Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E148: A Necessary Conversation About Pope Francis w/Jimmy Akin

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E148: A Necessary Conversation About Pope Francis w/Jimmy Akin · The Lila Rose Show

0:00
In the last few days, there's been a bit of an uproar in media
0:04
and social media accounts about recent comments that Pope
0:07
Francis made because every religion is a way to arrive at
0:13
God. And if you read what he says
0:14
about inter religious dialogue in isolation from his emphasis
0:19
on evangelization, it gives a very different impression.
0:23
This is something that the early church fathers talked about.
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God has let little bits of truth about appear in all these
0:32
different religions, and they called them seeds of the Gospel.
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But my strong impression is like, they're looking for him to
0:37
trip up. It's like, oh, that was
0:39
imprecise. Oh, that, that could read a
0:40
different way. Let's make this go viral now and
0:44
see how bad the Holy Father is. And unfortunately, this is from
0:47
a lot of Catholics. This isn't just concerns or
0:49
questions. Jimmy Aiken, welcome to the
0:53
podcast. Thank you so much.
0:55
My pleasure to be here. Thanks for joining.
0:57
This is our first time having you on.
0:59
I am an admirer of a lot of your work from afar.
1:02
You, I know, make the rounds with Catholic answers and a lot
1:05
of podcasts day in and day out sharing the the real truth of
1:09
the Catholic faith. I think there's a lot of
1:11
misconception. So I appreciate your work.
1:13
Thank you for that work. It's really important.
1:15
For those that are not as familiar with your background,
1:17
Jimmy would love to hear who's Jimmy Atkin and what's your
1:20
background? OK, well, so I'm an apologist,
1:24
which is a person who defends something, and I'm a Christian
1:27
apologist, so I defend the Christian faith, and I'm also a
1:30
Catholic apologist, so I defend the Catholic understanding of
1:34
the Christian faith. I work for an organization
1:36
called Catholic Answers. I'm the senior apologist there.
1:40
In fact, I'm the senior employee.
1:41
I've been doing apologetics for over 30 years.
1:44
In addition to that, I do a bunch of podcasts.
1:46
I appear regularly every week on Catholic Answers Live, which is
1:50
on between 3 and 400 terrestrial radio stations.
1:54
I have a podcast called the Jimmy Aiken Podcast I just
1:57
launched and my most famous podcast is Jimmy Aiken's
2:01
Mysterious World where I look at mysteries of all different types
2:04
from the twin perspectives of faith and reason.
2:07
I love that. I'm sure you're familiar with
2:09
Father Spitzer. Father Robert Spitzer.
2:13
Yeah. So you and him are up there
2:14
doing that beautiful work. I we're always fascinated on the
2:18
show to learn about the scientific backing of even
2:20
miracles and all of the evidence for our faith that can be found
2:24
in the natural world and order. So thank you.
2:26
It's very, very exciting stuff. And we'll link your some of your
2:30
work in the description so folks can find you.
2:32
But listen, Jimmy, as you know, in the last few days, there's
2:36
been a bit of an uproar in media and among social media accounts
2:42
about recent comments that the Holy Father made, Pope Francis
2:45
made. And these were comments, as is
2:47
my understanding, at an interfaith assembly of young
2:50
people, I think it was in Singapore.
2:53
And so there is a group of them talking and the Holy Father's
2:56
made some comments that people found very confusing.
2:59
So I'm very excited that you're here to help us unpack these
3:02
comments and talk about what it means.
3:04
So we're going to start with listening to what the Holy
3:06
Father said. Now, as folks know that there's
3:09
a catch because the Holy Father was not speaking in English and
3:12
he's also not speaking. He's not also not being
3:15
translated, I think, initially into English.
3:17
Give us a little bit of the background of this interfaith
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gathering, if you would. If you would, Jimmy.
3:22
Well, it's part of the Pope's most recent international trip,
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or Apostolic voyage as they call him here.
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He went to a number of different countries in Southeast Asia, one
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of one of them being Singapore and Pope Francis.
3:37
Sometimes will he'll have texts that are prepared for him ahead
3:42
of time, but sometimes he just sets those aside and talks off
3:46
the top of his head. And so that's what he did in
3:50
this occasion. He had a prepared speech to read
3:53
to these young people, but he got all enthused about he's
3:55
talking to these young people and he really wants to connect
3:57
with them. And so he decided to set aside
4:00
his prepared remarks and just give some off the cuff
4:03
reflections. And this is something that, you
4:07
know, popes periodically do. I remember once when Pope
4:10
Benedict the 16th was preparing to baptize some people, he just
4:14
set aside his remarks and talked directly from his heart.
4:17
So this is not unusual for popes to do.
4:20
But popes have different skill levels in terms of phrasing
4:25
themselves precisely when they're speaking off the top of
4:29
their heads. And that isn't always one of
4:32
Pope Francis's strengths. He, when he gets off script and
4:36
just speaks off the top of his head or off the cuff, he
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sometimes says things that reflect the truth but also
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reflected in an incomplete way. And that's led to a number of
4:49
incidents where there's been confusion.
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In this case, one of the things that he didn't express was the
4:58
role of evangelization or sharing the Gospel with people.
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Now, Pope Francis knows all about sharing the Gospel with
5:06
people. In fact, that's one of the key
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priorities of his papacy is evangelization.
