WHAT DID THE POPE REALLY SAY?

Recently there was a news article headline that suggested the pope had said that atheists need not believe in Christ to go to heaven.  I had linked this news article on my Facebook.  Some took exception, saying the pope was misquoted.

I am not able to know the exact words of the pope because I cannot read Latin and therefore do not know how accurate the English translations may be.   So far as I can determine from reading Roman Catholic publications, the pope, at the very least did say that atheists should follow their conscience.  I understand this was an effort to reach out to atheists who had asked how they are viewed by the Roman Catholic Church or what their relationship is to the Church.

What is certain is that the pope did not give a clear, certain, apostolic or truly Christian response to the inquiry.   The inquiry would be somewhat equivalent to those in the New Testament who came to Jesus or the apostles asking the way to eternal life or inquiring about their relationship to the kingdom of God.   The answers given by Jesus and the apostles were very different from that given by the pope.  The pope gave a politician’s answer, not an apostolic answer.

In the Old Testament there were sentries placed on the wall of the city whose job it was to blow a certain sound on the trumpet if they say the enemy or eminent danger approaching.  There were different sounds to be sounded on the trumpet for different occasions.   It was crucial that the sentry give a clear and certain sound on the trumpet when the enemy approached so everyone could prepare to be saved.  St. Paul uses this imagery in I Cor. 14: 8 saying “For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle”.   The pope clearly did not give a clear and certain sound or proclamation of the Gospel.  His words had the effect of suggesting or implying the atheists were ok where they were; they just need to follow their conscience.  But following their conscience is what they already are doing and that has lead them to where they are.   The pope failed to recall that the human conscience can be distorted, perverted and darkened by willful and persistent sinning against the conscience.  Man’s conscience, to be a safe guide, must be subject to and conditioned by Truth.  “The heart is desperately wicked, who can know it?”

One is left wondering whatever happened to the words of the Saviour, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.  He that believeth not is condemned already” and “He who rejects Me, rejects the Father who sent me”?  Or the words of St. John of the Apocalypse, “ But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the brimstone: which is the second death.”

The present pope has indicated his desire to reach out to those outside of his church.  He has indicated that his church needs to stop talking so much about the sins of homosexuality and abortion.  The pope seems to be trying to skirt certain issues and play both sides.  But if you compromise your beliefs to win people, what have you won them too?  Where then is the need for repentance? Love without truth is not really love but self-serving.  Once again, he is sounding more like a politician or head of state than an apostolic voice for truth and righteousness.  There really is nothing different about this.  All the popes of recent times seem never to get around to proclaiming the fullness of the Gospel but speak only of nebulous ideas of world community, world peace and brotherhood – the language of the United Nations and the World Council of Churches.

From the Orthodox Christian perspective what the pope says is of little consequence since the pope and the Latin/Roman Church departed from the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church in 1054 AD when they fell into schism and heresy.