said that they "adore the Creator". Is their current adoration a sin? Is it an abomination? No. It is not. It only becomes an abomination when they are convicted of the truth of Jesus Christ, but not before. Until then, they are not culpable for their false worship and must be allowed to fulfill their religious impulse which is placed their by the Creator.
RS3: The issue is not whether the Muslims are culpable, but whether John Paul II is culpable. Since Lumen Gentium specifies their condition as “not receiving the Gospel,” it is the pope’s responsibility to preach the Gospel to them, not, when he meets them, to continue to pray to their false gods. As Jesus says in Mt 18:7: “Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes!”
JP3: Suppose that you’re evangelical friend convened a meeting of some neighbours for the express purpose of discussing some neighbourhood municipal issue. Suppose further that 1 minute into the meeting, he started giving those assembled the Evangelical shpeel about faith alone, the errors of Catholicism, etc. etc. Would you be particularly impressed with him? Would you respect his “religious zeal”? I know wouldn’t. He’s an ass for suckering you there on false pretenses. Likewise, Assisi must be understood, not as a dialogue where some real evangelism can go on, but for an expressly different purpose: to foster respect among religions so that, after everyone departs, there is a basis for evangelization.
RS2: But this has absolutely nothing to do with Assisi. Lumen Gentium and CCC 841 are speaking ONLY about those who have never heard of Jesus Christ and the Gospel of salvation.
JP2: Robert, the point of me citing the passage was not to deny that they have the objective necessity to convert to the Catholic Faith, but simply that the Catholic Church recognizes they too "worship with us the one and merciful God," and although they have a misconception of who He truly is, the Church is not directing them to worship ANOTHER God or a "false god". For, if She were so doing, then she would HERSELF be worshipping a false God! The error does not rest in the "one God" but in the false worship of Him.
RS3: If the Church says the pagans have a misconception of who He truly is, then it is the Church’s responsibility to inform them of the right conception. That is called the GOSPEL, John. It’s the same thing Paul told the pagans on Mars Hill after he found them with a wrong conception of God. Unfortunately, our pope hasn’t done this from 1986 to 2000 in his Assisi gatherings. In fact, he has reinforced their ignorance on “who He truly is,” because they are still left with the impression that they can pray to Allah for worldly favors and never have to submit to Jesus Christ. Why? Because the pope didn’t tell them otherwise.
JP3: Oh please. The Pope has been proclaiming Christ to the world throughout his whole Pontificate. Everyone knows what the Pope represents. He said it at Assisi many times. He told them that Jesus was God, and that He was their peace. This is totally appropriaate considering that the purpose of Assisi was not to engage in formal theological dialogue. If the Pope omits proclaiming the “repentance” Gospel in a dialogue situation, you do indeed have a point. And the Pope himself seems to agree:
You can hardly accuse the Pope of failing to preach a Gospel of repentance, Robert. You are simply refusing to accept that there are some venues which are appropriate and other that are not. Why can’t you see this?
RS2: At Assisi they had ample opportunity to hear the Gospel, and in fact, you later claim that “Christ” was preached to them, so you automatically disqualify them from Lumen Gentium 16.
JP2: Well, then, if you are going to use LG 16 against me and rely on me saying that "Christ was preached to them", what is your complaint? You've just conceded that Christ was preached to them! It seems to me that you have won the battle but lost the war :)
RS3: No, I am not saying the Gospel was preached to them. I am merely pointing out the contradiction in your own argument, since you use Lumen Gentium 16, which speaks about those who haven’t heard of Christ, and then you claim that the pagans of Assisi HAVE heard of Christ. That is a contradiction, John. Don’t try to lay YOUR contradiction on me.
JP3: Lumen Gentium 16 is dealing with the general approach to Evangelization. It does not cover every single event the Church engages in. Do you think it would be appropriate to preach the “repent and be baptized” message to a group of Muslims who have come to the Vatican to discuss ways of halting the U.N.’s population control program? Yes or no? Or what about your Evangelical friend on the abortion picket line, Robert? Go on…preach Unam Sanctum to him while you are walking up and down the sidewalk in front of the abortuary. Learn what Our Lord means when He says: “everyone who is not against you is for you.” You need to admit what is obvious to everyone else: there are times and places for everything. Even Our Lord did not actually preach “repentence” in every recorded interaction in the Gospels, did He? As you can see, your position becomes more and more untenable as we start to pick at it.
RS2:Nevertheless, that Lumen Gentium 16 is indeed telling the pope to preach the Gospel to the pagans at Assisi is proved by its reference to Acts 17. The rest of paragraph 16 says: “Nor is God remote from those who in the shadows and images seek the unknown God, since he gives to all men life and breath and all things (cf., Acts 17:25-28, and since the Saviour wills all men to be saved (cf., 1 Tim 2:4).”
Since Lumen Gentium uses Acts 17 as its basis for argumentation, then Lumen Gentium would have no objection to seeing what happened in Acts 17. Did Paul tell the Muslims to continue praying to Allah, or the Buddhist to Buddah, or the animist to the Great Thumb? Did he tell them to go pray to their false gods on one side of Mars Hill while he and the apostles prayed on the other side? Did he send them home with the idea that they could still pray to their false gods without the slightest compunction? No, not at all. He told them that the “unknown God” (which means that they did not know who God was) was the Christian God, and that their worship of other gods was to be stopped. He told them that God once overlooked such ignorance but is now declaring that all men everywhere should repent (which included repenting of their ignorance of praying to false gods) because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world by Jesus Christ, and has proved this by raising him from the dead.