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In fact, the very first document that he issued his Pope that he
5:15
wrote is called Evangelii Gaudium, which means the joy of
5:19
the gospel. And it's all about evangelizing
5:22
people and sharing the the gospel of Jesus Christ with them
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and helping them become Christians and so forth.
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So he's very well aware of the priority of evangelization.
5:33
But what he did here was he didn't mention that and instead
5:37
he focused on inter religious dialogue.
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And if you read what he says about inter religious dialogue
5:43
in isolation from knowing about his emphasis on evangelization,
5:50
it gives a very different impression.
5:52
And so I think it's important in in looking at these comments to
5:57
realize these are comments being made from someone who is
6:01
thoroughly committed to evangelization.
6:04
So they're not giving you the whole picture of what he thinks
6:07
on this subject. It's just a partial selection of
6:11
truths. Let's do this.
6:12
Let's pull up the transcript of the remarks.
6:15
I'm just going to read this and correct me if this sounds wrong,
6:17
but this is from the Vatican themselves, so this is their
6:19
translation. He says this is very important
6:22
because if you start arguing my religion is more important than
6:25
yours or mine is true, yours is not true.
6:28
Where does this lead? Somebody answer.
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And then one of the young people said destruction.
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Holy Father says that is correct.
6:35
All religions are paths to God. I will use an analogy.
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They are like different languages that express the
6:40
divine. But God is for everyone and
6:42
therefore we are God's. We are all God's children, but
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my God is more important than yours.
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This is true. There is only one God and
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religions are like languages, paths to reach God.
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Some Sikh, some Muslims, some Hindu, some Christian understood
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interfaith dialogue among young people takes courage.
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And he goes on to speak about the importance of dialogue and
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the courage to have that dialogue.
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So what people are really upset about, understandably so, is it
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sounds confusing to say that all religions are paths to God and
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that they are like different languages that express the
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divine. We know and we know.
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I know the Holy Father knows, and this is the official
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teaching of the church that there is only Jesus Christ is
7:25
the true God, There is one God and the Church.
7:29
It is through Jesus Christ and His Church that people reach
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receive salvation. So help us unpack this and why
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what the Holy Father is saying is actually not heresy, but that
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it's misunderstood. Here his what he's getting at
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with his words. Yeah, I think it's helpful to
7:48
kind of back up one sentence to get the beginning of the
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paragraph where he says this, where he introduces the topic
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because it frames the issue, and then kind of take it piece by
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piece and say, what's he trying to communicate here?
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So he begins this part of the discussion by saying one of the
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things that has impressed me most about the young people here
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in in Singapore is your capacity for interfaith dialogue.
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So that's the topic he's talking about interfaith dialogue, which
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is something we need to have, you know, that's even part of
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evangelization is having conversations with people of
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other faiths and learning about theirs so you can learn how to
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more effectively share Jesus Christ with them.
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So the topic here is interfaith dialogue.
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And then what he goes on to say is about how we conduct
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interfaith dialogue. And that's where he says this
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mean an interfaith dialogue is very important because if you
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start arguing my religion is more important than yours or
8:45
mine is the true when yours is not true, where does that lead?
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He asks a question, invite someone to answer, someone
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answers destruction. And he says that's correct.
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So what he's pointing out here is that when you do interfaith
8:58
dialogue, you don't just want to get into arguments.
9:01
It's it's argument that he's focusing on here as unhelpful.
9:06
That's different than dialogue. He's all in favor of talking to
9:09
people of other religions. What he's not in favor of is
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getting into destructive arguments or arguments that lead
9:16
to destruction. He then says all religions are
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passed to God. Well, there's an element there
9:24
that's true. You know, Saint Paul, for
9:27
example, in his discussion at the Areopagus in Acts chapter
9:31
17, acknowledged that the Greeks were seeking God in their
9:36
religion. And he says, I found an altar
9:39
dedicated to an unknown God. You know, they recognized
9:42
there's probably a God we're not worshiping and we ought to
9:44
worship him. So they made an altar to an
9:46
unknown God. Saint Paul says, what you
9:49
worshiped in ignorance I now proclaim to you.
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And he then goes on to quote Greek poets who were regarded by
9:56
the Greeks as divinely inspired. And he quotes, you know how God
10:02
is near to each of us, and God made us so that we might seek
10:06
after him and perhaps find him. And he's quoting these Pagan
10:10
authors to make these points. So Saint Paul acknowledged that
10:15
even a religion as as bad as the Greek one, with all its
10:18
polytheistic gods, was a way of trying to strive after God and
10:24
grow closer to God. So that's true.
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And, and that's what the Pope is saying here, All religions are
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passed to God in that sense. That doesn't mean they're all
10:34
going to get you to an accurate understanding of God, but
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they're a way to seek after God. And then he says, I'll use an
10:41
analogy. They are like different
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languages that express the divine.
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OK, well, there's an element of truth there, too.
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Just like Saint Paul indicated, the Greeks had some truths about
10:51
God that they expressed in their way.
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But now he's going to go on to complete that with an
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understanding from a Christian perspective.
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But you could still say, yeah, different religions have
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insights about God, and they express them in their own ways.
11:06
So they are kind of like languages.
11:08
This is something that the early church fathers in the very early
11:12
Christian centuries talked about.
