On the plane returning from his journey to Africa on November 30, Pope Francis condemned Catholics who believe in “absolute truths”, and labelled them as “fundamentalists”.
“Fundamentalism is a sickness that is in all religions,” Francis said, as reported by the National Catholic Reporter’s Vatican correspondent, Joshua McElwee, and similarly by other journalists on the plane. “We Catholics have some – and not some, many – who believe in the absolute truth and go ahead dirtying the other with calumny, with disinformation, and doing evil.”
“They do evil,” said the pope. “I say this because it is my church.”
“We have to combat it,” he said. “Religious fundamentalism is not religious, because it lacks God. It is idolatry, like the idolatry of money.”
Turning to Islam, the pope spoke of his friendship with a Muslim, adding, “You cannot cancel out a religion because there are some groups, or many groups in a certain point of history, of fundamentalists.”
“Like everything, there are religious people with values and those without,” he said. “But how many wars … have Christians made? The sacking of Rome was not done by Muslims, eh?”
Is There an Absolute Right and Wrong?
In September 2013, Pope Francis wrote a letter to Eugenio Scalfari, atheist founder and editor of the Italian publication La Republicca. This letter, together with a subsequent face-to-face interview conducted by Scalfari with the Pope, sparked massive media coverage – and widespread controversy.
During the one-on-one interview, Scalfari asked the pope: “Your Holiness, is there only one vision of the Good? And who determines what it is?”
The Pope answered:
Each one of us has his own vision of the Good and also of Evil. We have to urge it [the vision] to move towards what one perceives as the Good…I repeat it. Everyone has his own idea of Good and Evil and he has to choose to follow the Good and to fight Evil as he understands it. This would be enough to improve the world.
The Heresy of Relativism
The Pope’s letter to Scalfari, as well as his recent condemnation of “absolute truths” is, upon closer inspection, a support for the heresy of relativism – a dangerous heresy that, if adopted by the world, will cause widespread adoption of sin. According to relativism, we should not believe in “absolute truths”. We should not believe in absolute moral codes of conduct. No institution, no Church has the right to definitely say what is right and what is wrong.
To say that“each one of us has his own vision of the Good and also of Evil” is to give everyone the license to do whatever he or she wants to do in this life – it gives everyone the license to sin.
Pope Francis’ position is a complete reversal to Pope Benedict XVI’s view that relativism is a danger that the Church must fight. Just before the College of Cardinals entered the 2005 conclave to vote on the successor to John Paul II, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, dean of the College of Cardinals, warned against the dangers of relativism:
Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be ‘tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine’, seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires.
The Church Does Believe in Absolute Truths
In his 2009 Encyclical Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI said that true love leads one to “defend the truth” and “articulate it with humility and conviction”:
Love — caritas — is…a force that has its origin in God, Eternal Love and Absolute Truth…To defend the truth, to articulate it with humility and conviction, and to bear witness to it in life are therefore exacting and indispensable forms of charity. Charity, in fact, “rejoices in the truth” (1 Cor 13:6).
In numerous occasions, St. John Paul II warned against the grave consequences of doctrinal relativism. In this 1981 address during a conference on popular missions, he said:
It is essential to realistically admit, with deep and pained sentiment, that in part, Christians today feel lost, confused, perplexed and even disillusioned; ideas conflicting with the revealed and consistently taught truth have been widely spread; real heresies in dogmatic and moral fields have been promoted, creating doubts, confusions, rebellions, even the Liturgy has been manipulated; immersed in the intellectual and moral ‘relativism’, and consequently permissiveness, Christians are tempted toward atheism, agnosticism, vaguely moralistic illuminism, and a sociological Christianity, without defined dogmas and without objective morality. ∎
by Pablo Mercer
When the secular media asks: is pope francis even catholic? Then we need not nor dare not
Doubt where we are heading with bergolio. You should send a copy of yuor letter to michael
Voris, mabey there is still hope for him. Bergolio is deffinately not catholic and therefor can not be leagaly the pope. When a person refuses to recognise the trees by the fruit they bare, they
Will sooner or later die from poison fruit. Our lord said: i am way, the truth and the life. The
Truth that is not absolute truth is bergolio’s truth. It is no longer enough to ignore bergolio, but
rather denounce him openiy and publicly, otherwise we comit sin of omission.
Bergoglio or Pope Francis is absolutely a revelation, not to the glory of the Most High God who is absolutely the creator and the hope of a dying universe, but an incarnation of some relative deity that stands in opposition to the only Way the Truth and the Life. He has been making very many unchristianed ulterances that uphold the evolution theory against the Genesis or biblical creation narrative, declaring that atheists will go to heaven by merely doing good and encouraging homosexuality. Is he intentionally distorting the Word of God and trying to make God redundant? We must watch him closely and get excited.