So as Lumen Gentium is quoting Acts 17, then Lumen Gentium is cognizant of the fact that the pagans of Mars Hill can no longer claim ignorance and pray to their false gods, for the Gospel has indeed been preached to them. As St. Paul did, when the opportunity arises as it did at Assisi, the Church MUST preach the Gospel to the pagans. She cannot leave them in ignorance. But she indeed DOES leave them in ignorance when she doesn’t say one word about repentance, Jesus Christ the judge of men’s sins, or that God is no longer tolerating praying to pagan gods.
JP2: Robert, since later in this discussion you have "called me out" on the Holy Father's speech at Assisi, I obtained a copy of both of his speeches from 1986 and 2002. I can tell you, quite plainly, that I think that the Holy Father did indeed proclaim the Gospel message. And he did so with more frequency and vigor than I originally expected. This particularly true of the 1986 encounter. We shall discuss the text of his speech later on to see if the mandate of preaching the Gospel was fulfilled. I hope you have read the 1986 text in considering your indictment.
RS: ...and you promote such pagan prayer by removing the crucifixes from their designated prayer rooms; and, instead of prayers of repentance, you tell them to recite their ancient pagan incantations and use their own implements of worship, in that case, you are no longer merely "tolerating," rather, you are "directing" them to do such things.
JP: No, rather you are respecting their freedom to worship as Dignitas Humanae commands us to do without any kind of veiled coercion. You wouldn't like the Big Thumb placed in one of our chapels, would you? Do not give what is holy to dogs.
RS2: John, listen to what you are saying. You are admitting that there is false worship going on in the room, and you are condoning it!
JP2: No, Robert. I AM NOT CONDONING IT. Just like YOU are not condoning the false worship going on just down the street from you at the local Mosque.
RS3: You can respect their “religious freedom” to worship their false gods all you want. Just don’t invite them to do it on holy Catholic ground and think that you are promoting religious freedom. All you are promoting is worshiping a false god. If you don’t make this distinction, then there is no distinction between idol worship and Christianity, and all the passage in the Old and New Testaments that condemn idolatry are superfluous.
JP3: No, Robert. We are simply recognizing that religious freedom exists in Iran and across from Robert Sungenis’ house in Alexandria. You can’t stop it at the border. :)
RS2:Instead of teaching the pagan that he shouldn’t be praying to the Great Thumb, you actually give him a room to do it, and one in which you even take the emblem of the Gospel (the cross) out of his way so that he doesn’t have to be confronted by its meaning.
JP2: Give me a break, OK? These people are coming from all over the world to a Catholic Cathedral, Robert. D'ja think they won't be confronted with Catholicism up to their ying yang? They probably got a Crucifix in their loot bag for all we know. There's no reason to rub their noses in it when they try to worship according to their consciences. This was not Our Lord's approach. Why should it be the Church's?
RS3: I hope God gives you a break, John, since from everything you’ve said thus far you’re going to need it. Perhaps when you feel the awkwardness about saying that giving them the gospel is “rubbing their noses in it,” then perhaps you will see the truth. As for “Our Lord’s approach,” please tell us where he ever invited pagans to pray to their false gods, or where he refrained from giving his audience the Gospel of salvation and judgment, that only He was the way the truth and the life who could provide it. Please show us, John.
JP3: The Pope did not refrain from telling those gathered at Assisi that Jesus was their Saviour and their peace. In fact, which is closer to Assisi? Acts 17 or John 4?
The Pope:
"I humbly repeat here my own conviction: peace bears the name of Jesus Christ."
RS2: And then you try to rationalize this by saying that we wouldn’t like a statue of the Great Thumb in our Catholic Church. What kind of convoluted logic is this? Since when have the sentiments of a pagan worshiper become the standard of measurement for how we do things in the Catholic Church?
JP2: Excuse me? We respect their freedom of worship by not imposing the Gospel, JUST LIKE we would expect the same from them! The Gospel is to be received with genuine sincerity - not forced down their throats by insisting that they worship in front of a religious symbol they do not yet accept. Is this your idea of religious freedom?
RS3: Stop the demagoguery, John. No one is “forcing” Christianity down their throats. They can have all the “religious freedom” they want, in their own lands. Unfortunately for you, “religious freedom” has become a religion in itself. You hold “religious freedom” on a higher plane than you do the Gospel itself.
JP3: Don’t be ridiculous, Robert. Religious freedom is intrinsic to the Gospel. That’s what DH teaches us (DH,2), but unfortunately for you, you can’t seem to understand that. And you still have a hard time understanding that your evangelization program is stuck in the Middle Ages (“in their own lands”) instead of the 21st century:
RS: You are taking the role of organizer, promoter and facilitator. The fact that you have promoted this same act twice at Assisi, and a half dozen other times around the world, means that you have an agenda to make sure that these things continue to happen, at your direction. That's what "directors" do, John. They make sure everyone plays their part and does so on que.
JP: Yes, I guess you could say that the Church is a director of sorts. So what? Somebody has to direct when you open up the lines of communication.
RS2: Well then, you just indicted the pope. In case you forgot the opening of this dialogue, here is what was said:
RS2: First, the fact that you know that "directing" them to pray to their false gods would be wrong, you admit the potentiality of an abomination at Assisi. Hence, you are now forced to prove that there was no "directing" at Assisi. If you can't, then you have just indicted the pope.
JP:Sure, there is a potentiality in many things. But we are not dealing with potentiality but actuality :)
RS2: Of course, the actuality comes when you can’t disprove that the pope was directing the pagans to pray to their false gods.