11:14
They didn't use this analogy, but they used another one where
11:18
they said God has let little bits of truth about him appear
11:23
in all these different religions, and they called them
11:26
seeds of the gospel. So that was the metaphor they
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use, not languages, but seeds. So you've got all these seeds
11:33
that God has planted in these other religions that then can be
11:36
used to help them understand the fullness of truth.
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So there is an element of truth here.
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You know, he's not, he's not simply, he's not being
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heretical. He's not contradicting the
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Christian faith. He would be contradicting the
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Christian faith if he went on to say stuff like, and it doesn't
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matter what religion you are. And Christianity is no better
11:58
than Buddhism or Hinduism. But he doesn't say things like
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that. Instead, he's focusing on
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elements that are true. You know, religions do seek
12:08
after God, and they do have insights that they express in
12:12
different languages. But he says God is for everyone,
12:16
and therefore we are all God's children, which now, of course,
12:20
Christians are children of God in a special way because we've
12:23
been adopted. But there is a sense in which
12:25
God is our creator, can be envisioned as our heavenly
12:29
Father. He then says, speaking in the
12:33
voice of, you know, someone doing religious dialogue the
12:36
wrong way. He says, but my God is more
12:39
important than yours and he. So here we have someone who's
12:45
conceptualizing people as having fundamentally different gods at
12:50
one of which is better than others.
12:52
But he says there is only one God, you know, So that's really
12:56
even no matter how you conceptualize it, there is only
12:59
one God. And so if you're striving after
13:02
God, that's what you're striving after the one God that really
13:06
does exist. So he says there is only one
13:09
God. And religions like languages
13:11
past are like languages past to reach God.
13:14
Then he named some specific religions.
13:16
He said some are Sikhs, which is a religion in Asia, some Muslim,
13:22
some Hindu, some Christian. And then he asks, understood?
13:26
Then he says yet interfaith dialogue among young people
13:29
takes courage. And he goes on to talk about the
13:32
value of courage and encourages the children to move forward
13:36
with confidence and dialogue. And that's all he says on this
13:39
subject. So he, you know, it's an
13:42
incomplete picture because he's not talking about the importance
13:46
of evangelization, but he what he focuses on.
13:51
The things he does say actually contain truths.
13:54
They're not framed as precisely as maybe Pope Benedict would
13:59
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14:53
Thank you, Jimmy. I think that's a great analysis.
14:56
It's always surprising to me. I guess I shouldn't be surprised
14:59
by this. But when there are these, you
15:01
know, very short snippets of the Holy Father's comments, whether
15:05
it's in the media interview or in this address to these, you
15:08
know, young people. And the thing that goes viral is
15:12
perhaps the one that has the least context, right?
15:16
Or maybe there was, you know, some imprecise language that,
15:19
you know, might be confusing to people.
15:22
But the people that seem to be pushing these clips from the
15:25
Holy Father, I mean, my strong impression, and I don't mean to
15:29
read their hearts because I can't, but my strong impression
15:32
is like, they're looking for him to trip up.
15:34
It's like, oh, that was imprecise.
15:35
Oh, that that could read a different way.
15:38
Let's make this go viral now and see how bad the Holy Father is.
15:42
And unfortunately, this is from a lot of Catholics.
15:44
This isn't just, you know, concerns or questions coming
15:47
from Protestants. This is from Catholics.
15:49
Have you observed this in your work, Demi?
15:52
And what is your take on this? I I I see it as sort of a
15:55
phenomenon that seems to keep happening.
15:58
Yeah, no, it's a real phenomenon.
16:00
And unfortunately and to our shame, it is a phenomenon that
16:03
occurs in some Catholic circles. There are some.
16:07
There's a lot of influencers of all different types online and
16:11
many of them kind of have their shtick as being outrage and, you
16:17
know, just a constant diet of negativity and looking down on
16:21
other people, which is frankly not spiritually healthy.
16:24
And some of them are on our Catholics and particularly on
16:28
the more traditional end of Catholicism who do that with
16:31
Pope Francis. And there are entire channels,
16:34
you know, on YouTube and other places by Catholics that are
16:39
that have as a regular part of their broadcast day.
16:43
Let's look down on Pope Francis and let's scour over everything
16:47
he said, interpreted it in the least favorable light and then
16:52
ginning up outrage and getting clicks.
16:55
You know, this is outrage click bait, and it's not healthy and
16:59
it's not helpful. And if you step back and say,
17:02
OK, what do we know about this guy?
17:04
Let's read him in context and let's say see if we can figure
17:08
out what he's trying to say. It's not nearly what the outrage
17:14
critics will will say, but this is something that happens with
17:18
everyone who's a prominent figure.
17:19
It happens with the Pope. It happens with presidents.
17:22
It happens with leaders of other countries.
17:25
Unfortunately, this is kind of the media environment we're
17:27
living in right now. I think some of what underpins
17:31
that, you know, maybe you can call it click bait culture, you
17:33
know, outrage culture is fear and some of it's very
17:36
understandable fear because you know, and I'm kind of playing
17:39
devil's advocate here, but I know you know, some of these
17:41
people, I think I. Can see your horns growing.
