De Mattei: Pope's pronouncements and video: It's not only heresy that offends the Catholic Faith

Rorate Caeli ^ | January 13, 2016 | Roberto de Mattei

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More recently, on January 6th 2016, a video-message from Pope Francis diffused all over the world's social networks, was dedicated to inter-religious dialogue, where Catholics, Buddhists, Jews and Muslims seem to be placed on the same level, as "children of (a) God' whom everyone encounters in their own religion, in the name of some common profession of faith and love. Francis' words, combined with those of the protagonists in the video and above all with the images, are the vehicle of a syncretistic message which contradicts, at least indirectly, the teaching as regards the redeeming uniqueness and universality of Jesus Christ and the Church, reaffirmed in the encyclical Mortalium Animos by Pius XI (1928) and the Declaration Dominus Iesus by the then Prefect for the Congregation of the Faith, Joseph Ratzinger (August 6th 2000).

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As ordinary baptized Catholics wishing to apply the theological censures of the Church to this video, we should have to define it as: inducing heresy as far as the content is concerned; equivocal and insidious as far as the form is concerned; scandalous as far as its effects on souls are concerned. The public and official judgment is up to the ecclesiastical authorities and nobody better than the present Prefect for the Congregation of the Faith (Cardinal Ludwig Muller), has the qualification to speak in this regard.

Many distressed Catholics are calling on him to do just that.

[from occupied ga]

No one cares what this hard line Marxist posing as a catholic says. He's managed to completely blow his credibility with those of us who work for a living while pandering to those who are too lazy to steal and want government to do it for them.

[stocksthatgoup]

Dope on a rope

[edwinland]

I found another heretic who called non-believers ‘offspring’ or ‘children’ of God during an interreligious dialogue:

Acts 17 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

22 So Paul stood in the midst of the [s]Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. 23 For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.

24 The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; 25 nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; 26 and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, 27 that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and [t]exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’

29 Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. 30 Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, 31 because He has fixed a day in which He will judge [u]the world in righteousness [v]through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men [w]by raising Him from the dead.”

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Acts 17 (Douay-Rheims Bible)

[32] And when they had heard of the resurrection of the dead, some indeed mocked, but others said: We will hear thee again concerning this matter. [33] So Paul went out from among them. [34] But certain men adhering to him, did believe; among whom was also Dionysius, the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

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Acts 18 Douay-Rheims bible

[1] After these things, departing from Athens, he came to Corinth. [2] And finding a certain Jew, named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy, with Priscilla his wife, (because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome,) he came to them. [3] And because he was of the same trade, he remained with them, and wrought; (now they were tentmakers by trade.) [4] And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, bringing in the name of the Lord Jesus; and he persuaded the Jews and the Greeks. [5] And when Silas and Timothy were come from Macedonia, Paul was earnest in preaching, testifying to the Jews, that Jesus is the Christ.

[6] But they gainsaying and blaspheming, he shook his garments, and said to them: Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles.

[sasportas]

You are leaving out one little item. Yes, God created Adam in his image, and until the fall, he remained in that image. But once disobedience and sin entered, Adam (and Eve) were no longer in relationship with God. By extension, the whole of mankind.

It is essential now for mankind to be reconciled, redeemed, regenerated (born again). Which redemption comes only through Jesus Christ the savior. Without exception, this is true for everyone, Jew or Gentile. Man is a sinner and must be saved through Christ. And this includes the Greeks at Mars Hill, Acts 17.

Paul was not saying that the Greeks didn’t need salvation through Christ, on the contrary they were sinners, God commanded their repentance and conversion to Christ, verses 30-32.