JP2: Again, Robert, the burden of proof is on YOU to prove your case. It is not on me to disprove something. You're the prosecution, my good friend. It is your assertion that the Pope directed pagans to pray to false gods. I conceded "directing to pray to the one true God" but not to "false gods".
RS3: There is no escape, John. You have just indicted the pope by saying that he “directs” people to pray to the true God by telling them to keep praying to their false god. Please show us where, outside the personal beliefs of John Paul II, that the Fathers, the Medievals, saints, doctors, other popes, councils or Scripture has ever taught that we are to direct prayer to the true God by telling pagans to keep praying to false gods.
JP3: The Pope did not tell them to keep praying to their false gods. He tolerated them doing so in a venue that was not appropriate for direct evangelization. Such an event is what Nuntiandi properly terms “pre-evangelization” which is, according to the same document, is evangelization in a “true sense”. You need to get out of the “either/or” approach, Robert. It’s both. We can sow seeds AND directly evangelize as the circumstances warrant. There is a Protestant grandmother sitting in prison right now for standing up to our reprobate government. She was arrested for picketing an Abortion clinic. I’ll be sure to let her Catholic friends and visitors know that it is absolutely necessary for them to preach Unam Sanctum to her.
Oh yes, and as for the “Medieval Popes” you keep going on about, here is something for you. Pope Gregory VII made the following statement to Muslim King Anazir of Maurentania:
Robert, under your rubric, why is Pope Gregory VII given a pass but John Paul II refused one? Why didn’t the Pope tell the King to repent, be baptized, and reject his pagan god? Is Pope Gregory a modernist?
RS: Moreover, when the Catholic Church invites them to pray to their false gods she is sending a clear signal that there is nothing wrong with praying to false gods,
JP: No. I don't think that is a fair statement at all. Rather, she is telling these people, as she has always done, that there is one truth and one faith, but that our God is merciful and patient and respects their freedom as human persons.
RS2: Really? I’m sure God just loves it when, after he’s told us that he doesn’t tolerate men praying to false gods any longer in Acts 17, and which message has been repeated over and over again by previous popes and councils, but John Paul II decides that God was much too quick and impatient to enforce his intolerance on the pagans. The pope is going to be more patient than God himself, and thus, for 16 years, he’s not going to mention a word about the pagans forsaking their idols.
JP2: So I get it. He's supposed to single out every single religion there and tell them all that unless they repent, they are going to be judged and go to hell?
RS3: He can do it as nice as he wants, just as long as he does it. Read how Paul did it in Acts 17:30-31. He got several converts out of that message, as Acts 17:32f tells us.
JP3: And what I am telling you is that you are dogmatizing an approach to evangelization which is not necessarily the best way of converting people. The Catholic faith appeals to people because it touches almost every aspect of human endeavour. In order to draw people in, the best approach is to speak the gospel in terms that they can relate to, keeping in mind the circumstances you find yourself in. If you take your approach to its logical extension, Robert, you would have to say that every single person you come in contact with – from the grocery store clerk to the dry cleaner – should be told in no uncertain terms: “repent or be damned”. Do you do that?
JP2:Is this the message that wins people over, even when they really don't know what they are really converting to? Good Grief. There are so many glorious truths of Catholicism which draw people into the faith. It's all about pushing the right buttons.
RS3: There you go again, John, trying to make preaching the gospel into a grudge match. All you need tell them, with sincere love, is that Jesus Christ died for their sins and He wants them to follow Him. It’s not really that hard. But I guess your “right buttons” are telling them to pray to false gods for world peace. How many converts did that make, John? Did you find any of the Buddhists or Muslims or witch doctors converting to Christianity after that message?
JP3: Uh huh. And do you seriously believe that threatening people with hell fire would make them more or less receptive to the Gospel so that they are scared into the Father’s love? I suggest to you that most participants came away more open to the Gospel of Jesus Christ under the Pope’s approach than the one you are proposing.
JP2: And to be honest, Robert, I trust the Holy Father to know which buttons to press which will lead people into the faith. This conference was about peace so the Holy Father went with that theme and incorporated the Gospel message of peace into the conference. The people assembled wanted to hear about what each religion taught about peace. Well, the Gospel has a lot to say about that.
RS3: The Gospel is about the most important Peace. That is, making peace with God (Romans 5:1). If you don’t think so, then show us where Jesus speaks about seeking “world peace” as part of the Gospel. There is, of course, a world peace that men preach in place of peace with God, as Ezekiel 13:10f tells us. They say “Peace, Peace,” and cover over the house of God with whitewash.
JP3: Making peace with God MEANS making peace among men. Or perhaps you disagree with this simple maxim?
Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14)
“But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.” (James 3:17-18)
Remember, Robert, the Pope said that JESUS was our peace.
JP2:To me, that's how to attract these pagans to the Faith. Fire and brimstone can come later once they understand what the Church teaches about love and peace BECAUSE THAT'S THE GAME IN TOWN. For all we know, some hell-bent preacher dressed in white is only marginally better than what elder Witchdoctor "Mufuulu" tells them back home.