17:43
I, I feel like I've, you know, some of these people you're
17:47
referencing, I'm referencing and you know, I do think there's
17:50
some good intentions there. It's not like they're all just
17:52
out, you know, yes, you know, the outrage headline gets more
17:55
typically, but they also feel like their responsibility is to,
17:59
you know, call the whole the wayward Holy Father to account
18:03
and that they are, you know, essential to helping protect the
18:06
pure doctrine of the Church. I do think that that is a
18:09
motivating factor for some of these folks.
18:12
And, you know, and, and, and what I like to say here, and one
18:16
of the reasons I became Catholic after many years of study and
18:20
learning about the faith, and I'm still learning, of course,
18:23
is that the gates of hell will not prevail.
18:26
You know, if God forbid, the Holy Father were to apostatize
18:29
or just to go completely the route of heresy, then he, God
18:34
would remove him from his seat. I think this, you know, in the
18:37
history of the papacy, this has happened where ultimately the
18:40
Church, you know, that has been protected.
18:43
The Pope speaking, I know, from the seat of Peter on issues of,
18:47
you know, matters of faith and morals to the whole group of,
18:50
you know, Christians. Christendom has never altered
18:54
church teaching in a way, you know, in into to contradict what
18:59
has been revealed. That has to contradict what we
19:02
know to be true. That has not happened even
19:05
though we've had some popes who weren't necessarily the best
19:07
guys, you know, ever. So that gets given me tremendous
19:11
confidence. But you know what, what is your,
19:13
your take on that? You know, that fear that a lot
19:16
of, you know, good people have that in the modern world with
19:19
all the relativism that we're seeing, you know, the the church
19:23
is going to somehow betray its own mandate.
19:27
Well, I think that, you know, we do live in times that have risk
19:34
and danger and it's reasonable to be concerned about that.
19:38
Actually, though, if you study church history, which a lot of
19:41
people haven't, you find out, oh, they had just as big a
19:45
problems in the old days as we do today.
19:48
And so even though, yeah, even though, yes, we're we're living
19:52
in a time that has dangers, they were living in times that had
19:55
dangers too. And yet God has guided the
19:57
church through that and so. And that gives one confidence,
20:02
looking at all the problems God has guided the church through in
20:05
the past, well, he'll guide us through the problems we have
20:07
today too. Unfortunately, a lot of the
20:09
influencers in this area don't really help people understand
20:14
that they're focused on this is the biggest problem ever, and
20:17
they don't put it in historical context.
20:19
And rather than helping people be serene and trusting in God to
20:24
help guide the church amid difficulties, they are actually
20:28
fostering panic. And it's it's not helpful for
20:34
their audience to do that. It's one thing to say, I have
20:38
concerns here and I think this could be better expressed and we
20:41
need to be aware of this issue. But it's another thing to just
20:47
systematically build in mistrust of not the Holy Father, but of
20:53
the Holy Spirit working through the Church and the Holy Father.
20:58
So, So I think there's an element of destruction there
21:02
that people need to take into account when they see some of
21:05
these headlines. It's just like the media, you
21:08
know, the secular media sensationalizes everything it
21:10
can and pits everything and tries to frame it as a battle
21:13
between liberal and conservative and stuff and and their
21:18
influencers in the Catholic world who do the same thing.
21:21
But the better sources are the ones that step back and try to
21:25
accurately report what's going on without trying to frame it as
21:30
a the ultimate ideological death match.
21:34
There is, I've, I saw one commentator online reference
21:39
Saint Catherine of Siena, and the fact that she is a young
21:43
woman went out and spoke out against, to be clear, she didn't
21:48
speak out against the Pope per SE.
21:49
She wrote letters to the Holy Father at the time urging him to
21:53
change course on a matter she felt was incredibly important.
21:57
And so they say, well, the Saints did this.
21:58
You know, the Saints called out the Holy Father, so why can't I?
22:03
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You are going to love this coffee, and you're going to love
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this mission just as much. Well So what Saint Catherine of
23:53
Siena did was as you say write letters and that's following
23:57
Jesus's instruction in Matthew 18 to try to solve problems on
24:02
the lowest level possible. What Saint Catherine of Siena
24:05
did not do is go on YouTube and start trash talking him in
24:09
public. So if you want to write letters
24:12
to the Holy Father and give him advice on on how he should
24:16
conduct affairs in the church, that's you're not only welcome
24:19
to do that, that is your right. Because Canon law protects the
24:24
right of even the lay faithful to advise the church's pastors
24:29
on what they see is the spiritual needs of the church as
24:32
long as they do so respectfully. So if you want to write
24:34
respectful letters, go for it. You know, but that's different
24:38
than going on the Internet and trash talking your Holy Father,
24:44
you know, honor thy father and mother is one of the 10
24:47
commandments. And that applies to our
24:49
spiritual fathers as well as our biological fathers.
24:54
You know, there's that moment in Genesis after the flood where
25:00
Noah has planted a vineyard and he's made wine and he's gotten
25:05
drunk and he's gotten naked while he's drunk.
25:09
And one of his, one of his descendants, Canaan, you know,
25:15
sees him naked and then gets goes out and starts talking
25:18
about it and trash talking. Noah and two of his faithful
25:22
sons walk, go in and walk backwards and lay a blanket over
25:26
him and cover the nakedness of their father.
