{"id":296,"date":"2008-05-08T06:11:44","date_gmt":"2008-05-08T06:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/05\/is-catholicism-the-only-path-t.html"},"modified":"2008-05-08T06:11:44","modified_gmt":"2008-05-08T06:11:44","slug":"is-catholicism-the-only-path-t","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/05\/is-catholicism-the-only-path-t.html","title":{"rendered":"Is Catholicism the Only Path to God?"},"content":{"rendered":"

You may know that Pope Benedict XVI made an assertion last July that the Catholic Church was the only true church. Can this is correct? If so, what does this mean? Is every other path to God doomed to failure?
\nIn a video just released, Steve Farrell, the worldwide coordinator director of a global grass roots citizen’s movement called Humanity’s Team, said that the Pope would serve humanity best if he renounced his earlier statement and now declared that no path to God was better than any other; that all paths lead to God.
\nClaiming one faith or tradition is better or truer than another not only goes against the concept of an unconditionally loving God, Farrell said, it also leads to judgmental division, which is the root cause of the world’s discord and violent conflict.
\nFarrell called on the pope to prayerfully reconsider his statements and take a leadership role in reaching out to people of all spiritual and cultural understandings in a spirit of Oneness.
\nI agree with him completely. I founded Humanity’s Team a number of years ago, and have since released it to its own creations, which have brought much good to our world. (You may wish to check this organization out at www.humanitysteam.com). In the book Communion with God<\/em> humanity is gently reminded once again that there is no One and Only Path to God. (Everyone wants to say and to claim that there is, but there is not.)
\nAs Steve Farrell points out, there is great danger is making such a claim. It tears the world apart, putting God-believer against God-believer in a psychological (and sometimes a physical) battle to see who is “right.” Yet, dangerous and unhelpful or not, the Pope did indeed declare that the Roman Catholic Church was the only path to salvation.
\nBenedict approved a document released last July 11 that says other Christian communities are either defective or not true churches, and Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation, according to the Associated Press news story released at that time.
\nThe statement, the AP said, “brought swift criticism” from Protestant leaders. \u201cIt makes us question whether we are indeed…<\/p>\n


\n…praying together for Christian unity,\u201d the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, a fellowship of 75 million Protestants in more than 100 countries, was quoted as saying in the AP story.
\nTo me it is incomprehensible that in this day and time, when the world is desperately trying to find a way to bring an end to social, political, and religious conflict and unite, that any religion would seek to assert such theological superiority.
\nSuperiority, says Communion with God<\/em>, is one of the Ten Illusions of Humans. In that extraordinary text, God tells humanity that its first mistake has been in assuming that God has “needs.” Out of that thought, the idea that God’s love for us is “conditional” arose. Then God says…<\/p>\n

