Posted on 11/03/2025 4:19:11 PM PST by ebb tide
In an essay that appeared on the Vatican’s official news website last week, Moroccan Cardinal Cristóbal López Romero, SDB, repeated a scandalous claim first made by Pope Leo XIV last week that implies the Catholic religion does not possess the fullness of truth.
“Religions, for their part, have the responsibility to offer paths of meaning and truth, not of domination,” Romero suggested. “No religion can appropriate the truth, as if it were its sole owner. No one possesses the truth; if anything, it is the truth that possesses us all, and in every religion there are glimmers of truth.”
Romero’s remarks echo comments made by Pope Leo during a sermon he delivered in St. Peter’s Basilica on October 26 during Mass for the closing of the Jubilee of Synodal Teams and Participatory Bodies. The event was held in Paul VI Hall from October 24-26 and featured workshops on topics such as the role of women in the Church, youth and synodality, and interreligious dialogue.
During his sermon, Leo claimed that “being a synodal Church means recognizing that truth is not possessed but sought together, allowing ourselves to be guided by a restless heart in love with love.”
He also argued that “one should impose his or her own ideas; we must all listen to one another” before stating “no one is excluded [from the Church]; we are all called to participate. No one possesses the whole truth; we must all humbly seek it and seek it together.”
READ: Pope Leo says ‘no one possesses the whole truth’ in Sunday sermon
Leo’s remarks sparked immediate outcry among orthodox Catholics worldwide, primarily due to fact that the Catholic Church, as the Mystical Body of Christ, has always taught that it is the sole guardian of truth revealed by God.
The “the Church of the living God” is “the pillar and bulwark of the truth,” St. Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 3:15. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me,” Our Lord said in John 14:6.
Leo’s comments were seen by many as a rejection of the Church’s unambiguous and infallible previous declarations on the subject. Others argue, however, that he only failed to make a distinction between individual members of the Church being fallible in their understanding of truth and the Church itself guarding and proclaiming the one true faith, a promised given to it by Our Lord Himself.
Romero’s remarks were published two days after Leo’s sermon on October 28. He reiterated the syncretistic and ecumenical nature of Leo’s comments.
After praising dissident 20th century theologian Hans Küng, as well as heralding Nostra Aetate as a “revolutionary document” that “completely changed” how the Catholic Church views non-Christians, Romero repeated Nostra Aetate’s assertion that God can be found outside of the Catholic Church. He further praised Nostra Aetate for encouraging “dialogue” with non-believers, a development he said that has helped bring about a “universal fraternity” among men.
“We must abandon the false paradigm of ‘true religion, false religion,’” he then shockingly alleged.
Romero is the Archbishop of Rabat, Morocco, an Islamic country located in northwest Africa that is 99 percent Muslim. A member of the Salesians who was born in neighboring Spain in 1952, Romero was appointed cardinal by Pope Francis in 2019 after having been named archbishop of Rabat by him in December 2017.
Responding to Leo’s sermon where he claimed “no one is excluded” from the Church, author and commentator Erick Ybarra published an X post noting:
“Are Jesus and the Apostles welcome? Do their commands have any value? In particular, about not even eating with Christians who live in outward contradiction to the commands of Christ and/or those who obstinately contradict the dogmas of Tradition? (1 Cor 5:1-13; 2 John 1:10) and treating the impenitent ‘faithful’ as heathen and tax collectors? (Mathew 18)” [sic]
“I think Catholic liberals would vomit at the teaching of Jesus and the Church of the Apostles,” Ybarra continued. “They can barely take a Christianity with any testosterone to begin with. They are more interested in the Church that appeals to the pleasure and honor of man than God.”
Ping
Demons are no longer attacking the church. They are joining.
Sounds like he removed himself from ecclesiastical office under Canon 194 for open heresy.
Here’s a kind of a Jew chiming in to implore you Christians to be strong and firm in your fundamentals.
This is no time to go wobbly!!!
Moroccan Cardinal Cristóbal López Romero, SDB, repeated a scandalous claim first made by Pope Leo XIV last week that implies the Catholic religion does not possess the fullness of truth. Well, ok, padre tell me what you think it might be.
Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
Acts 17:10-11
Jesus is the son of God.
You are so right, FRiend.
Several religions do not celebrate the truth.
Islam abandoned the truth when those who claimed Allah could lie, and decieve and change any thing he wanted anytime he wanted, prevailed in their theology. Such an arrangement is chaos.
Christianity championed the idea of truth, that there is a singular truth, and God is truth and truthful.
It is an enormous difference.
Stating that man does not and cannot know the truth as God can, is a different concept.
You can worship Baal, you can worship Moloch, you can worship the God of Abraham. [shrug] I guess it makes no difference. [/s]
James 1:27 speaks of pure and undefiled religion.
Hmmm. Believe what God’s biblical Word says or some appointee of Francis, the Jesuit (black) pope. So tough!
It’s not as if Moslems consider Islam to be the once true religion and force other people to convert or anything.
I know you believe that, and I’m totally okay with you believing that. I understand your obligation to represent and press your case. When you folks do what you ought well, it only redounds to my benefit, even in my unwillingness to accept your point of view.
From a kinda Jew’s perspective, how else was the rest of the world to receive the 10 Commandments? Y’all do good over there and I’ll be appreciatin’ over here.
Yours, UM.
This is an absurdity. Two contradictory propositions cannot both be true. Either Jesus is God, or He is not. If He is God, then all non-Christian religions are false. If He is not God, then Christianity is false. Both cannot be true ... and so there is true religion and false religion.
There is a good book by R.R. Reno, editor of "First Things" titled "Return of the Strong Gods; Nationalism, Populism, and the Future of the West/ ". (Yes, he thinks truth is a good thing.)
Soon there will be only one theological absolute in the Catholic Church: thou shall not celebrate the traditional Latin mass. Everything else is subject to change
They have been warned.(USCCB)
2 Peter 3: 15And consider the patience of our Lord as salvation, as our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, also wrote to you,
16speaking of these things* as he does in all his letters. In them there are some things hard to understand that the IGNORANT and UNSTABLE distort to their own destruction, just as they do the other SCRIPTURES.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.