25:28
So and and then when Noah sobers up, he curses Canaan for what he
25:35
did. Well, frankly, you know, what
25:39
you want to do is cover the nakedness of your father, even
25:42
if it's your spiritual father. You want to have that decency.
25:46
Now, that doesn't mean never criticizing, but it does mean
25:50
being respectful and having a sense of proportion.
25:53
And that is something that a lot of folks aren't doing today.
25:57
Such a good point, Jimmy. And I think it's one that, you
26:00
know, again, I wasn't raised Catholic, but I watch this
26:03
unfold and I'm so fiercely thankful for the office of the
26:08
Pope, for the papacy. I mean, this has just been such
26:10
a blessing that the Lord has given us, you know, first to
26:13
Saint Peter and then through all of our amazing Pope since.
26:16
And of course, many of them, all of them are sinners.
26:20
All of them have fallen short of the glory of God, as have I.
26:23
And especially in, in such a, the hot seat of, you know,
26:26
traveling the world as Pope Francis does and speaking
26:29
frequently on these issues, he's going to mess up.
26:32
I mean, even some of the best apologists, I think mess up.
26:35
And that's not his natural gig anyways, is to be an apologist.
26:38
You know, he's a, he's a shepherd.
26:39
He's not so much first and foremost a preacher.
26:42
And so anyways, I, I, I, I really appreciate your
26:45
perspective on this because I think it, it's one that needs to
26:47
be shared. Not to say that every glitch or
26:49
mistake is not a glitch or a mistake, but that we owe, we owe
26:53
a prayer and loyalty to our to our Holy Father.
26:59
Listen, I want to ask you about the, what the catechism teaches
27:02
about other religions because I think this is really important.
27:06
You know, you were talking earlier about what the Holy
27:07
Father was kind of getting at. And, you know, I do know that
27:12
the church teaches that it's only through Jesus Christ and
27:14
his church that we are saved. It's not that there's some other
27:17
path. You can't, you don't get through
27:19
to heaven through Buddha. You know, that's not even under,
27:22
you know, in the debate here. So what does the Catechism say
27:27
about how in Holy Scripture? About how we should view other
27:30
religions? Well, there are a variety of
27:34
sources here. You know, the Gospels and Saint
27:36
Paul have information about this, and it's expressed in
27:39
various church documents. Recently, the Second Vatican
27:43
Council addressed this subject in its document Lumengensium,
27:46
which means light of the Gentiles.
27:49
And then the Catechism draws principally on Scripture and on
27:53
Lumengensium, and basically it acknowledges Jesus Christ is the
27:58
way, the truth, and the life. Nobody gets to the Father but
28:01
through him. So if you end up in heaven, it's
28:03
because of Jesus Christ. And the normal way we get to
28:07
heaven is by embracing the faith of Jesus Christ, becoming a
28:12
Christian, specifically becoming a Catholic and and living the
28:17
Christian life. But the Church also
28:20
acknowledges, and this is something that has deep roots in
28:22
the church. It goes back to the age of the
28:24
church fathers, that there are people who are innocently
28:29
unaware of the truth of the Christian faith and the truth of
28:33
the Catholic faith. And if you're innocently unaware
28:37
of those truths, then God's not going to hold you accountable
28:41
for them. He's understanding of what you
28:44
do know and what you don't know. And so if you don't, through no
28:48
fault of your own, if you don't understand the the truth of the
28:52
Christian faith, then God will still be willing to forgive you
28:56
as long as you live up to what you do know.
29:00
So if you otherwise cooperate with His grace, and if you
29:04
otherwise, you know, try to do His will, then you will end up
29:09
be saved. God will forgive you for your
29:12
sins. This is the same principle that
29:14
was used to save Jewish people before the time of Christ.
29:18
They didn't know the Messiah was Jesus of Nazareth and that he
29:21
was going to die on a cross and they needed to be baptized.
29:24
They didn't know any of those things, but yet they were
29:27
seeking God. They were trying to do God's
29:30
will as they understood it. They wanted his forgiveness.
29:32
They asked for his forgiveness and even though they were
29:35
unaware of the truth of Jesus, God still saved them.
29:40
And and on the same principle, God can save anybody today as
29:45
long as they're genuinely living up to what they understand the
29:49
truth to be in good conscience. Now, if someone knows the truth
29:55
of the Christian faith, and I don't mean has heard the about
29:58
the Christian faith because everybody's heard about it,
30:02
there's a, you know, just because you've heard something
30:05
doesn't create an obligation to believe it.
30:07
I mean, if you are on a desert island and a man evangelizes you
30:12
and he tells you that pigs live in trees, that Jesus Christ is
30:16
the Son of God and that water is made out of fire.
30:21
Well, he did tell you the truth that Jesus Christ is the Son of
30:25
God, but he told it to you in a context that didn't give you any
30:28
reason to believe him because the other two things he said are
30:30
patently false. So, so you know, merely having
30:36
heard the Christian faith is not enough, but if you've seen
30:39
enough evidence to know that the Christian faith is true and you
30:43
just refuse to accept it, well then you're refusing salvation
30:47
on the terms God is offering it. And that's when you do endanger
30:50
your soul. But if you're an innocent as a
30:54
non Christian, you know you were just always raised a Hindu or
30:58
whatever and you're otherwise trying to do what you believe to
31:02
be true and you know, seek after the divine, then God knows that
31:07
you're seeking after him. You've just got some limitations
31:10
because of how you were raised and he's not going to hold that
31:13
against you. He can still save you through
31:16
His Son Jesus Christ, and you'll find out that's how you were
31:19
saved when you get to heaven. So there is, I think,
31:23
misunderstanding on this or debate on this, of course,
31:25
especially from our Protestant brothers and sisters.
