Francis Declares in Formal Statement to the World: God Wants "Diversity of Religions"

     During the recent ecumenical trip of Francis (3-5 of February, 2019), billed as the "Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to the United Arab Emirates," that Supreme Pontiff of the New Order and the Muslim leader Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, jointly signed a declaration entitled A Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together. Toward the mid-point of that document appears the statement: "Freedom is a right of every person: each individual enjoys the freedom of belief, thought, expression and action. The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings. This divine wisdom is the source from which the right to freedom of belief and the freedom to be different derives."

To Catholics, who believe that there is one true God Whose one true Divine Son became Man to establish one true Church with one true Faith and one true religion, that statement is prima facie heretical. The Catholic Church has explicitly condemned such a statement as heresy. So blatantly heretical is this that at least one of Francis' cardinals and one of his bishops have already issued formal statements denouncing this false teaching. Also, Josef Seifert, an Austrian Catholic philosopher who in 2016 called upon Francis to revoke the "objectively heretical" statements in Amoris Laetitia in order to avoid "schism," "heresy," and "the complete split in the Church," now asks: "How can God will religions that deny Christ's divinity and resurrection?" For Seifert Francis' statement "contains all heresies" and turns God into a relativist who "does not know" that there is only one truth and "does not care" whether men believe in truth or falsity. He concludes that in his Abu Dhabi document Francis "rejected Christianity" and implies that God must hate the Catholic Church because it rejects any relativization of the Christian religion that would turn it into one of man contradictory religions. In asking Francis to recant his heresy, Seifert says: "If he does not do this, I am afraid that Canon Law may apply according to which a Pope automatically loses his Petrine office when professing heresy, especially when he professes the sum-total of all heresies." Some have tried to interpret Francis' words to mean that God wills "diversity of religions" only by His permissive Will, that is, as tolerating an evil. But Francis stated that the different religions exist by the wisdom of God and not human failure, and that "diversity' is a positively good thing in itself.

It is important to note the phrase "the sum-total of all heresies" in connection with St. Pius X's encyclical Condemning the Errors of the Modernists (Pascendi), which characterized Modernism as "the synthesis of all heresies." And now Francis wants this heresy to be promulgated and put into effect throughout the entire world. "To this end, by mutual cooperation, the Catholic Church and Al-Azhar announce and pledge to convey this Document to authorities, influential leaders, persons of religion all over the world, appropriate regional and international organizations, organizations within civil society, religious institutions and leading thinkers. They further pledge to make known the principles contained in this Declaration at all regional and international levels, while requesting that these principles be translated into policies, decisions, legislative texts, courses of study and materials to be circulated."