RS3: Some attraction. Can you tell us anyone who has converted to the Christian faith from 17 years of Assisi meetings, John? I don’t know of any, nor does the Press. As for “fire and brimstone,” why don’t you stop trying to caricature the Gospel as if Jonathan Edwards were doing the preaching? This just shows me how desperate you are to excuse yourself from not having to tell them the truth. I suggest you read what Paul said to the pagans of Mars Hill in Acts 17:30-31, and there you will find the balance you need: “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”
JP3: Here is the context of Acts 17:
From the beginning of this discussion, you've been trying to play Acts 17 against Assisi like its some kind of trump card when it is not. Notice the setting in Acts 17 involves the philosophers "taking and bringing" Paul to the Areopagus and asking him what the Christian faith was about. That is not what happened at Assisi. At Assisi, the Pope invited non-Catholics to assemble for a completely different purpose. The non-Catholics did not invite the Pope to the Areopagus to teach them about Christianity.
JP2: Let me ask you something, Robert. Suppose you were asked by your local Pro-life Group to give a short talk on the biblical basis for opposing abortion and contraception. And further suppose that included in that group were a good number of Evangelical Protestants. Now, then, in order to win them to the Catholic Faith, which approach do you want to choose:
or
#2 - Preach Unam Sanctum.
If you want to win souls for the Church, preach #1. If you want to be right and be very unsuccessful, try #2.
RS3: I only wish you were so logical when it came to condemning praying to false gods.
JP3: Sorry. I didn't get your answer, Robert. Which approach would you use? Your answer implies that you would favour #1. Is that right? If it is, then you just conceded the Pope's approach.
JP2: Moreover, you don't seem to understand that the Church considers the preaching of the Gospel is to be done, in some cases, in a gradual way. Once you can appreciate that reality, then your difficulties can be set aside. Here is some text from Ad Gentes which confirms this:
RS3: And where does Ad Gentes suggest that these "beginnings" or "leading strings toward God" are to be accomplished by telling pagans to pray to their false gods? If you can't answer that, perhaps you can tell us when the pope plans on preaching the Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ and asking them to accept Him to the pagans of Asissi. It's been 17 years. Many of them have died already without hearing that Gospel. The pope himself may die soon. When does he plan on following through?
JP3: Who said anything about the POPE following through? Why is it necessary for the POPE to follow through? He may or he may not. That's not the point at all. The point is whether the CHURCH will follow through, and to this command the Holy Father is very clear:
Ever heard of "good cop/bad cop"? And by the way, what is worse? The Holy Father's pre-evangelization approach at Assisi or having Muslim countries KEEP their doors closed to Jesus Christ, century after century as we watch millions of Muslims die year after year because of a refusal to adapt our evangelization strategy? Robert, if you want to indict the Pope for not converting the Muslims at Assisi, that’s fine. But then let’s play fair. When I ask you to show your cards on penetrating Muslim countries, I see the Holy Father holding a Straight Flush. You, on the other hand, don’t even have a Pair.
JP2: Also, as for imputing to me that Ad Gentes "telling pagans to pray to their false gods", this is ridiculous and you are simply is side stepping the issue: evangelization takes TIME:
"...she experiences beginnings and degrees in that action by which she strives to make God's plan a reality.
RS3: Oh, but didn't you tell us already that the pope DID preach the Gospel at Assisi, especially in 1986? Here are your words: "I can tell you, quite plainly, that I think that the Holy Father did indeed proclaim the Gospel message. And he did so with more frequency and vigor than I originally expected. This particularly true of the 1986 encounter." If you believe that is the case, John, then why did you give the reference above to Ad Gentes 3 and 6 which both assume the Gospel hasn't been preached to them yet? Sounds like you're contradicting yourself again.
JP3: The contradiction only exists in your mind, Robert. Nobody else has a difficulty understanding it. Let me repeat it for you again. I have always maintained that Assisi was indeed "evangelization" but only the beginnings of it. You know, like Evangelii Nuntiandi says:
JP2: And here are some selections from Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975), by Pope Paul VI saying the same thing:
She carries out this first proclamation of Jesus Christ by a complex and diversified activity which is sometimes termed "pre-evangelization" but which is already evangelization in a true sense, although at its initial and still incomplete stage. An almost indefinite range of means can be used for this purpose: explicit preaching, of course, but also art, the scientific approach, philosophical research and legitimate recourse to the sentiments of the human heart. (51)
This first proclamation is addressed especially to those who have never heard the Good News of Jesus, or to children. But, as a result of the frequent situations of dechristianization in our day, it also proves equally necessary for innumerable people who have been baptized but who live quite outside Christian life, for simple people who have a certain faith but an imperfect knowledge of the foundations of that faith, for intellectuals who feel the need to know Jesus Christ in a light different from the instruction they received as children, and for many others. (52)
This first proclamation is also addressed to the immense sections of mankind who practice non-Christian religions. The Church respects and esteems these non Christian religions because they are the living expression of the soul of vast groups of people. They carry within them the echo of thousands of years of searching for God, a quest which is incomplete but often made with great sincerity and righteousness of heart. They possess an impressive patrimony of deeply religious texts. They have taught generations of people how to pray. They are all impregnated with innumerable "seeds of the Word" and can constitute a true "preparation for the Gospel" to quote a felicitous term used by the Second Vatican Council and borrowed from Eusebius of Caesarea.
Such a situation certainly raises complex and delicate questions that must be studied in the light of Christian Tradition and the Church's magisterium, in order to offer to the missionaries of today and of tomorrow new horizons in their contacts with non-Christian religions. We wish to point out, above all today, that neither respect and esteem for these religions nor the complexity of the questions raised is an invitation to the Church to withhold from these non-Christians the proclamation of Jesus Christ. (53)
RS3: Wonderful, John. Now, can you tell us where Paul VI says that “pre-evangelism” consists of telling the pagan to pray to his false god for worldly favors? Can you tell us where Paul VI ever recommended that we send pagans home, for 16 years, without ever telling them of their responsibility to accept Jesus Christ and to repent of their sins? In fact, the last statement of Paul VI more or less indicts John Paul II, since for 16 years between 1986 and 2000 John Paul II has “withheld from these non-Christians the proclamation of Jesus Christ.”
