Pope Francis, building upon his unwavering promotion of ecumenical and interreligious harmony throughout his papacy, recently traveled to Kazakhstan, a large country just south of Russia and bordering other former Soviet republics, as well as China and the Caspian Sea, to further the cause of human unity. He went to attend the Seventh Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions and to make a pastoral visit to the small community of Catholics in Kazakhstan.
He is not the first pope to visit Kazakhstan. In 2001, Pope John Paul II visited Kazakhstan shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, using the same setting of the interfaith gathering to bring his message that religions cannot be places of conflict and that they have an obligation of promoting world peace and harmony.
As often happens when Pope Francis attends these gatherings – which include religious representatives from other Christian denominations and world religions – every word of any documents he signs onto is scrutinized thoroughly. You may recall some earlier columns that dealt with his famous meeting that took place in Abu Dhabi, when he met with the grand imam of Egypt’s al-Azhar Mosque and University, Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb, and attended the Interreligious Human Fraternity Meeting, which brought together more than 700 leaders from Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Sikh, Hindu and other religious communities. The document that was forged and signed onto at that gathering by Pope Francis included the phrase “the pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and language are willed by God in his wisdom, through which he created human beings.” The notion that “God willed in his wisdom” a diversity of religions did not sit well with some bishops and conservative theologians.
This was the case once again as Pope Francis signed onto a similar document in Kazakhstan. The original wording was, “We note that pluralism and differences in religion, skin color, gender, race and language are expressions of the wisdom of God’s will in creation. Thus, any incident of coercion to a particular religion and religious doctrine is unacceptable.” This was changed, because of criticism, to, “We note that pluralism in terms of differences in skin color, gender, race, language and culture are expressions of the wisdom of God in creation. Religious diversity is permitted by God and, therefore, any coercion to a particular religion and religious doctrine is unacceptable.”
One of the bishops of Kazakhstan, Auxiliary Bishop Athanasius Schneider, was one of those who criticized the document and Pope Francis’ signing onto it. He said that the gathering Pope Francis attended could lend to the view that the Catholic Church is one in the “supermarket of religions.” He praised the gathering for their efforts to promote greater harmony and peace in the world but criticized the document that the Pope signed onto because “there is also a danger that we the Catholic Church should not appear simply as one of the many religions” in the panoply of world religions.
He added, “We’re not one of the many religions; we’re the only one true religion which God commanded to all people to believe; there is no other way to salvation.”
Pope Francis, in his general audience Sept. 21, answered these accusations of religious relativism. He said that the signing of the Final Declaration “means putting religion at the center of efforts to build a world where we listen to each other and respect each other in diversity. And this is not relativism, no. It is listening and respecting.”
In an earlier statement on this subject, Pope Francis explained, “Why does God allow many religions? God wanted to allow this: Scholastic theologians used to refer to God’s ‘voluntas permissiva’ [permissive will]. He wanted to allow this reality: there are many religions. Some are born from culture, but they always look to heaven; they look to God. But what God wants is fraternity among us, and in a special way, this was the reason for the trip, with our brothers, Abraham’s children like us, the Muslims. We must not fear differences. God allowed this. We should be afraid when we fail to work fraternally to walk together in life.”
Certainly, the Holy Father is following the teachings of the Second Vatican Council – which states in “Nostra Aetate,” the Council document on the Church’s relationship with other world religions – that “The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts, and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men.”
Father Joseph D. Wallace is diocesan director of Ecumenical and Inter-religious Affairs and pastor of Christ the Redeemer Parish, Atco.
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