{"id":7482,"date":"2024-12-01T08:00:12","date_gmt":"2024-12-01T00:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=7482"},"modified":"2024-12-05T10:09:30","modified_gmt":"2024-12-05T02:09:30","slug":"334-official-church-teaching-and-pope-francis-interreligious-dialogue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=7482","title":{"rendered":"334. Official Church Teaching and Pope Francis\u2019 Interreligious Dialogue"},"content":{"rendered":"

22\u00a0<\/sup>Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, \u201cAthenians, I see how extremely spiritual you are in every way.\u00a023\u00a0<\/sup>For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, \u2018To an unknown god.\u2019 What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.\u00a024\u00a0<\/sup>The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands,\u00a025\u00a0<\/sup>nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0 [<\/span>Acts <\/span>17:22-25<\/span>, NRSV<\/em><\/span><\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/span>\"\" <\/a><\/p>\n

During his apostolic journey to Asia and Oceania, Pope Francis held a session in Singapore with a group of young people on the subject of interreligious dialogue. The Holy Father was clearly impressed by the young generation who, coming from such a diverse religious backgrounds, displayed a marvelous capacity for friendly interfaith dialogue and, most importantly in today\u2019s war-torn world, for peaceful and even joyful co-existence. In that context<\/em><\/strong>, Pope Francis readily opined that any approach to inter-religious dialogue that starts with \u201cmy religion is the best\u201d, \u201cwe are the only ones who will be saved\u201d and so on, will only lead to what a young participant calls \u201cdestruction\u201d. Everyone, including the Pope and the young people at that first-ever Papal event in Singapore, well appreciate that without goodwill and mutual respect, unity and peaceful co-existence would be impossible. The stark alternative is what all sensible human inhabitants in this world wish to avoid \u2013 endless, inhuman, suffering in wars and violence that characterise much of the world we live in.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, what the Holy Father said to the young people in Singapore have been twisted, and sometimes even beyond recognition. Two points must be made at once before we get into the substance of this post. First, Pope Francis is known for making passing remarks which, because of the non-precise nature of those remarks, may easily be misinterpreted, intentionally or otherwise. If you truly wish to understand what the Pope says in any particular instance, go to his official Vatican website which is responsible for the publication of what the Holy says and means. Secondly, perhaps the biggest mistake on the part of the Pope\u2019s detractors is their deliberate or negligent omission to acknowledge the fundamental fact that Pope Francis is the head of the Roman Catholic Church which has a long history of peace-promotion among religions and thus a reservoir of official teachings on interreligious dialogue.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many Catholics, troubled by negative comments that they have heard and read, have sought clarification from us. In three brief articles spread evenly over this month of December, we hope to get beyond all those negative remarks by anchoring ourselves solidly in the official teachings of the Church and in what Pope Francis is about. The three articles shall respectively cover first, the official teaching of the Church, followed by what various Popes have said, and finally what Pope Francis is doing. We begin with official teaching of the Church.<\/span><\/p>\n

[1] Lumen Gentium<\/em> <\/strong>(Dogmatic Constitution on the Church)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In 1964, The Second Vatican Council promulgated Lumen Gentium<\/em> (\u201cLG\u201d), a key document on what the Church is essentially about. It begins with the fundamental reason for the existence of the Church, that is, Christ is the light of humanity<\/em><\/strong>, so that the Church exists for universal mission, not for the sake of its own glory.<\/span><\/p>\n

In paragraph 16, the Council Fathers in part teaches:<\/span><\/p>\n