“The second tenet is that all religions are equally valid paths to the same God”
This is a politically correct tenet but not valid from the point of view of Catholic theology. If there are many paths to Heaven then it would appear sadistic for God to have the Son of Man tortured and crucified to death.
The world could have gone with Judaism, Buddhism and even Hinduism (assuming the latter two qualify as more than mere philosophical forays)
The case for Catholic belief and salvation through the risen Christ is brilliantly made by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in “Iesus Dominus.”
It is an unrivalled tour-de-force of theological scholarship.
See below:
I am the son of a Cumberland Presbyterian minister and an elder in the CP church. I read part of then Cardinal Ratzinger’s writing and jumped over to the conclusion for the sake of time. To fully grasp some of what his is saying takes more time and thought than I have right now.
I found nothing that I would take issue with. I gathered that a main point of what is that most all Christian churchs have some fundamental beliefs (e.g. - the fully divine nature of Christ living among us, and in so doing, revealing God the Father to us, and our obligation as Chritians to go into the world to spread the news of Christ as Savior and his work of reconciliation on the cross) that we all share, and that we must remain faithful to our commission and religious heritage as revealed to us in canon scripture. He also made comments about the divine inspiration of the Scripture and the infallibility thereof.
Quite frankly, I think my denomination and me are closer to his beliefs than we are to some of the “mainline” denominations such as the Episcopal, Presbyterian US and Methodist. The cultural emphasis on “me first, me-ism, the “me generation”, and any and all other self-centered life philosophies has unfortunately crept its way into Christian churchs/ denonimations in this country and rendered them apostate and ineffective in many ways. Then Cardinal Ratzinger and I share the view that there are definitely absolutes established by God that should not be ignored. Unfortunately, they are being ignored on a wholesale basis in our churchs.
Even though I am a Southern Protestant, I think Pope Benedict and I share far, far more theological views than those we disagree on . . . though he vastly outclasses me in the completeness of his understanding and service . . . and of course his exceptional vocabulary!!