31:28
I think some of them, you know, point to as an example, in
31:31
Romans 10, it says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is
31:35
Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the
31:37
dead, you will be saved. And he goes on to say it is with
31:40
your mouth that you confess and are saved.
31:43
There is a belief, I know among many very faithful and sincere
31:46
Protestants, that you must profess the name of Jesus with
31:50
your lips as with your heart in order to be saved.
31:55
What's your take on that? Well, a couple of things.
31:58
Number one, if that's an absolute requirement, then all
32:03
Jews before the time of Jesus were damned because they didn't
32:07
do that. So this is obviously not an
32:10
absolute. I mean, King David would be
32:11
damned because he didn't do that.
32:14
So this is obviously not an absolute requirement.
32:17
Also, Paul's talking to Christians, people who've
32:20
already done this, so he's explaining to them this is how
32:24
you're saved and it's the normal way of salvation.
32:26
But that doesn't mean it's the only way.
32:28
I would point to an earlier passage in Romans where Saint
32:32
Paul is talking about how the law of God is written on the
32:36
hearts of men, even Gentiles meaning non Christians, because
32:40
he says those who do not have the law meaning the law of
32:43
Moses. So these are non Christian
32:45
Gentiles who don't have the law of Moses, don't know about it.
32:48
They've got the law of God written on their hearts which is
32:51
why they have consciences and debate about is this the right
32:55
thing to do or not. And Saint Paul says in that
32:58
context that their hearts may excuse them on the day when God
33:05
judges the secrets of men. So he envisions the possibility
33:09
at least as a plausible reading of the text.
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He envisions the possibility of non Christian Jews being excused
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34:30
There is another passage in Holy Scripture John 35 and I know
34:34
you're I know you know this Jesus answered them truly, truly
34:37
I say to you unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he
34:41
cannot enter the Kingdom of God. So this is often used as
34:45
evidence among many again. Well it very sincere Protestants
34:49
or Evangelicals that you must be baptized to be born again.
34:52
Otherwise you cannot enter the Kingdom of God.
34:54
You have to actually go through the physical rite of baptism.
34:56
So if you die without baptism, along with the idea of you die
35:00
without professing the name of Jesus, then you can't enter the
35:04
Kingdom of heaven? What?
35:05
What's your response to that? Well, that's a another genuine
35:10
principle, but it's also talking about the normative or ordinary
35:15
way that people get saved. It's not, however, an absolute
35:18
principle. And we can also show that from
35:21
Scripture, because if you go to Acts chapter 10, God indicated
35:27
that Luke indicates God's view of the Roman centurion
35:31
Cornelius, that he's a righteous man.
35:33
And because he's a righteous man, he's already righteous.
35:36
Because he's a righteous man, he sends Peter to preach the gospel
35:39
to him. And Peter preaches the gospel to
35:42
Cornelius in his household, and they accept the gospel, and the
35:45
Holy Spirit comes down on them. And Peter sees that the Holy
35:49
Spirit has come down on them. These people are clearly already
35:52
in a state of salvation. And it's on that basis that
35:55
Peter says, how can we forbid them water?
35:57
And then he baptizes them. So this is this is an
36:01
exceptional circumstance. It's not what normally happens.
36:04
Normally you receive the Holy Spirit through baptism.
36:07
But this shows that, as Saint Augustine said, we are bound by
36:11
the sacraments, but God is not. He can give His grace to
36:15
anybody. So by that, from that vantage
36:19
point or from because of that premise that God can, you know,
36:23
God's supernatural graces can work any way that he pleases.
36:26
And we know the order that his grace works within the church
36:29
through the sacraments, but that he can do whatever he pleases.
36:32
He's God. What does that mean then for
36:35
people who are, you know, saying, well, I'm going to just
36:38
live a good life. I'm going to try to be a good
36:40
person. All this religious stuff is kind
36:43
of intense and and you know, very warring.
36:46
Everyone's fighting about it. And, you know, the Catholic
36:48
Church has all these rules many of you don't even understand.
36:52
And so I'm going to just be a good person and I have a
36:55
personal relationship with God. I have a spiritual connection
36:58
and I'm just going to do my best to be a good person and I think
37:01
that'll get me to heaven. Well, there are a few things to
37:04
say there. One is that the Catholic Church
37:06
has way fewer rules than people imagine.
37:09
I mean, the Catholic Church has fewer rules than the United
37:12
States does. But yeah, I mean, you look at
37:14
the size of American law codes, and they're massive.
37:18
So it's easier to be a Catholic than to be an American if you
37:21
want to be a good Catholic or a good American.
37:24
And, and frankly that, oh, you've got so many rules.
37:28
Well, really we don't. That's kind of a dodge to evade
37:32
the question, to evade the issue.
37:34
But if someone says, well, I'm kind of flummoxed or baffled,
37:39
you know, by what to do religiously.
37:41
So I'm just going to focus on being good.
