ROME (LifeSiteNews) — Delivering an Epiphany homily, Cardinal Raymond Burke reiterated the primacy of the Catholic faith and Christ as the means of salvation in what appeared to be an indirect rebuttal of recent highly controversial comments by Pope Francis.
“The Feast of the Epiphany is inseparably united with the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord, which we have just celebrated,” Burke said Monday. “It is the feast of God the Son Incarnate, born of the Virgin Mary at Bethlehem, manifesting Himself to all men, to the ends of the earth.”
Offering a Pontifical Mass at Chiesa della Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini in Rome – run by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter – Burke drew from Scripture and Scriptural commentary to highlight Christ and the Catholic Church as the proper means of salvation.
ROME: “Today, in a particular way, let us pray for unwavering faith in Our Lord, God & man, Who alone is our salvation, & in His Mystical Body, the Church,” said Cardinal Burke in his Epiphany homily.@PerMariam details & pictures – https://t.co/xWvnjveUqd pic.twitter.com/zk6E9WjHDB
— Michael Haynes 🇻🇦 (@MLJHaynes) January 7, 2025
Drawing from the Scriptural account of the Wise Men visiting Christ (Matt 2), the American prelate stated:
The account of the Evangelist directs our attention to the mystery of the two natures – human and divine – in the one Divine Person of Our Lord Who is both God the Son and Son of Mary. It is the truth of the Redemptive Incarnation which has been under attack by heretics from the first years of the life of the Church.
It continues to be under attack today by those who would render the Faith an ideology and the Church a merely human institution. Today, in a particular way, let us pray for unwavering faith in Our Lord, God and man, Who alone is our salvation, and in His Mystical Body, the Church.
Burke did not make any reference to specific attacks on the teaching regarding Christ’s Divinity or His Church.
However, the cardinal’s comments appeared to be a response to remarks made by Pope Francis during his Asian tour in September.
READ: Pope Francis: ‘Every religion is a way to arrive at God’
Addressing a group of young people of various creeds in Singapore, Francis left aside his prepared speech and 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, he 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.
NEW: #PopeFrancis on inter-religious dialogue:
“Every religion is a way to arrive at God. There are different languages to arrive at God but God is God for all.
But my God is more important than your god, is that true?
There is only 1 God & each of has a language to arrive at… pic.twitter.com/TMHRDjEuJ9— Michael Haynes 🇻🇦 (@MLJHaynes) September 13, 2024
The furor from Francis’ comments spread quickly throughout the Catholic world, though now seems to be have been largely overtaken by focus on the 2025 Jubilee Year.
In contrast to Francis’ theme, the much-loved and widely respected approved catechism, the Baltimore Catechism, reminds readers simply that “The one true Church established by Christ is the Catholic Church.” {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.)
This teaching of “Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus” (no salvation outside the Church) has been increasingly rejected by modernizing activists in recent years yet remains valid and unchanging in the Church’s teaching.
Pope Leo XII pronounced it clearly in his 1824 encyclical letter Ubi Primum:
It is impossible for the most true God, who is Truth Itself, the best, the wisest Provider, and the Rewarder of good men, to approve all sects who profess false teachings which are often inconsistent with one another and contradictory, and to confer eternal rewards on their members. For we have a surer word of the prophet, and in writing to you We speak wisdom among the perfect; not the wisdom of this world but the wisdom of God in a mystery.
By it we are taught, and by divine faith we hold one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and that no other name under heaven is given to men except the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth in which we must be saved. This is why we profess that there is no salvation outside the Church.
The Vatican’s 1949 decree from the Holy Office instructed bishops charged with promoting true ecumenism to draw souls to the Church, and that they must always teach the fullness of the Church’s priority:
By no means is it permitted to pass over in silence or to veil in ambiguous terms the Catholic truth regarding the nature and way of justification, the constitution of the Church, the primacy of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, and the only true union by the return of the dissidents to the one true Church of Christ.
The Catholic Church notes that it is possible for those remaining outside the Church “through no grave fault of their own” and who are somehow unaware that the Church is the true Church to still be saved “by making use of the graces which God gives them.” However, salvation in these cases of “invincible ignorance” is not found through other churches but is through the Catholic Church as the channel of grace, as taught by St. Thomas Aquinas.