JP3: Proclamation of Jesus Christ? Did you not read the text of the 1986 text? Here are a couple of proclamations:
“I profess here anew my conviction, shared by all Christians, that in Jesus Christ, as Savior of all, true peace is to be found…”
"I humbly repeat here my own conviction: peace bears the name of Jesus Christ."
RS3: And if you think John Paul II is not guilty of this, please notice the TYPE OF PREACHING that Paul VI tells us must be done. He writes: “To reveal Jesus Christ and His Gospel to those who do not know them has been, ever since the morning of Pentecost, the fundamental program which the Church has taken on as received from her Founder. The whole of the New Testament, and in a special way the Acts of the Apostles, bears witness to a privileged and in a sense exemplary moment of this missionary effort which will subsequently leave its mark on the whole history of the Church.”.
JP3: Just listen to yourself, Robert! Pitting Pope VI against John Paul II! Good grief. Ask your traditionalist buddies if that makes any sense. And as for citing the Encyclical, please try and put it within the context of the ENTIRE citation which mentions “pre-evangelization” and “complex and delicate situations”.
RS3: John, I suggest that you look at the “Acts of the Apostles.” I did a study on this a few years ago. I was among people who just wanted to be “nice” to everyone and not preach the gospel of sin and repentance. What I found was that, in every instance that the Acts records the Apostles preaching the Gospel, the issue of sin and repentance was included. Every time. (Acts 2:38; 3:19; 5:31; 8:22; 10:42; 11:18; 13:24; 17:30; 19:4; 20:21; 26:20). And that’s just in the book of Acts.
JP3: I see. So, in your opinion, you don’t think the Holy Father was preaching a Gospel of repentance to those assembled in the slightest way? I think he was. I don’t necessarily see a Buddhist being pro-life do you? How about the rest of the Eastern religions? Do they have a Christian life ethic? No they don’t. Yet what do we see? We see the Holy Father preaching the Christian life ethic to them – in effect, giving them the Christian gospel of respect for life:
RS3: In fact, look at Acts 10:42-43, the very chapter in which the Apostles are dealing with Cornelius. Peter says to Cornelius: “And He ordered us to preach to the people, and solemnly to testify that this is the One who has been appointed by God as Judge of the living and the dead. Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins.” Notice that Peter says he was “ordered” to preach the Gospel of Jesus as the “Judge of the living and the dead” and that “everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins.” That’s the same Gospel that Paul preached to the pagans of Mars Hill in Acts 17:30-31. Tell me, John, has the pope ever preached this to the pagans at Assisi? Is he really following Paul VI’s words? I don’t think so. The only “mark on the whole history of the Church” that John Paul II has left is that praying to pagan gods is now acceptable as praying to the true God.
JP3: I guess, then, he is in good company in his approach:
RS2: Be that as it may, if your concern is telling people “there is one truth and one faith, but that our God is merciful...” then for heaven’s sake, John, preach the GOSPEL to them. What better way to tell them of “one truth and one faith” than to preach about Jesus Christ and his desire to save them from their sins and that judgment day is coming soon? Why are you so afraid of preaching the Gospel to them, John? Take a lesson from St. Paul. He wasn’t fearful at all. His first order of business was telling them to repent of their sins and that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and will be their judge.
JP2: Like I said above, Robert. You need to speak to the crowd you are addressing. St. Paul assessed the situation he was in, and opted for the hard sell approach. I don't second guess him on that, obviously. I'm all for a little kick-ass approach at times :), but I also admit that it's not a one-size fits all solution. The Gospel includes many great teachings. The key is finding out which truth best appeals to your audience, and magnifying the Gospel's teaching on it so that it starts the ball rolling on sincere inquiry.
RS3: So John, tell us where the Gospel, in its “great teachings,” says that its okay to tell pagans to pray to their false gods for worldly favors? Tell us where the NT says that Paul merely used the “kick-ass approach” (whatever you envision that as being). According to your criterion, it would be perfectly all right for the pope to tell teenagers to use an Ouiji board at Assisi, or allow fortune tellers to use Tarot cards at Assisi, or have Anton Levay perform a black mass at Assisi, since these are all expressions of “religious freedom” that need to be exercised for the sake of the Gospel. That’s what your new position amounts to, John.
JP3: The Pope did not invite any of the aforementioned groups. Anyhow, poor Anton kicked off a few years back. And take note that there were no Western representatives of the non-Christian religions present.
RS2: THAT was the message that made them think. He didn’t coddle them and say, “Okay, you can still pray to your false gods, because in that way you will still be praying to the true God, and we won’t have to talk about you submitting to Jesus Christ right now. In fact, we won’t have to do that for the foreseeable future, since all we are interested in is unity and world peace right now. We’ll let your soul take care of itself. In fact, since you can already pray to God through your false gods, then you have as much access to God as you need, and indeed are already part of his salvation.” in fact, you probably know Jesus Christ already through your false gods, since if you can access God for favors through your false gods, and Jesus Christ is God, then why do I have to bother leading you to Christ?” Is that what he told them, John? Be honest. He said just the opposite, and Assisi said just the opposite of what St. Paul did in Acts 17.
