The Catholic Church has now apparently distanced itself from a recent claim of Pope Francis that even atheists, as long as they are good people, can receive salvation and get to heaven.
The Rev. Thomas Rosica made the following statement:
All salvation comes from Christ, the Head, through the Church which is his body. Hence they cannot be saved who, knowing the Church as founded by Christ and necessary for salvation, would refuse to enter her or remain in her. … (Pope Francis) is first and foremost a seasoned pastor and preacher who has much experience in reaching people. His words are not spoken in the context of a theological faculty or academy nor in interreligious dialogue or debate.
Notice the part in italics. It doesn’t appear the church actually submitted a wholecloth retraction of Francis’ statement about nonbelievers entering heaven. They seem to have conceded that possibility in theory, even if leaders within the church vehemently disagree with Francis’ statement. The part that trips them up is the fact that atheists would not willingly enter heaven even if they could, and thus, in that regard, they can’t be saved. This seems like a technicality to me, but in any case, also at issue here is the church’s doctrine of papal infallibility.
The pope, as you might recall, gets his inspiration from God, according to the church and sits in a position of infallibility originally promised to Peter in the New Testament. This is the entire basis for the position of the pope in the first place. It’s right there in the Catholic Encyclopedia (as quoted from the “First dogmatic constitution on the Church of Christ,” July 1870):
The Vatican Council has defined as “a divinely revealed dogma” that “the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra — that is, when in the exercise of his office as pastor and teacher of all Christians he defines, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, a doctrine of faith or morals to be held by the whole Church — is, by reason of the Divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer wished His Church to be endowed in defining doctrines of faith and morals …
- The pontiff must teach in his public and official capacity as pastor and doctor of all Christians, not merely in his private capacity as a theologian, preacher or allocutionist, nor in his capacity as a temporal prince or as a mere ordinary of the Diocese of Rome. It must be clear that he speaks as spiritual head of the Church universal.
One could argue that declaring who can and cannot enter heaven does not fall under “defining doctrines of faith and morals,” but if the church argues that the pope is not divinely inspired and is not actually equal to or above some ivory tower theologian, then what is the pope but a puppet? Second, what if God, if we assume he exists for a second, actually stopped being a jealous and immature father, cruelly demanding both love and fear, and decided to be more progressive for a change, inviting nonbelievers into heaven if they wanted to come and if not, no hard feelings. What if that was the profound message Francis was delivering?
Further, and a more indemnifying point, if the pope is not getting his words directly from heaven and from the lips of God himself, then he is just another mortal with no special connection to heaven whatsoever and inspired, not by God, but by his own humanity. That, to me, is a beautiful thing but a ruinous thought for a church that has built a centuries-long legacy on betting that it had a singular grasp on both knowledge and the divine will.