37:43
Well, OK, you can do that and good luck to you.
37:47
But you're running a significant risk here because the fact we're
37:51
even talking about this means that you've you've got some
37:56
interest in religion. And if you've got interest in
38:01
religion, which deals with the two most important subjects in
38:04
life, God and the afterlife, well, you're going to be, you're
38:10
going to be spending your afterlife with or without God.
38:14
And so you really want to have an, you really want to have an
38:18
informed position on this. So if you just decide, well, I'm
38:24
just going to slack off, I'm just going to be lazy and not
38:27
look into this. You're taking a risk.
38:31
What I would counsel anyone to do is, you know, God is the most
38:35
important. He's infinite.
38:36
So he's the most important subject there is. 2nd to that is
38:40
your infinite afterlife. You really want to get those two
38:43
issues sorted out before you're confronted with God in the
38:46
afterlife. So I think you need to devote
38:49
enough study to this to actually figure out what's going on and
38:53
what you need to do. Well, I think that's why our
38:55
Lord preaches so much, you know, in the Gospels about the, you
39:00
know, worldliness and getting caught up and worried about the
39:04
world, what we will eat, what we will drink, what we will wear.
39:07
And how if we're too focused on the material, you know, all of
39:11
these worries, you know, we are like the plant that doesn't take
39:14
root, that will get eaten up by the weeds.
39:16
And then, you know, we have no, we can't bear fruit, of course,
39:19
if we're eaten up by the weeds and we might even, you know,
39:21
forfeit our soul. That's how serious this is.
39:23
So what would be your, what would be your general, you know,
39:27
maybe advice or encouragement, especially or listeners who
39:30
maybe they're, you know, they're on their faith journey.
39:32
They're trying to develop their faith, but they have friends,
39:35
family and they're trying to like, you know, not be a crazy
39:38
person, but wake up family members who maybe are not taking
39:41
this seriously. They they're trying to be good
39:43
people and maybe they're really good people, right?
39:45
Some of these, you know, pay the moral pagans are sometimes more
39:48
moral than some of the Christians, right?
39:50
And so they're just good people trying to live good lives, but
39:53
they're not spiritually questioning or awake.
39:55
And so maybe they, you know, their friends or family struggle
39:59
with how to even advantage evangelize them.
40:01
I would say that there are a few things here.
40:04
It's it first is it's a difficult thing to evangelize
40:07
your own family. Jesus himself said that a
40:11
prophet has no honor in his own country and among his own
40:14
family. And so you can, you can
40:17
evangelize your family in an aggressive way, but they're
40:20
going to be thinking, you know, if they're your parents, they're
40:23
going to be thinking, I changed your diapers.
40:26
Who are who are you haven't been around as long as me.
40:28
Who are you to tell me all this stuff?
40:30
And if they're your your siblings, they're going to be
40:33
thinking, I remember when you stole my favorite toy and who
40:38
are you to tell me all about this stuff?
40:40
Why are you getting all holy all of a sudden?
40:42
So you've got an inbuilt human reaction that you have to deal
40:47
with. And that means, I think a few
40:51
things. One of them now it sometimes
40:53
works out where people evangelize their families.
40:56
They're very direct, they're very blunt.
40:58
And it works. And that's great.
41:00
And I'm not saying don't try that.
41:02
But if you do try that and you don't get anywhere, then you
41:06
need to back off. And instead, you need to focus
41:10
on living a good Christian life and showing them the difference
41:16
that being a Christian has made in your life.
41:18
This is something that Saint Peter talks about in his letters
41:22
where he's envisioning the circumstance of a Christian
41:25
woman who's married to a Pagan man.
41:28
You know, they were both pagans at the time they were married,
41:30
but now the woman has become Christian.
41:32
And that's the way it often was. You know, many of the earliest
41:35
converts were women, but then they've got this Pagan husband.
41:38
And Peter talks about how the woman should focus on living a
41:42
Christian life and evangelizing through the way she lives so
41:46
that her husband can be 1 to Christ without words.
41:50
And if you can use words with your family, that's great.
41:55
But if you can't use words with your family, if you find out
41:58
that's counterproductive, then you want to live a good
42:01
Christian life. You want to mention God
42:03
sometimes. You want to show the difference
42:05
he makes in your life, but you don't want to press too hard.
42:09
Ultimately, you still want to pray for them, and you want to
42:11
look for opportunities to discuss religious matters with
42:14
them. You want to be as prepared as
42:17
you can. You know, another thing Peter
42:18
says is always be ready to give an answer to others for the hope
42:22
that is in you, the hope in Christ.
42:24
So you want to, you want to study enough to be prepared to
42:29
give a basic account of your Christian belief and why you
42:33
believe it. You want to at least a little
42:35
exposure to evangelization and apologetics and be ready to do
42:39
that and even be eager to do that.
42:42
Just don't be so eager that it becomes counterproductive.
42:46
And as always, as Saint Paul says, you want to share the
42:48
truth in love. Don't talk down to people, don't
42:52
condemn them. Be a loving person and talk
42:55
about how great it is to have hope and joy and love and
42:59
forgiveness from God. What is the best answer, the
43:03
best way to answer the question? The scenario of in heaven there
43:08
will be going to have your evangelicals in heaven, you're
43:11
going to have maybe people who practice the Muslim faith or or
43:16
Hindu or people that had no faith at all.
