Posted on 05/24/2013 2:25:17 AM PDT by DaveMSmith
LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The Holy Father is full of surprises, born of true and faithful humility. On Wednesday he declared that all people, not just Catholics, are redeemed through Jesus, even atheists.
However, he did emphasize there was a catch. Those people must still do good. In fact, it is in doing good that they are led to the One who is the Source of all that is good. In essence he simply restated the hope of the Church that all come to know God, through His Son Jesus Christ.
Francis based his homily on the message of Christ to his disciples taken from the Gospel of Mark. Francis delivered his message by sharing a story of a Catholic who asked a priest if atheists were saved by Christ.
"They complain," Francis said, "If he is not one of us, he cannot do good. If he is not of our party, he cannot do good." He explained that Jesus corrected them, "Do not hinder him, he says, let him do good."
The disciples, Pope Francis explained, "were a little intolerant," closed off by the idea of possessing the truth, convinced that "those who do not have the truth, cannot do good." "This was wrong... Jesus broadens the horizon." Pope Francis said, "The root of this possibility of doing good - that we all have - is in creation."
"Even them, everyone, we all have the duty to do good, Pope Francis said on Vatican Radio.
"Just do good" was his challenge, "and we'll find a meeting point."
(Excerpt) Read more at catholic.org ...
Psalm 14:1, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.”
John 14:6
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Seems clear enough.
“Those people must still do good”
Well, nice to know you can work your way to heaven.
Witness The Romans Road to Salvation and The three great parables of Mathew 13.
I’m shocked the Pope would say this.
Did you read his sermon? His sermon is pretty clear - he talks about how Christ says, “whatsoever you did for the least of those - you also did for me.”
It’s not about doing good for the sake of doing good - but about how serving your brothers and sisters serves Christ. Works not in absence of faith but works in affirmation of faith.
where in Mark is he referencing?
Oh dear.
“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.”
There is no god. And that was out loud...
Yes, it is true. We are saved by God’s grace. Whether or not one explicitly knows that is not the issue. It is by the sacrifice of the Son that we are saved. God didn’t have to do that, but He did. You might thumb your bible for the verse about “doing the WILL of the Father.” God does not just expect you to sit around on your butt. If an atheist consistently does the WILL OF THE FATHER then he too can be saved. We must pray for those who manage, by natural law, to develop an ethos of helping people, and avoiding evil. The atheist, has a harder time to be sure, but don’t assume all are going to hell.
Yeah, the responses on this thread should be pretty interesting. The Catholics on FR are pretty intent on keeping Christ and heaven to themselves.
BTW, I am a Catholic.
I concur that all are redeemed by the Cross, but not that all have been saved.
Salvation occurs upon forgiveness and forgiveness occurs upon faith in His work on the Cross.
I still am looking for the passage in Mark to which he references his statement.
Would this mean non-Christians ca go to heaven?
No. It means the Pope is in error.
What of the Good Samaritan? (Luke 10:28-38) ... “Go and do likewise.” - Jesus didn’t seem to judge based on belief.
The Pope is sounding more like Wesley than Augustine, not that Wesley would condone disbelief, but there seems to be an abundance of choice and personal responsibility in the Pope’s statements.
I’ll start out by saying that Christian religious figures are so often misquoted and represented that I wouldn’t trust this articles claims without checking.
But I want to ask what is good to an Atheist? Separated from any traditional value system or faith, “good” can mean all sorts of things.
Mao, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot all thought they were doing “good” according to their worldview.
So for a person to tell an Atheist “just do good”, I’m worried what their idea of good will be.
Isn’t that where totalitarian dystopias come from?
Beats me. I always thought that the Pope was man’s direct line to Jesus.
I waited for a Catholic source before posting. This is all over the internet.
Pope Francis is sounding more like Jesus everyday.
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