Wednesday, 6/26/14
Jesus in the Gospel warned us against false prophets, who
come like wolves in sheep’s clothing. And then he adds, “By their fruit you
will know them. A rotten tree cannot bear good fruit.”
If we had a narrow Catholic upbringing we might have been
led to see the preachers of other religions as the false prophets against whim
Jesus warned us.
However, we would have been quite wrong in that. Since a bad
tree cannot bear good fruit, when we see Baptists or Lutherans doing good work,
bearing good fruit, we should come to regard them as models of goodness whom we
should befriend and imitate.
Our Church now warns us against condemning people for
following other religions. The Second Vatican Council put it this way:
“The Vatican Council
declares that the human person has the right to religious freedom. Freedom of
this kind means that all men should be free from coercion on the part of
individuals, social groups and every human power so that, within due limits, no
one is forced to act against his convictions nor is anyone to be restrained
from acting in accordance with his convictions in religious matters in private
or public, alone or in association with others.”
That “Decree on Religious Liberty” was very different from
the attitudes of former times when the Inquisition punished heretics. The
Church adopted this saner and more Christian attitude after seeing how well
Freedom of Religion brought happiness to the United States.
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