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Bishop Strickland: To deny that Jesus is the only way to God the Father is heresy – LifeSite

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(LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Joseph Strickland has warned that denying Christ as the “only way to God” is a rejection of Catholicism and “is called heresy.”

Posting a short message on X/Twitter on Friday, Tyler’s emeritus Bishop Joseph Strickland gave what appears to be a public response to Pope Francis’ controversial comments earlier in the day about religious authenticity.

“This is what the Catholic Church teaches regarding the unicity of Jesus Christ,” wrote Strickland, linking to the Vatican’s August 2000 document Dominus Jesus.

“The only way to God the Father is through His Son Jesus Christ,” continued Strickland. “To deny this is to deny the Catholic faith, this is called heresy.”

“Please pray for Pope Francis to clearly state that Jesus Christ is the only Way. To deny this is to deny Him. If we deny Christ, He will deny us, He cannot deny Himself,” wrote Strickland in another social media post.

His comments come by way of a response to remarks made by Pope Francis in Singapore many hours earlier, when addressing an inter-religious group of young people.

READ: BREAKING: Pope Francis: ‘Every religion is a way to arrive at God’

Focusing on Singapore’s widely varied faith culture, Francis urged that no religion be given priority but that individuals instead focus on parity between beliefs:

If we start to fight amongst ourselves and say “my religion is more important than yours, my religion is true, yours is not,” where will that lead us? Where?

It’s okay to discuss [between religions].

Continuing, Francis declared that each religion is a means to attain God, stating:

Every religion is a way to arrive at God. There are different languages to arrive at God, but God is God for all. And how is God God for all? We are all sons and daughters of God. But my god is more important than your god, is that true?

There is only one God and each of us has a language to arrive at God. Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, they are different paths.

His remarks have caused instant and widespread consternation.

“This is explicitly the heresy of religious indifferentism,” wrote Deacon Nick Donnelly, a well known Catholic commentator and catechist from the U.K. “Jorge Mario Bergoglio has so often repeated this heresy that he is in a state of formal heresy,” he added.

“How is this not an heretical statement?,” asked Dr. Thomas Carr, while fellow Dominican Father Lawrence Lew urged prayers for Francis and “for the fuller conversion of souls–beginning with my own–to the Truth who is Jesus Christ alone. For as St Peter said: ‘there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.’”

Francis’ comments appear to contradict the timeless teaching of the Catholic Church, which states that “The one true Church established by Christ is the Catholic Church.” {Baltimore Catechism Q. 152}

Catholic doctrine teaches that this fact is knowable since the Catholic Church alone has the four marks of being the true Church: one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic. As a result, the Church teaches that all souls must “belong” to the Church to be saved: “All are obliged to belong to the Catholic Church in order to be saved.” {Baltimore Catechism Q 166.}

Dominus Jesus, as highlighted by Strickland, confirms this teaching and condemns the idea that there is some official means of salvation outside of the Catholic Church:

Furthermore, to justify the universality of Christian salvation as well as the fact of religious pluralism, it has been proposed that there is an economy of the eternal Word that is valid also outside the Church and is unrelated to her, in addition to an economy of the incarnate Word. The first would have a greater universal value than the second, which is limited to Christians, though God’s presence would be more full in the second.

These theses are in profound conflict with the Christian faith. The doctrine of faith must be firmly believed which proclaims that Jesus of Nazareth, son of Mary, and he alone, is the Son and the Word of the Father.

Pope Benedict XVI also commented on the growing trend in modern ecclesial circles to downplay the need to convert souls to Catholicism. Speaking in 2016, he opined:

If it is true that the great missionaries of the 16th century were still convinced that those who are not baptized are forever lost — and this explains their missionary commitment — in the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council that conviction was finally abandoned.

From this came a deep double crisis.

On the one hand this seems to remove any motivation for a future missionary commitment. Why should one try to convince the people to accept the Christian faith when they can be saved even without it?

But also for Christians an issue emerged: the obligatory nature of the faith and its way of life began to seem uncertain and problematic.

The late Benedict continued by directly condemning the theory proposed by Francis in Singapore today: “Even less acceptable is the solution proposed by the pluralistic theories of religion, for which all religions, each in their own way, would be ways of salvation and in this sense, in their effects must be considered equivalent.”

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