Laudetur Jesus Christus!
Good morning Father Angelo. I am writing to you again after a couple of years, to bring to your attention a matter that I consider important for the life of the Church, hoping that you can bring some clarity to it.
I confess that what happened in recent times has led me to many reflections and in depth analysis, reminiscent of Saint Augustine when he affirmed “Credo ut intelligam, intelligo ut credam”.
Among other things I happened to read the 2019 Abu Dhabi Declaration on the Vatican website.
In the past few days I have returned to reflect upon it, after a discussion with a priest with whom I had an exchange of views that left me somewhat perplexed, and that I would like to tell you about as a premise.
The priest claimed that today’s faith is not the same faith of decades ago,  and is not the same faith of ten or twenty years from now. I objected that Christ is always the same, and that even though one’s faith can follow its own path depending on the response one can give in time to God’s calling, however the Deposit of Faith cannot be historicized, as if God’s law were not the same throughout time and everywhere, and therefore stable and certain, unshakeable and reasonable (incidentally this priest, to avoid any misconceptions, returned on this subject in an homily in which he stated that faith is not a “package of things to believe”, but something that changes in time and touches each of us, in different ways).
In response to my considerations, that went as far as suggesting that such a view was not reassuring – and might even alienate the faithful, who seek the rock and not quicksand – the priest told me in confidence that they have been trying to transmit the faith for sixty years with little success.
I was troubled by this exchange, but found comfort in Saint Paul recommending Timothy to keep the  deposit  of faith (the good deposit) with  the help of the Holy  Spirit.
Later on the above cited declaration came back to my attention, and I read the passage that says: “The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings. This divine wisdom is the source from which the right to freedom of belief and the freedom to be different derives”. So I ask you, how can our Faith be reconciled with such a statement claiming that pluralism and the diversity of religions are willed by God in His wisdom, the same wisdom with which He created the human beings and the pluralism of color, sex, race and language?
If such latter characters and their pluralism are recognized as wise divine will, i.e. willed by God (which is indisputable for the plurality of sexes, since male and female He made them), I do not understand how the same would hold true for the various religions.
Would the triune God will the existence of more religions all of which (save for one)  deny His Unity and Trinity?
Would the real God, whose Logos Divine Wisdom became incarnate (so that we had Jesus Christ, true man and true God) will the existence of religions – practically all of them but one – denying Jesus Christ and his divinity, or his humanity, as the case may be?
One could argue here that God’s will is intended in the sense of permissive will, meaning that God allows, but does not will the existence of more religions, in his Providence.
However, could this be applied to the diversity of color, sex, race and language, given that these elements are also the object of God’s “wisdom through which he created human beings”?
In reality these other elements would not seem to be the object of permissive will (certainly not at least the plurality of sexes); would this imply that the expression “divine wisdom” would take on different meanings depending on the objects that are willed?
Could this have been an oversight? In a document signed by the Pope? A text that “has been given honest and serious thought”?.
A document that talks about “our common belief in God”, common to us catholics who believe in a triune God, and in the divinity and humanity of Jesus, and to muslims, who deny both these mysteries?
Besides, if God really willed the plurality of religions, what would be the point of the incarnation? The plurality of religions would constitute a denial of the one true religion. Jesus would be at the same level of Mohammed, Bhudda, etc.  in a religious view that seems to refer to the beliefs of someone I do not dare to name, and has been condemned by the Popes from the very beginning, in the XVIII century. The narrow way would be just one of the many ways, and Christ’s sacrifice would be an event as many others.  What about the blood of martyrs, what would be the point of it under these premises? To bring the argument to an extreme, preaching the gospel to all peoples would be a violation of their freedom.  At this point what would be the point of the Church, to which Christ entrusted the task of making the true faith known to all men?
If one could even find some explanation that could reconcile the above mentioned statement with our Faith (perhaps their reasoning was not on a strictly religious plane, but to what end?), I am afraid this would carry with it the risk of lack of clarity and certainty, and therefore lead to confusion. And, I said to myself, this would promote an understanding of Faith as something that can vary with time to adapt itself to the places and the times. Or also a concept of Faith as something that can be interchangeable with other religious professions ad libitum. Or of a Faith that changes with time, as already mentioned.
On the other hand, as Catholics we must always keep in mind Christ’s admonition, when he asks if the Son of Man will find faith when he comes again.
I apologize if I was blunt. I do not mean to be provocative  or irreverent, but by the love I feel for Our Lord Jesus Christ, reading such declarations is not a source of joy, and I would love it if you could clarify to me the meaning of that passage and reconcile it properly with the Faith of all times.
I thank you and I remember you in my prayers, also as a member of the Confraternity of the Rosary.
May God bless us and may the Virgin protect us.
Samuel