JP2: Robert, this is a PASTORAL approach to a question of evangelization. I don't agree with you that fire and brimstone is necessarily the FIRST truth of Catholicism you need to relate to your audience. And guess what? Most loyal Catholics would probably agree with me. Damnation is certainly not something we should run from if and when we are confronted with an inquiry into it, but we are dealing with delicate situations. You do understand that there are truths better left for a later time, don't you? We don't want the little bird to fly away before getting a chance to eat the premium grade seed it likes. We need interest, catechesis, and then context.
RS3: See my above comments.
RS2:And please don’t use the excuse that “Acts 17 doesn’t apply to Assisi.” That has already been disproved by the fact that CCC 841, which you used above, is quoting from Lumen Gentium 16 which refers specifically and directly to Acts 17.
JP2: I already explained this to you above. The point of citing the Catechism was to simply point out that the Muslims adore the "one and merciful God WITH US". In other words, they are not worshipping a false god.
RS3: And I already explained to you that the onus is not on the Muslims, but on the pope for failing to preach the Gospel to the Muslims when he was supposed to do so. At 83 years old, he has still not yet preached the Gospel to the Muslims, or to any other pagan group that came to Assisi.
JP3: No further comment.
JP2: And as far as my contention that Mars Hill and Assisi are different settings, yes, they are. Paul was called to defend the beliefs he was propagating in front of a mostly hostile crowd of Epicureans and Stoics who "scoffed at the Ressurection" (Cf. Acts 17:32). The former believed that God did not concern himself with man while the latter thought that man did not need God. This is hardly the setting of Assisi - quite the opposite actually. All of the participants acknowledge the need to pray for peace. This is why at Mars Hill, the setting was more appropriate to the hard sell. And frankly, the precocious pricks in the Areopagus deserved St. Paul's boot. At Assisi, however, we have an assembly of men of good will where there is already a movement toward the Gospel message of peace, and where the Church is in a setting conducive to witnessing to Our Lord.
RS3: Wishful thinking, John. Not only does your assessment go against Vatican II’s quoting of Acts 17 in the context of ecumenism, but the men at Mars Hill open to finding the true God, which is why they made a statue to the unknown god. As for the resurrection, tell me how many Hindus at Assisi do not also scoff at the resurrection. I didn’t hear about any of them renouncing their belief in reincarnation.
JP3: Maybe not, but then again the Holy Father had a captive audience in communicating that Jesus was divine; that He is our salvation and our peace; and that we must respect human life and dignity. How many Popes have preached to such a captive audience? Won’t you agree that it is a start? Won’t you agree with Ad Gentes:
JP:Furthermore, all of the religions present believe their own creeds are correct - and the others are false - at least to a certain extent. So no one there, and certainly not the Church, is telling the other guys that it's "OK" to worship something that is false. On the contrary, those assembled are coming together to show the world that people and religions can live together without blowing one another up.
RS2: Sounds like you’ve been talking with Mark Shea, John. He always tried to minimize praying to false gods by claiming that at least no one was going to be blown up if we all got together and prayed. Is that what our goal is now - just that we don’t blow each other up? Is that the distinctive Christian message we have for the world - “The Gospel of Jesus Christ: Ten Easy Ways Not to Get Blown Up.” I thought our goal was to get to heaven? What happens when you get blown up and your soul ends up in hell?
JP2: The Gospel includes fostering and promoting peace among men. Or perhaps you disagree with Our Lord's opinion of peacemakers?
RS3: Who is against peace, John? Certainly not me. Please get this clear. I am against telling pagans to pray to their false gods in order to obtain worldly peace. In Mt 5:9, Jesus was speaking in the context of acknowledging the true God through Himself, since only He was the way, the truth and the life.
JP3: Oh , do you mean the peace that comes through Jesus? So if you had to formulate that in the form of a proclamation, would the following be acceptable to you:
RS2: Be that as it may, has the pope really stopped the blowing up of people, John? Not at all. If anything it has increased since his Assisi efforts, and there is more tension in the world. If you really want peace, then you need to stop preaching a false gospel, because the only thing you are doing by telling pagans that they have access to God through worshiping their false gods is making God angry, and he will not allow you to have peace when he is angry. As Our Lady of Fatima said, be obedient to God first, and then he will make peace come (cf. Ezekiel 13:10-16).
JP2: Robert, if I am preaching a false gospel, then so is Pope John Paul II. If you are telling me that the Pope is preaching a false gospel, then you are simply a proto-Protestant. Yes, I know. On paper you're still Catholic. But functionally, you are no different from any Protestant apologist who says the same thing. And as far as getting favours through "false gods", under your rubric, Cornelius worshipped a false god. Why did God listen to him?
RS3: No, Cornelius did not worship a false god, since the text says he prayed to the true God. We’ve already been over this. As for your accusation that disagreeing with the pope equates to being a “proto-Protestant,” and merely Catholic “on paper,” I suggest you read Canon Law 212 and read the lives of the saints who helped and corrected the pope. Your name-calling doesn’t phase me in the least. It just shows how weak your arguments really are.
JP3: Canon Law 212? Hey, I know a good canon lawyer that can help you with that section :)
JP:And that society has an obligation to protect the right to religious expression. This is what DH teaches. And this is what Assisi attempts to put into "practical application":
JP: We shall discuss this paragraph more fully below.
RS2: So in your opinion the real issue is “freedom to worship and pray to whom you desire”, rather than worshiping and praying to Jesus Christ. The be-all and end-all of our existence is “freedom” not Jesus Christ.
