Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year B
First Reading: Acts 4:7-12
Second Reading: 1 Jn 3:1-2
Gospel Reading: Jn 10:14
“There is salvation in no one else” but Jesus, St. Peter said, “for there is no other name under Heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.”
“I am the good Shepherd,” Jesus said. “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one Shepherd.”
“The desire to recover the unity of all Christians is a gift of Christ and a call of the Holy Spirit,” says the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
The modern movement toward Christian unity is called “ecumenism.” Its principles were formulated by the Second Vatican Council:
1) Christ founded his Church, which he promised to guard from error, on the apostles and their successors, the bishops. Their visible head and principle of unity are Peter and those who succeed him as bishops of Rome—the Popes.
2) Many non-Catholics are nevertheless Christians, possessing more or less of the fullness of grace available in the Catholic Church.
3) Catholics must do everything they can to foster Christian unity.
As usual, Satan tempts us to distort these truths: to assert, on the one hand, that only those who are formally Catholic will be saved; or, on the other, that all religions are equally true.
The schisms that separated whole communities from the communion of Peter and his successors were caused by sin, “for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame,” says the Catechism. God permits such schism—as he permits any sin—because he respects our freedom and also because, “mysteriously,” he “knows how to derive good from it.”
The Holy Spirit uses these separated communities as “means of salvation,” although their effectiveness comes from “the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church.” In fact, any religion is a “search” for God, and “all goodness and truth” found in it is God’s gift and “a preparation for the Gospel.”
Nevertheless, we must never think “that one religion is as good as another,” says Dominus Iesus (“Lord Jesus”), a declaration by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, called that document published in 2000 a response to “the theology of religious pluralism,” which holds that other religions complement the teachings of the Catholic Church. That is an error, he said; Christ’s revelation is “full” and “definitive.”
Some people see the Church’s claim to be the one, universal means to salvation as “a menace to tolerance and liberty,” he said. They see ecumenical dialogue as an end in itself, replacing “missionary activity” and the call to “conversion.” Their idea of tolerance is false, for they promote respect for other beliefs simply because they reject the very possibility of objective truth.
“The unity willed by God can be attained only by the adherence of all to the content of revealed faith in its entirety,” said Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Ut Unum Sint (“That They All May Be One”).
“In matters of faith, compromise is in contradiction with God, who is truth. In the Body of Christ, ‘the way, and the truth, and the life,’ who could consider legitimate a reconciliation brought about at the expense of the truth?”
“It is through Christ’s Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained,” says the Catechism. Accordingly, we must each work to bring about what Christ prayed for: “that they all may be one.”
We do it by our own prayer, conversion of heart, service to humankind, and knowledge of other religions. However, says the Catechism, ultimately, the reconciliation of all people “in the unity of the one and only Church of Christ” transcends human powers. We place our hope in Christ’s prayer for the Church, the love of God the Father, and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Father Hawkswell is again teaching The Catholic Faith in Plain English with new insights, in both print and YouTube form, at beholdvancouver.org/catholic-faith-course. He is also teaching the course in person on Sundays from 2 to 4 p.m. at the John Paul II Pastoral Centre, 4885 Saint John Paul II Way, 33rd Avenue and Willow Street, Vancouver, and Mondays from 10 a.m. to noon in St. Anthony’s Church Hall, 2347 Inglewood Avenue, West Vancouver. The title of the presentation next week is Catholic Spiritualities. The course is entirely free of charge and no pre-registration is necessary.