43:18
You know, they were just passionate about whatever they
43:21
were passionate about that, you know, ultimately was not in
43:24
conflict with the truth, true God, but they were in their own
43:27
way seeking him as best they could.
43:29
How can that be that those kinds of people may be in heaven?
43:34
Well, so in heaven we're going to know the truth.
43:37
And so it doesn't matter what partial presentation of the
43:41
truth you had in life when we actually get there at, you know,
43:45
God, if we've died in God's friendship and we go to heaven,
43:48
he's going to reveal to us the truth, including about the
43:51
Christian faith. And actually, I'm hoping he's
43:53
going to reveal the truth about a lot of mysteries to us.
43:55
I'm all into mysteries, but when we get.
43:58
And is that the personal? Is that the personal judgement
44:00
where that happens when you're you're, you're, you're, you're
44:03
you give your account on a personal level and then you also
44:06
get the full truth in a in on a moment of incredible
44:09
illumination or what does that look?
44:11
Like that hadn't been determined and that's something the church
44:15
doesn't have a teaching on it. Exactly.
44:17
When we get this and what sequence, there is some evidence
44:22
from near death experience that experiences that
44:25
parapsychological researchers have studied where someone comes
44:29
back and said it was amazing. I I knew everything.
44:32
I knew all I had to think about was a subject and then suddenly
44:34
I know the answers. I just can't remember any of it
44:37
now. I wasn't allowed to bring that
44:38
information back to this life. So you know it, it could be very
44:43
quick that they get this truth. But what we can say with
44:45
confidence is in heaven, we will have the truth.
44:49
And so just to tie up the answer to your question, as a Catholic,
44:55
I'm, I say, well, the Catholic faith is true.
44:58
So no matter what people were in this life, no matter what
45:00
partial version of the truth they had when they were alive,
45:05
they're going to have the full Catholic truth in heaven.
45:07
And so we'll all be Catholics. So what is then ultimately the
45:12
church's teachings on how one is saved?
45:14
I know you know, 1 is saved through Jesus Christ, but if you
45:19
don't fully understand that, you're not, you know, let's say
45:22
you're not baptized, you're confirmed.
45:24
How is it possible that you may still be saved?
45:27
So we're talking exceptional cases here now, not ordinary
45:31
cases. So what that does what that
45:33
means the way the questions been posed is we need to look at what
45:36
are the minimal conditions for salvation.
45:39
The minimal condition for salvation is love.
45:43
This is something that John indicates where he says, you
45:47
know, God is love and anyone who dwells in God has love and God
45:51
dwells in him. So if you have love, you are
45:55
meaning supernatural love, not just I love pizza or I love my
45:59
brother because he loves me. That's, you know, Jesus says if
46:03
you only greet your brothers, don't don't the Gentiles do
46:05
that? You need to be have God's
46:07
supernatural love, which ideally involves an awareness of God
46:13
himself as the source of infinite goodness.
46:16
It may not in your case if you're poorly catechized and
46:20
educated, but ideally it includes knowledge of God.
46:24
And if you love God and by extension love your neighbor,
46:29
then you are in a state of grace.
46:32
St. Paul highlights an additional
46:35
element, which is faith, because in the in in the ideal and in
46:40
the normal situation, you need conscious faith in Jesus Christ.
46:45
And so the way Saint Paul says it in First Corinthians 13 is,
46:49
you know, even if I have faith strong enough to move mountains,
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which is really strong faith, but I don't have love, he says
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that won't benefit me. What we need, he says in
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Galatians 5, is faith working through love or faith that works
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through love. And so the absolute minimum is
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supernatural love, which means disinterested love, not loving
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because I get a benefit out of it, but loving because God is
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awesome and other people need to be helped and stuff like that.
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If it's, if it's you, if it's a, if it's supernatural love, you
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are in a state of grace. The normal way that manifests is
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through conscious faith in Jesus Christ, but those are the
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fundamental minimal principles in answer to this question.
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Ordinarily, you need to consciously repent of your sins.
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You need to consciously embrace the faith of Jesus Christ.
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You need to be baptized and you need to be baptized in Jesus
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Church which is the Catholic Church.
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Thank you, Jimmy. So much good stuff and I know we
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could talk about so many more topics.
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So we've got to have you back on because we regularly address
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these issues on the show and we got to have you in studio too.
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Thanks for doing this last minute from your your post.
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Where can people find your work, Jimmy?
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Well I work for Catholic Answers and our website iscatholic.com
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because it was the 1990s and we thought ahead and also my
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personal website isjimmyaiken.com.
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All you gotta do to find it is spell my name correctly.
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Jimmy is JIMY Aiken is so easy. It's just 4 letters exactly like
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it sounds AKIN. There are no ES, TS, or s s in
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Akin. So jimmyakin.com is sort of my
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online hub and you can also check out my YouTube channel at
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youtube.com/jimmyakin where I have new videos coming out every
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day. Amazing.
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Thank you so much, Jimmy. Thanks for joining the podcast.
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My pleasure. A huge thank you to our partner,
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EWTN. EWTN is the world's leading
49:04
Catholic network, reaching millions with the truth about
49:07
the faith, entertainment and news.
49:09
Check them out at ewtn.com.