JP2: That's a silly and obtuse caricature of my position. We do not have the moral right to "pray to whom we desire". On the contrary, we have the right and the responsibility to submit to what we believe to be the truth EVEN IF IT IS NOT WHAT WE DESIRE.
RS3: Silly caricature? Perhaps you want to read your own words you wrote a few paragraphs ago. Here’s what you said: “As to the latter, religious freedom is not merely a civil right, but a moral one, having its foundation in the intrinsic dignity of man which is given to him by His Creator.” So tell me how, as you say above, “we do not have the moral right to pray to whom we desire,” yet in a preceding paragraph you say, “religious freedom is not merely a civil right, but a moral one”?
JP3: Let me clarify what I meant. As a Catholic, I am not free to worship “what I desire”; in the sense of capitulating to my sinful nature. Likewise, a Muslim believes the same thing. He does not have the option of believing what he might like to believe, but he is bound to the truth as he understands it. In other words, every human person is bound to follow what he knows to be the truth.
JP2: Before the objective truth becomes known (i.e. Catholicism), man's religious nature must be fulfilled somehow, and this is where man must be allowed to pursue religious truth unencumbered. I am with John Paul II: freedom to pursue religious truth is a moral right, but with this dignity comes the equally grave responsiblity to submit to it once it becomes known. That, Robert, is what Catholicism is about, and that is what I believe.
RS3: Please tell us where any council, pope, or even Vatican II said that man has the moral right to pursue any other religion than Catholicism. And if your caveat is that John Paul holds that they must “submit to it,” then please tell us where John Paul has demanded that the pagan submit to the Christian God.
JP3: They do not have an objective right to error. But, because of original sin, man’s vision of Catholic truth is dimmed and obscured. As such, God is patient and tolerant of man’s search for the truth and his pursuit of it. This pursuit may not lead to finding the fullness of truth immediately, but may take him through many religious confessions before he arrives at the fullness of truth in the Catholic faith. I am sure you can appreciate this, Robert, since you have made a little journey YOURSELF. So, in other words, man has a moral right to take that journey, unencumbered by state or ecclesiastical coercion of any kind. For your schema to be valid, it presupposes that man has full and complete knowledge of his choice. This presupposition does not square with the Church’s teaching on original sin or God’s patient and merciful nature.
RS2: This is what you’ve done, John - you’ve made “freedom” your religion. Unfortunately, yours is the typical modernistic interpretation of Vatican II that has gotten the Church into so much trouble.
JP2: Catholicism is my religion, Robert. And freedom is a big part of it. Read the account of Adam and Eve again with this in mind. Here are some of my observations:
In other words, while they were free to eat from any tree, there were still mortal consequences of eating of the tree of knowledge. In this passage, we see that freedom in itself is a positive good willed by the Creator. In fact, we see this freedom emphasized in the very next chapter:
Of course, God knew where Adam and Eve physically were in the garden of Eden. By asking such a question, Scripture is trying to teach us the gift of freedom which is intrinsic to us as persons. God plays “dumb” in order to emphasize the sovereignty we have over our own wills. Hence, without a genuine human freedom to act and profess one’s belief, the whole foundation of the Christian faith is undercut. Our faith presupposes man is both free and culpable for all of his actions. In the case of our first parents, we see that God respected their choice in rejecting His commandment. He did not inhibit their sin or coerce them into remaining in His love. He let them act freely.
In acknowledging man’s freedom to act, the question of religious freedom is of paramount importance since it has a direct bearing on how Catholics are to approach and evangelize the world. Since our vocation as Catholics is to share the Good News of Jesus Christ, we are called to invite non-Catholics into our familial communion with God as symbolized by the divine marriage between Christ and His Church. And because our relationship to God is characterized as a marriage between God and His people, we are to respect the freedom that God’s potential spouse has been granted – either to reject Him or to accept Him.
As for my "modernistic interpetation", are you talking about the interpretation of the Pope here? Is the Pope a modernist, Robert? Tell us, frankly.
RS3: Your analysis of Adam and Eve does not help you. Of course they had freedom. Where have I said man didn’t have freedom? Here’s the difference. Did God tell Adam to pray to or cooperate with the devil as a means to acknowledge or worship God? Obviously not. He told him to avoid the devil at all costs, and give his allegiance totally to God alone.
JP3: Of course he did not say that. But the freedom ITSELF was a positive good willed by the Creator. A Muslim prayer to God is NOT an abomination. It is only an abomination if he does so in full knowledge of the truth. This is totally consistent with Catholic teaching as Fr. Alfredo Morselli points out:
The fact that "unbelief by way of pure negation" is not a sin, is not only a Thomist concept, but it's also a verity of faith: St. Pius V condemned the proposition "Infidelitas pure negativa in his quibus Christus non est predicatus peccatum est" (D +1068) (=Purely negative unbelief, in those whom Christ was not preached to, is a sin).
A great Thomist theologian , De Victoria, specified also the degree of necessary predication, in order that negative unbelief become positive: it's necessary for not only a simple presentation of faith, but a presentation including all necessary motives of credibility. In fact St. Thomas teaches that "Nobody would believe if he doesn't see he must believe" (non enim crederet nisi videret ea esse credenda - S.Th., II II, q. 1, a. 4 ad 2). Only God knows the degree of innocence or culpability in the heart of unbelievers.
So it’s ridiculous to suggest that “pagan worship” is NECESSARILY an abomination. It cannot be a sin to pray as best you can. As such, the freedom to worship is an intrinsic good which can never be denied since there is always a yearning in man’s heart to worship. At the same time, the Church’s responsibility is to always witness to Christ. The forms of this witness, however, need to be placed within the context of each situation.
