Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Which Is the One True Faith?

As mentioned by Kula yesterday, the Pope has come out and said what no Catholic probably ever doubted - that the Catholic Church is the only "true" church of Jesus Christ. He didn't quite come out and explicitly say "we're the only way to get to heaven," but that's certainly the implication.

While this makes some people upset (understandably, I suppose), it strikes me as a big case of, "so what?" This makes Catholicism different from other sects, Christian and otherwise, how? Every faith thinks of itself as "the one" - that's why people take them so seriously. Some are more laid back about it - they're not out to change your mind about your wrong choice in religion - but they're just as exclusionary. It's certainly not good PR to come out and say "we're right, you're wrong, and, oh by the way, you're going to Hell because of it," but it's hardly something exclusive to Catholicism.

1 comment:

jedijawa said...

Well, I suppose it's not as bad as saying that you will only go to heaven if you believe in a particular religion and make the list of the 144,000 bestest people of the bunch. That would really be ... oh wait ... never mind.