Dubia of an atheist

A sometimes-sharp critic of this site – a self-professed atheist who reads this page regularly for reasons unknown – came to the defense of Pope Francis’ recent comments in Singapore about all religions being a path to God (in the original Italian, Religion is a cammino to arrive at Dio): “Even as an atheist I have to feel sorry for him. . . . He can’t get away with anything without the reactionary storm.” Saint John Paul II, she reminded TCTsaid: “Everyone who is righteous is called to be part of the Kingdom of Heaven – whether they are Buddhist, Jew or atheist – as long as they are good.”

She continued, in a slightly less friendly tone: “He got away with it completely. . . . I really loved him, but I think he was just another prick who didn’t understand church teaching and of course there was no papal gang then. . . . He also said. . . . Hell is no place. . . . that caused a bit of a stir, but not the mass hysteria that follows every little thing Francis says.”

I’m not sure if there is such a thing as a ‘frenemy’, that is, someone who, paradoxically, is a friend by being sharply attacking. But if so, she might qualify. Because some questions – we might even call them ‘frenemy’ dubious – on critical reactions to Pope Francis are duly formulated here and in a way call for a response. And it is almost always good when we are challenged to think more deeply, more justly and more benevolently when we are friends – of the truth.

The first thing you could say about that moment in Singapore is: dubious: Is that correct?

Even a non-Catholic who practices another faith might ask, Hey, wait a minute. What you Catholics believe is idolatrous and false, and that’s why I’m a Lutheran, Mormon, Orthodox Jew, or Muslim. Who says I’m just one of many paths to God? The paths you and others are taking seem to me to lead to the devil or at least to a delusion. We can agree to tolerate each other in public, but I’m perfectly happy that not everyone in every religion is on the right path. How about the Canaanites? The Aztecs? The postmodern Satanists?

Some Catholic heads rightly exploded over this textbook example of false universalism—and delivered by the Pope of Rome. Francis has done this before. He expresses a sentimental hope that everyone “will just get along.” And could have saved the day with the simple qualification: “We hope that everyone in every religion will follow the path to the fullness of truth in Jesus Christ. In the meantime, we try to help each other toward—not kill each other for—that Truth.”

A small adjustment that would have brought peace to the world, while at the same time affirming the true universal religion, of which the Pope is the head.

Words matter. Concepts matter. Yes, “reality is greater than ideas,” Francis said, but false ideas obscure reality. As the words quoted by our atheist reader make clear, John Paul II said that members of other religions and atheists are called to be part of the Kingdom of Heaven. Like all of us. He did not say that Buddhists, Jews, and atheists all follow a path to the same place. Paths also diverge.

His Holiness with (some of) all religions in Singapore.

The reason many Catholics don’t “let” Pope Francis off with reckless remarks is that this sentimental part of his papacy now, more than twelve years later, logically contradicts his more Catholic teachings.

For example, he has made it clear—in clearer language than any previous pope—that abortion is like “hiring a hitman to solve a problem” (his own words). And so any Catholic or well-meaning person who tries to make any logical sense of what he is saying would have to think that politicians who blithely promote abortion, some of whom even claim to be Catholic, are to him like mafia bosses writing a contract to someone.

Yet, during the press conference on the plane returning from the Far East—now a regular event that traditional Catholics dread and progressives (Catholic and otherwise) look forward to—he created, out of nowhere, a moral equivalence between Kamala Harris (because she promotes unlimited abortion) and Donald Trump (because he wants to send illegal immigrants back to their home countries). His exact words were: “Both are against life: the one who throws out immigrants and the one who kills children.” And then he instructs Catholics to “choose the lesser evil.”

The choice, then, seems—if we were living in the older Catholic dispensation, in which logical consistency was regarded as a prior moral necessity for specific judgments—quite simple.

Abortion is the intentional taking of innocent human life. bad in itselfan ‘evil in itself’, if one may use a little Latin at this point in Catholic history.

In contrast, deporting illegal migrants is not only not an “evil in itself.” Depending on the circumstances and even in international and domestic law, it can even be a good – the proper protection of the life of a nation. In law and in fact, migrants are usually just looking for a better life. It is estimated that one third of the world’s population would like to migrate to America. Something that clearly cannot happen without causing multiple human disasters.

A refugeein law, is someone who is persecuted or whose life is in danger and therefore needs protection of some kind, although even that can take different forms. But Francis did not speak of refugees.

So it is clear which is the lesser evil, says the Pope himself, although he rightly says that he is not an American and cannot decide.

But as in so much that our atheist reader finds unfair and a personal hostility toward Francis, for a Catholic, dubia arise when words don’t agree. And since Rome won’t resolve them in a way that seems coherent, whether we like it or not, we are forced to try to do it ourselves.

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