Humans concluded that if Conditionality existed, then knowing<\/em> the Conditions would be necessary to enjoy and create the life — and the Afterlife — that one desired.
\nThis conclusion was unavoidable, as was the idea which followed, which was that those who knew the Conditions were better off than those who did not.
\nIt did not take much time for the human race to remove the word \u201coff\u201d from the above sentence.
\nThe idea of Superiority was born.
\nSuperiority had many uses. Chief among these was that it provided inarguable justification for doing whatever was needed in order to guarantee that \u201cenough\u201d of whatever was wanted\u2014including God\u2019s love\u2014was available. Knowing the Conditions gave one the \u201cright\u201d to ignore others, or seek to convert others, or simply eliminate others who did not know the Conditions, or agree to them.
\nSeeking to know the Conditions of Life thus became a major preoccupation with humans. Knowing the Conditions of Life was called science. Knowing the Conditions of the Afterlife was called conscience. If one knew these conditions, and understood them, one was said to have \u201ca good conscience,\u201d or to be \u201cconscious.\u201d
\nA \u201chigh consciousness\u201d was said to result from the earnest study of something you called theology, from theo+logy, or, loosely, God Logic.
\nAfter much study, it was concluded that there were certain circumstances under which The Requirement could be met, and certain circumstances under which that was impossible. There were also certain circumstances under which one could be forgiven for not having met The Requirement.
\nThese circumstances came to be known as The Conditions…
\n…The more knowledge of these Conditions one acquired (or was thought to have acquired), the more Superior one was understood to be. As has been mentioned, this Superiority gave people the authority (or encouraged people to grant themselves the authority) to do whatever they felt was necessary in order to assure themselves more Life and more God \u2013 both of which there was clearly not enough.
\nThis is why you\u2019ve had to do what you\u2019ve had to do: because there was not enough. This is what you have told yourself. Your entire species has accepted this as your mantra.
\nThere\u2019s more than one of you, and so there is not enough to go around. Not enough love, not enough food, not enough money, not enough God.
\nYou have to compete for it.
\nAnd if you\u2019re going to compete, you have to have some way of figuring out who wins.
\nSuperiority was your answer.
\nThe one who is Superior wins\u2014and Superiority is based on certain Conditions.
\nSome humans sought to guarantee that they would win this competition, and so arbitrarily added to the Conditions to make it possible to declare themselves the victors in advance.
\nThey declared, for instance, that males were superior to females. Wasn\u2019t this self-evident?, some of the thinkers among you asked. (Of course, these were mostly males doing the asking.)
\nSimilarly, whites were pronounced to be Superior.
\nAnd then, later, Americans.
\nAnd, of course, Christians.
\nOr was it Russians? And Jews? And women<\/em>?
\nCould such things be true?
\nOf course, they could. It all depended upon who was creating the ratings system.<\/em>
\nThe very earliest Superior beings were not male\u2026and males actually agreed. After all, were females not the bringers of Life? And was Life not that for which everyone had the highest desire? So it was during your matriarchal period that females were considered superior.
\nSimilarly, the white race was not the first race, and therefore not Superior.
\nIn truth, it is not Superior today.
\nNor is it Superior to be male.
\nNor to be Jewish.
\nNor to be Christian.
\nNor to be Islamic, nor Bhuddist, nor Hindu, nor even Democrat or Republican or Labour or Conservative or Reform or Communist or People\u2019s Party or anything else whatsoever.<\/em>
\nHere is the truth \u2013 the truth that will set you free, the truth you cannot allow to be spoken because it WILL set everyone free:
\nThere is no such thing as Superiority.<\/em>
\nYou have made it all up. <\/em>
\nYou have defined what you<\/em> think is Superior, based on your preferences and your desires and your understandings (which are very limited, indeed). You have announced what you proclaim to be \u201cbetter\u201d based on your<\/em> perspective and your<\/em> objectives and your<\/em> agenda.
\nYet some of you have claimed this is My<\/em> agenda. God<\/em> is the one who had named yours the Chosen People, or the One True Faith, or the Only Path to Salvation.
\nAll of this goes back to the First Illusion: Need Exists.
\nYou imagine that because God has needs, God has an agenda.
\nThis was your First Mistake, and it has led to what could be your last. For I tell you this: your idea of Superiority could be the last mistake you ever make.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Amazing, isn’t it? This was given to humanity in a book called Communion with God<\/em> years ago, and the words read as fresh today as they did then. If you have not read Communion with God<\/em>, I highly commend it to your reading. Many have said that it is one of the most extraordinary theological books of our time. I cannot make that claim because my name is on the cover (though I do not claim to be its “author”), but I can report that others have made that claim, and I can understand why. Once you read the book, you will understand why as well. Yet it is not the One and Only book on theology and spirituality to read; it is not the One and Only Answer. There are hundreds of contemporary spiritual texts in this category to consider. We must consider them all.
\nCan we have the same freedom with regard to our religions? Must humanity hear, once again, from one particular church leader that his<\/em> church is the only One True Church — and the only path to salvation? Does this help in humanity’s quest for peace and harmony and….God?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may know that Pope Benedict XVI made an assertion last July that the Catholic Church was the only true church. Can this is correct? If so, what does this mean? Is every other path to God doomed to failure? In a video just released, Steve Farrell, the worldwide coordinator director of a global grass…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-looking-up-close-at-life"],"yoast_head":"\nIs Catholicism the Only Path to God? - Conversations with God<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Catholicism the Only Path to God? - Conversations with God\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You may know that Pope Benedict XVI made an assertion last July that the Catholic Church was the only true church. Can this is correct? If so, what does this mean? 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