In a recent homily, Pope Francis insisted that Christ redeemed the whole of humankind, including atheists. This attracted the attention of many, and was given prominence by the media.
According to an ancient doctrine, “there is no salvation outside the Church”. This doctrine, formulated at a time when people thought the whole world consisted of the Mediterranean basin and that all had heard of Christ and were called to accept him explicitly, has now been reformulated as, “there is no salvation outside of the Church for those who are called to belong to the Church”.
The Pope’s statement may give the impression that belonging to the Church or not is not that vital, so, why belong to the Church? Isn’t being honest, loving, just and generous what really matters? Has the Pope rendered himself and the whole Church redundant?
Pope Benedict seems to have been quite aware of this possible perception. He was very cautious when it came to inter-faith dialogue because of the impression that one might get that all churches, and indeed, all religions, are equal.
Seemingly connected is his insistence on replacing the ‘for all’ with ‘for many’ in the new translations of the Missal, but his preference is simply for a literal translation of the Latin (the Latin pro multis). In Aramaic, ‘many’ was equivalent to ‘all’. For this reason, the first translations of the Missal into the vernacular languages preferred ‘all’ as it needed no explanation.
Pope Benedict admitted this, but continued to prefer ‘many’, which may give the impression that Christ did not die for all. This is not the case, because ‘many’ does render the idea, although it needs an explanation. Many German priests have asked their bishops not to approve the new translation of the Missal.
Are Pope Benedict and Pope Francis contradicting each other? Definitely not! There is simply a shift of emphasis.
Karl Rahner had proposed the theory of the Anonymous Christians, referring to those who live the values of Jesus Christ without being members of the Church, either because they have never heard of Christ or because they have not been called to belong to the Church.
Like Pope Francis’ statement, Rahner’s statement was not completely new either. An old doctrine of the Church insists that God gives his sufficient grace to all and through it all can be saved. Rahner’s theory was not embraced with great enthusiasm.
There is an interesting dialogue between psychoanalyst and Lutheran minister Oskar Pfister and his friend Sigmund Freud, a self-declared atheist.
Pfister wrote to Freud: “You are not godless, for he who lives the truth lives in God, and he who strives for the freeing of love ‘dwelleth in God’. If you raised to your consciousness and fully felt your place in the great design, which to me is as necessary as the synthesis of the notes is to a Beethoven symphony, I should say of you: A better Christian there never was…”
Is this not Rahner’s Anonymous Christian?
But, then, why join the Church? Because through faith we know that none of us can be loving, true, just, and generous without Christ’s redemption. St Paul says that the Law without Christ is like the servant who walks the child to school. It shows the way without em-powering us to live it.
This was Pope Francis’ point. He said Christ had redeemed the whole of humankind, not that humankind can redeem itself.
Those of us who, through no merit of ours, have had this mystery revealed to us can never be grateful enough. We come together to share our faith and joy and to commemorate the mystery of Christ’s redemption in community. This is the Church.
We also have the duty to pass on this good news to the whole of humankind and to encourage one and all to live Christ’s values because what is impossible to humans is possible through Christ’s redemption.
We cannot fulfil this mission without being the Church, which nourishes us with the Sacraments and the Scriptures.
alfred.j.micallef@um.edu.mt
Fr Alfred Micallef is a member of the Society of Jesus.