about in human hearts and in the history of peoples, in cultures, and religions’.86 Indeed, some prayers and rituals of the other religions may assume a role of preparation for the Gospel, in that they are occasions or pedagogical helps in which the human heart is prompted to be open to the action of God.87 One cannot attribute to these, however, a divine origin or an ex opere operato salvific efficacy, which is proper to the Christian sacraments.88 Furthermore, it cannot be overlooked that other rituals, insofar as they depend on superstitions or other errors (cf. 1 Cor 10:20–21), constitute an obstacle to salvation.44,89
The door is thus closed on trying to establish any form of pluralism de iure,45 but it is kept open to explore how these religions might be forms of ‘participated mediation’ in so much as their positive elements might actually be part of God’s plan to lead all people to Christ. These positive elements cannot be viewed as positive in themselves, but only as some form of praeparatio. Such a distinction is crucial. DI rightly suggests that this is a question that requires serious theological exploration. However, it also needs to be said that the ‘positive elements’ that might act in this fashion are not necessarily how those religions would interpret themselves. The meaning of religions is not fixed, although one must take the various historical forms seriously that contest what the right interpretation of a religion is. But logically speaking, to turn the situation around, a Muslim has both the epistemological and political right to claim that the true meaning of Christianity is disclosed in the Qur’an and has been misunderstood by mainstream Christianity. The Christian at least would then need to turn to the Qur’an and the Bible to try and refute this claim Quranically, and if they could not, they would then have to try and show why Christianity better understands the meaning of Islam. Whether there is any resolution to such arguments is not relevant. That they are required is all-important. For example: many mainstream Jews would resist the affirmation that the Church might give to the positive elements drawn from Judaism. How so? If these affirmations were to end in Christian support for messianic Judaism or Jews for Jesus or Hebrew Christians. Likewise, if a Muslim considered unorthodox because they believed Isa (Jesus) to be a fulfilment of the Prophet’s teaching. What the Church might deem ‘positive elements’, as happened with Justin and Eusebius, are not necessarily viewed in the same light by the non-Christian to whose traditions they belong. Of course, in very many cases the positive elements will be mutually affirmed by both Christians and the partner, as in almsgiving and fasting, valued by Muslims and Catholics. And in some cases the positive elements might cause deep shame and also learning and wonder in a Catholic.
To summarize: while other religions might be affirmed in the way outlined above, they can only be seen as part of God’s plan in so much as they provide a praeparatio to the gospel, but not in themselves as a means of salvation. While saying this latter, there is no implication that non-Christians are damned or that genuine holiness is to be found in adherents, and wisdom in their traditions. We see emerging a nuanced and delicate balance between a group of theological principles that uphold both the ancient orthodox faith of the Catholic Church as well as positively engaging with this new context whereby the religions are seen as other than schismatic and heretical cultural configurations. Of course, that they might contain idolatries of all sorts is also an important continuity in teaching. This point is consistently made in all the documents we have examined. I have been stressing the positive themes, but they cannot be taken seriously and in a balanced manner without taking seriously the reality of sin. LG 16 adds this ominous and realistic note after the positive appraisal of the religions:
But often men, deceived by the Evil One, have become vain in their reasonings and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, serving the creature rather than the Creator. (See Rom. 1.21, 25) Or some there are who, living and dying in this world without God, are exposed to final despair. Wherefore to promote the glory of God and procure the salvation of all of these, and mindful of the command of the Lord, ‘Preach the Gospel to every creature’ (Mark 16.16) the Church fosters the missions with care and attention.
Mission and inculturation
I have touched on these two above, but it is time to be explicit: what does the Council teach about mission? Three things are clear in numerous Council documents. First, it is the nature of the Church to be a light to all nations, to call all men and women to the good news that Christ has come to bring salvation into the world.46 There is no exception to the extent of evangelization, for to exclude anyone would be to exclude them from God’s great gift to all men and women. Second, while there is a call to universal mission, there is also a call to respect the dignity of every human person and thus their freedom of conscience.47 No one should be coerced to follow Christ, and mission does not call for disrespect or belittling of other beliefs and practices. I have also noted how after the Council, the Church has officially recognized that Catholics have not always followed their own teachings. Third, mission means planting Christian communities in every nation so that all cultures and creation can join in a hymn of praise and thanksgiving to the triune God. Mission involves the gradual transformation of the Church through a critically sifted process of inculturation.
This third point is worth dwelling on further, for it raises the important question: What elements from other religions might transform future Christian practices and beliefs? The answer I think is in principle simple: anything that is good, true, and holy in the cultures of the world can and should be incorporated into the Church. In practice the answer is far more complex. After the discovery of the ‘New World’, as it was called, Catholic missionaries engaged with all types of religious cultures, some of which had appalling dark elements and others which elicited high praise and respect. It goes without saying that the same was true for the missionaries’ own religious culture. Discerning dark from light is sometimes rather complex and incorporating the good and positive elements likewise. Today, for example, we would not necessarily share the judgement of a Jesuit in India who found in the practice of widow immolation (sati) something so noble and dutiful, that it would truly challenge Hindus if Christians could engage in such self-sacrificial martyrdom!48 And Christians might evaluate certain rites very differently. Some Catholic missionaries were perhaps uniquely able to appreciate what some of the Protestant missionaries could only see as Hindu ‘idol worship’ in the practices of Hindu puja. Those Protestant missionaries of course saw idol worship in the practices of Catholicism!
Regarding inculturation (the use of cultures to give shape and form to the proclamation of the gospel) it is a fair generalization to say that within Catholicism the Western Latin tradition dominated for historical and geographical reasons. As Newman has argued, the Latin tradition was a long slow process of critical inculturation of Greek and Roman traditions, practices and conceptualities.49 Harnack and earlier Reformers judged this to be sometimes the dilution and falsification of Christianity, but since I am accepting the basic dogmatic legitimacy of the Western Latin tradition I am not going to get bogged down in this debate. The inculturation of ‘positive elements’ from non-Christian traditions forms the historical explication of ‘faith’, which as ‘faith’ cannot be reduced to any single culture. Nevertheless the culture through which Christianity was transmitted in the West does takes a privileged but contingent role in that it critically forms that which is called ‘tradition’, and tradition contains all sorts of normative statements (in Councils, for example) that are determinative for shaping developments and articulations of the faith in different cultural mediums. With the slow crumbling of European economic and political power this issue will become more and more acute in the Western Latin tradition. In 1659, in the early days of the discovery of the New World, the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (now known as the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples) issued an instruction to new missionaries to China, regarding the matter of adapting to local customs and respecting the habits of the countries to be evangelized: ‘Do