He is a Jesuit. Thats what Jesuits do.
As a Jesuit, He would have uttered this, and agreed to this.
Pay close attention to the words in red.
http://www.reformation.org/jesuit-oath.html
POPE FRANCIS CONDEMNED TRADITIONAL CATHOLICS BELIEVERS THE “ABSOLUTE TRUTH” DOCTRINE OF THE CATHOLIC GOD AS THE HEART OF THE TRUE CATHOLIC FAITH, AS “FUNDAMENTALIST” IS A KIND OF A HERESY POPE FRANCIS IS PREACHING. AND BY PREACHING HERESY CAN MAKE HIM CANONICALLY BE AN INVALID POPE OF THE TRUE CATHOLIC CHURCH BY BEING A HERETIC. POPE FRANCIS HAS BEEN QUOTED MANY TIMES BOTH BY SECULAR AND CATHOLIC MEDIA, MANY A TIMES IN HIS HOMILY AND INTERVIEWS OPENLY UTTERING AND EXPRESSING HERESY, WHILE AT TIMES HE IS ALSO TALKING ABOUT THE TRADITIONAL DOCTRINE OF “ABSOLUTE TRUTH”, THAT I AM NOT SURPRISED IF HE CONDEMNS HIS “OWN FLOCK” THE TRADITIONAL CATHOLICS WHO BELIEVER IN ABSOLUTE TRUTH AS “fundamentalist”? BUT BECAUSE POPE FRANCIS IS GOOD AT USING A “DOUBLE TALK” THAT MAKES HIM A REAL JESUIT HIS TEACHINGS ON LIBERATION THEOLOGY ARE VERY CONFUSING FOR THE MAJORITY SIMPLE CATHOLICS THAT HE IS ADMIRED BY THE SECULAR WORLD AS A “POPE OF THE “VATICAN II” CATHOLICS”, A DIVISION OF A DIVIDED CATHOLIC CHURCH THAT HE COULD LEAD TOWARDS THE MAIN GOAL OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER THE ESTABLISHMENT OF “ONE WORLD RELIGION”, AND ITS MEMBERSHIP OF THE OF THE UNIVERSAL PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS BASED IN ARGENTINA. NO WONDER WHY HE IS TOO OFTEN IS PREACHING “LIBERATION THEOLOGY” VERY FAMOUS IN SOUTH AMERICA ESPECIALLY IN BRAZIL BY THE JESUIT PRIESTS BOFF BROTHERS, FR LEONARDO BOFF WHO WAS EXCOMMUNICATED BY VATICAN FOR HIS CRUSADE AGAINST THE CHURCH OF ROME….NO USE EVEN IF I AM SHOUTING HERE, THAT I STILL AM PRAYING FOR POPE FRANCIS AND IN OBEDIENCE TO THE MAGISTERIUM UNTIL SUCH TIME THAT THE COUNCIL OR POPE BENEDICT XVI DECLARES POPE FRANCIS AS HERETICAL THEREFORE AN INVALID POPE, BUT GOD ALLOWS HIM TO REIGN EVEN AS SUCH AS HE IS THE END TIME POPE OF THE PROPHECY AS THE LAST POPE OF THE CHURCH OF ROME THE II2th POPE OF ST MALACKY PROPHECY.
to be a catholic…………….truth…is our way of life……………..like faith…hope charity…………………..our pope ——now—–stressfull
Actually, the Muslims did sack part of Rome – in 846. St Leo IV built the Leonine wall for that very reason. Saracen pirates were very active at that time, and for many years after: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Leo_IV
This pope delights in betraying faithful Catholics.
Oh for the papacy of John Paul II and Benedict XVI !
Francis is a Jesuit and a Freemason. That, on its own, discredits him from being Pope.
How do you know he is a Freemason?
My life is centered upon Jesus Christ who is the author and Finisher of my faith and not on Pope Francis. If it was entered upon him I would have lost my faith long ago.
I leave you with the words of Jesus “when I come back on the earth will I find any faith”!
“Everyone has his own idea of Good and Evil and he has to choose to follow the Good and to fight Evil as he understands it.” As I understand it, this pretty much describes the beliefs of Tim Kaine and Nancy Pelosi.
What people do not realize is that Francis is quoting the Koran when he speaks of everyone having their own idea of good and evil. Muslims are allowed to make decisions between good and evil in situations where doing evil will serve the good…Work that out?
Pope Francis needs to clarify what he is saying if not then he is teaching heresy.