True Peace is Found only in Christ
SAVE OUR FAITH - PRESS RELEASE
The desire for peace between peoples, although legitimate and praiseworthy, can never supplant the love for the Catholic Faith, dogmas and morals that have animated the life and mission of the Church for two thousand years. Today, however, contrary to Revealed Truth, we are faced with a relativisation of Christ's teachings and the abandonment of the mandate ‘go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’ (Mt. 28:19).
Faith in the UNICITY AND SALVIFIC UNIVERSALITY OF JESUS CHRIST AND THE CHURCH is being abandoned by many priests, bishops and high-ranking hierarchs of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, who now regard all religions as ways of salvation. This is not only contrary to Catholic dogma, but even to the most elementary reality, which attests to the existence of errors and moral aberrations in pagan religions, concerning the primary religious and moral truths which are accessible to human reason.
In their apologia for inter-religious ecumenism, these hierarchs lose themselves in arguments devoid of theological or even rational foundation. In fact, they claim that since God is one, all religions are paths to this one God, forgetting that among them there are polytheistic and pantheistic religions, or say, believing in several gods or identifying God with the Universe.
Faced with the proliferation and spread of errors, particularly in India, Catholics faithful to the Church's dogmas and millennia-old teachings have written an appeal to the Bishops to save our faith from the countless heresies raging in India and also threatening the West. We attach the aforementioned appeal herewith, and renew it — with a preface on religious indifferentism — in the hope that our pastors open their eyes to the real threats to the world today, far worse than war, i.e., the extinction of the Catholic Faith, the light of the world and foundation of true peace.
Indian Lay Fellowship
There is only one way of Salvation
Many leaders of the Mystical Body of Christ have been adopting an attitude of religious indifferentism when dialoguing with persons of other religions, with the pretext of it being the sole guarantor of world peace and social harmony.
The unicity and salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the Church
This strategy is at odds with Divine Revelation, since it does away with faith in the unicity and salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the Church, making our Catholic Faith as one of the many ways, and not the only way to salvation.
Pope Pius IX had already warned the bishops about this error in stern words:
As is Our Apostolic duty, we wish your episcopal solicitude and vigilance to be aroused, so that you will strive as much as you can to drive from the mind of men that impious and equally fatal opinion, namely, that the way of eternal salvation can be found in any religion whatsoever. (Pius IX, Singulari Quadam, 9th December 1854)
Irenicism and relativism threaten the Faith
Today, moved by irenicism and relativism, many hierarchs of the Catholic Church erect peace as the supreme good — superior even to man’s obligation to practise the true religion revealed by God.
This symbiosis of irenicism and relativism was already taking form at the time of Pope Pius XII, who perspicaciously analysed and condemned it in the following terms:
Another danger is perceived which is all the more serious because it is more concealed beneath the mask of virtue. There are many who, deploring disagreement among men and intellectual confusion… advocate an “eirenism” according to which, by setting aside the questions which divide men, they aim … at reconciling things opposed to one another in the field of dogma. (...) So today, some are presumptive enough to question seriously whether theology and theological methods, such as with the approval of ecclesiastical authority are found in our schools, should be…completely reformed. (...) Some through enthusiasm for an imprudent “eirenism” seem to consider as an obstacle to the restoration of fraternal union, things founded on the laws and principles given by Christ and likewise on institutions founded by Him, or which are the defence and support of the integrity of the faith, and the removal of which would bring about the union of all, but only to their destruction (Encyclical Humani Generis, 12 August 1950)
Therefore, in order to achieve true peace, the right course of action is not to consider all religions as ways of salvation, but to promote the true Faith, without any admixtures or adulterants.
“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world gives, do I give unto you”, Jesus declared (Jn. 14:27). It is by believing and professing His doctrine, practising His law, and belonging to His Church that men will work effectively towards attaining peace in the world.
The Church of India at the forefront of relativistic syncretism
In theological ambiences, especially in India, we see a disingenuous effort to reinterpret the most fundamental postulates of Catholic Religion in an attempt to adapt it to other religions and thus avoid conflicts.
The widespread irenic interreligious dialogue, which considers all religions as different ways to God and over-emphasises charity at the expense of dogmatic truth, is at once the psychological reflection and the practical application of the modernist error according to which dogmas are mere symbols — changeable and transient — of a so-called “religious feeling” deemed to be identical in all men and which unites them in the deepest part of their being.
How many are the errors and scandals perpetrated in the name of “interreligious dialogue”! How many souls are being lost owing to the lack of zeal of Catholic missionaries who, forgetting the Mandate of the Divine Redeemer to ‘go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’ (Mt. 28:19) – shirk off their responsibility of bearing the good tidings to those who are ignorant of Him.
In order to solidify their proposition that all religions are essentially the same, certain influential hierarchs and theologians are resolute in adding elements foreign to our faith into Catholic Dogma and Praxis, in a syncretistic effort to make Christianity a toothless version of its former self. Nowhere can this be seen more at work than in the Church in India.
Through insinuating sermons, faulty formation of future priests in seminaries, constant encouragement given to the laity to participate in non-Christian religious festivals— and even by themselves participating in such festivals — the ministers of God are razing to the ground the great patrimony of Faith left behind by St. Thomas, St. Francis Xavier and so many other holy missionaries. Did not St. Devasahayam Pillai lay down his very life instead of compromising on even the most minute aspect of our Holy Faith?
In view of the evolution of facts, ideas and tendencies seriously threatening the Catholic Faith in India, and the consequent loss of missionary zeal in the clergy, seminaries, religious houses, Catholic ashrams and other institutions that promote inculturation, religious indifferentism, syncretism and Hinduisation of the Church, the only effective remedy lies in a serious and in-depth intervention by the Bishops of India and the Vatican to curb these errors. They should resolutely take charge of the Barque of Christ which is tossing and turning in this agitated Indian Ocean. We earnestly desire that they incur not the same censure and the punishment announced by Our Lord to the Church of Sardis:
“And to the angel of the church of Sardis, write: Be watchful and strengthen the things that remain, which are ready to die. For I find not thy works full before my God. Have in mind therefore in what manner thou hast received and heard: and observe, and do penance. If then thou shalt not watch, I will come to thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know at what hour I will come to thee.” (Ap. 3: 1-3)
Hence, during this second Session of the Synod on Synodality, we, concerned Catholics in India, filially re-submit our appeal to the Bishops (please see the attached document here), asking them to courageously save our Catholic Faith.
Indian Lay Fellowship
email: indianlayfellowship@gmail.com
website: www.saveourfaith.com
