Grave
Concerns About Pope Francis’ Abu Dhabi Document - By Professor Josef Seifert
There are grave concerns among Catholics about the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together which Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, signed on February 4, 2019 in Abu Dhabi.
Nobody doubts that many truths about God and the natural
moral law, and many semina verbi have been known by the pagans and are
contained in many religions (except in the directly satanic ones), such as the
“golden rule”.
Nobody believes that God cannot give the grace of eternal
salvation outside the realm of the visible Church, its sacraments and conscious
Christian faith. No one fails to see the many good and beautiful truths Pope
Francis and the Imam confirm in the document.
However, to claim that “the pluralism and the diversity of
religions" (colour, sex, race and language) are willed by God in His
wisdom, through which He created human beings” goes far, far beyond all this.
How can God will religions that deny Christ's divinity and
resurrection? How is this compatible with logic? Can God want that men hold
contradictorily opposed beliefs about Jesus Christ or about God or about any
other thing?
How can God from creation on have willed that men would fall
into sin, worship false gods, become victims of errors and superstitions of all
sorts, that they adhere to subtly atheist or pantheist religions such as
Buddhism, or to religions cursed by the Old Testament and attributed to demons
and demon-worship?
How can God, who wants his disciples to go out and preach to
the whole world and baptize them, have willed any Christian heresy, let alone
religions that deny the faith of which Jesus says to Nicodemus that he who
believes in Him will be saved and he who does not, will be damned (John 3,18)?
If we read the Old and the New Testament, or look at the universal teachings of
the Church on the divine command, given by Christ himself, to preach the Gospel
to all nations, on the necessity of baptism and faith for salvation, etc., the
opposite is clearly the case.
How can it then be true that God in His wisdom willed from
creation on that many people do not believe in their only Redeemer?
I do not see any artful mental acrobatics capable of denying
that this statement not only contains all heresies but also alleges a divine
will that a large majority of mankind espouse all kinds of false and
non-Christian religious creeds.
Besides, by attributing to God the will that there be
religions contradicting His Divine Revelation, instead of attributing to him
the will that all nations shall come to believe in the one true God and His Son
and our Redeemer, God is turned into a relativist who does not know that there
is only one truth and that its opposite cannot be true for different nations,
or who does not care whether men believe in truth or falsity. This phrase
claims that God wills religious errors.
By signing the statement that God wills a plurality of
religions, the Pope defied both fides and ratio and rejected Christianity which
is inseparable from the belief in Jesus Christ, who is the unus Dominus. (I
assume that also the highest Islamic authorities will expel this Imam because
the Islam makes an absolute claim to truth as well).
In fact, if God really “wills all religions,” then he must
hate the Catholic Church most of all because of its claim to be the one,
Catholic, and apostolic Church and because it rejects in its dogmas and
perennial magisterial teachings any relativization of the Christian religion
which would turn Christianity into one of many contradictory religions.
In sum: Any Catholic should pray that the Pope convert and
reject this horrible sentence in the Document on Human Fraternity for World
Peace and Living Together signed by him and the Great Imam Ahmad Al-Tayyeb,
because it undermines all true and beautiful things this document says on
brotherhood.
It is neither impossible nor shameful for a Pope to retract
errors that he has committed in his non-infallible teachings. The first Pope,
instituted by Jesus Christ himself, Peter, did so upon the reprimand of St.
Paul during the first Apostolic Council of the Church. Pope John XXII revoked
on this deathbed a heresy about separated souls that he had committed in a
previous document and that was a second time condemned as heresy by his
successor.
Therefore, we have all good reason to hope that Pope Francis
will revoke a sentence that constitutes a total break with logic as well as
with Biblical and Church teaching.
If he does not do this, I am afraid that Canon Law may apply
according to which a Pope automatically loses his Petrine office when
professing heresy, especially when he professes the sum-total of all heresies.