RS3: As for John Paul II, you tell me, John. In his book Sign of Contradiction, written in 1978, he says that: “This God is professed in his silence by the....Buddhist too, wrapt in contemplation as he purifies his thought, preparing the way to Nirvana,” and he quotes quite favorably all the popular liberal and modernist theologians, including Protestants, of the last few decades, e.g., Karl Rahner, Hans Kung, Henri de Lubac, Walter Kasper, Teilhard de Chardin, L. Feuerbach, Rudolph Otto, Martin Heidegger, Albert Camus, et al. He does not quote one conservative theologian in the entire book.
JP3: So what you are trying to say is that the Pope cannot refer to liberals who might have something valid to offer, even if they are wrong on other issues? If that is your criteria, then why do you refer positively to one of Rahner’s positions in Not By Faith Alone?
RS2:From your misinterpretation of CCC 841 and Lumen Gentium 16, you now do the same thing to Dignitatis Humanae, and you turn the Christian religion on its head. DH never taught that we invite pagans to a holy Catholic place nor tell them to pray to their false gods so that we can make a “practical application” of “the right to religious expression.” DH simply said that peoples in other lands who have not heard the Gospel have the civil right not to be coerced into accepting another religion. That’s all, John. You, on the other hand, are trying to make that civil right into a moral and soteriological right, and, in fact, into another religion altogether. Your religion has become freedom of religion, and you promote it by directing the pagans to practice their freedom of religion in our sacred buildings just so you can make a point about freedom.
JP2: No, Robert. That's not all DH teaches. Let me repeat it for you again:
Did you catch the second sentence, Robert? It is distinct from the first. No one is to be restrained from worshipping according to his conscience. This is not a mere civil right but a moral one as well. Freedom of worship involves a person's conscience which belongs in the moral sphere. It is time for you to submit to the plain reading of the text. Now, let me repeat the question for you: explain to me how the Vatican can restrain the Muslim from praying at Assisi and be faithful to DH?
RS3: That I would even have to explain this to you is truly disheartening. If the pope would have listened to Vatican II, and every other council, he wouldn’t be inviting the pagans to Assisi in the first place, since it is not the Church’s mandate to foster pagan worship. The only thing DH stated was that individuals should be immune from coercion, not that the Church encourages them to practice their false religion, especially in Catholic holy places.
JP3: Just listen to yourself, Robert. “If the pope would have listened to Vatican II, and every other council….” Take a hint from Pius IX who said that “he was Tradition”. Sorry to rain on your parade, Robert, but John Paul II is Vatican II.
RS2: John, did you bother reading the paragraph from which the above citation appeared, or are you just into prooftexting to make a point?
Here are the three paragraphs of the context:
“As the spiritual authority appointed by Christ the Lord with the duty, imposed by divine command, of going into the whole world and preaching the Gospel to every creature, the Church claims freedom for herself in human society and before every public authority. The Church also claims freedom for herself as a society of men with the right to live in civil society in accordance with the demands of the Christian faith.
When the principle of religions freedom is not just proclaimed in words or incorporated in law but is implemented sincerely in practice, only then does the Church enjoy in law and in fact those stable conditions which give her the independence necessary for fulfilling her divine mission. Ecclesiastical authorities have been insistent in claiming this independence in society. At the same time the Christian faithful, in common with the rest of men, have the civil right of freedom from interference in leading their lives according to their conscience. A harmony exists therefore between the freedom of the Church and that religious freedom which must be recognized as the right of all men and all communities and must be sanctioned by constitutional law.
In order to satisfy the divine command: ‘Make disciples of all nations (Mt 28:19), the Catholic Church must spare no effort in striving ‘that the word of the Lord may speed on and triumph’ (2 Th 3:1).” (Flannery edition, which is worded a little different than Abbots).
And I suggest your read the remaining paragraphs as well.
You will notice that the section in question opens up with a command to preach the Gospel and closes with that same command. That in itself puts you at odds with DH, since you are the one arguing that we don’t necessarily have to preach the Gospel to the pagans for the 16 years between Assisi 1 and Assisi 2.
JP3: But, Robert, I am not disputing that the document clearly teaches that the Church has freedom. We both acknowledge that, for heaven's sake. I am talking about THE REST OF THE DOCUMENT which clearly affirms "religious freedom" and DOES NOT LIMIT "RELIGIOUS" to the Catholic Faith. If you are saying that it does, then it looks like Alexandria has looser pot laws than Ottawa.
And I never said that we don't have to preach the gospel to the pagans. That is you silly distortion of my position. I simply asked you to consider that there are times and places for everything, and that the manner of preaching that gospel varies between these times, places, and PERSONS. You know the saying, don't you? - Preach the gospel. If necessary use words.
JP: No, Robert. I never said that. I said that a particular part of the Gospel (the death and damnation part) might be better placed down the road a little. The Gospel has many facets to it, and a good number of them were preached at Assisi.
RS3: Really? Some Gospel. Please tell us how many pagans it converted in the last 17 years. And please tell us why you are so reticent to tell the pagan about God’s “damnation” for the 16 years between Assisi 1 and 2, if that is indeed part of the Gospel. Please tell us where the Church or Scripture gives you the right to start dissecting the Gospel to suit your own tastes. Please tell us
JP3:
As far as “dissecting the Gospel”, well, yes, even the Gospel writers themselves did that with their audiences! Some writers emphasized things the other writers did not in order to make the Gospel more appealing to their audience while still remaining within the confines of the truth. And i