Priest’s answer

Dear Samuel,
1. The issues in your email can be summarized in these two points: a faith that changes and the statement in the Abu Dhabi declaration.

2. About changing faith: it is necessary to distinguish between the objective and the subjective element.
What is objectively true in faith, which Saint Paul calls the deposit of faith (1Tm 3,9), which represents what God revealed and communicated to us, clearly cannot change.
In the profession of faith we recite every Sunday we say: “I believe the Church one, holy, catholic and apostolic”.
When we believe in the apostolic Church we refer principally to two realities: the first is the Church, built “on the foundation of the apostles” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 857).

3. This means that our faith in Christ is the same faith the apostles had. It’s not a different faith, it is not a faith that changed or was transformed.
The First Vatican Council teaches in the dogmatic constitution Dei Filius that the “doctrine of faith which God revealed has not been handed down as a philosophic invention to the human mind to be perfected, but has been entrusted as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ, to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence, also, that understanding of its sacred dogmas must be perpetually retained, which Holy Mother Church has once declared; and there must never be recession from that meaning under the specious name of a deeper understanding” (DS 3020).
This document goes on by echoing the pronouncements of a Church Father, Vincent of Lerins: “Let the understanding, the knowledge, and wisdom of individuals as of all, of one man as of the whole Church, grow and progress strongly with the passage of the ages and the centuries; but let it be solely in its own genus, namely in the same dogma, with the same sense and the same understanding.(sed in suo dumtaxat genere, in eodem scilicet dogmate, eodem sensu eademque sententia)” [Vincent of Lerins, Commonitorium, 23, 3].

4. In dogmatic terms the same Council decreed that “If anyone shall assert it to be possible that sometimes, according to the progress of science, a sense is to be given to doctrines propounded by the Church different from that which the Church has understood and understands; let him be anathema” (DS 3043).
That is why a famous theological axiom states that: “Quod semel verum, semper verum”, What is believed as true once – with the assistance of the Holy Spirit – remains true for ever”. 

5. Therefore what that priest said, namely: “Today’s faith is not the faith of decades past, and is not the faith that will exist ten or twenty years from now”, from this point  of view is totally erroneous.
It would be tantamount to saying that each of us make up the faith we want.
But this is not faith anymore, because having faith – even just from a human point of view – means trusting the authority of who speaks to us, obeying and surrendering to what is being said to us.

6. Conversely, If by faith development we mean developing a particular sensitivity to some truths of faith, a deeper understanding of them, living them in a much more heartfelt way and better comprehensible to the people of our time, and most of all opening new paths of evangelization that are best suited to every age, then all this is part of the nature of  the “deposit” that the Lord has given us.
It corresponds to the traffic of the talent that has been entrusted to us,  and to what Vincent of Lerins said: “The intelligence, then, the knowledge, the wisdom, as well of individuals as of all, as well of one man as of the whole Church, ought, in the course of ages and centuries, to increase and make much and vigorous progress; but yet only in its own kind; that is to say, in the same doctrine, in the same sense, and in the same meaning”.
This is not about a different faith, but about the same faith, lived more deeply and more fully.
It corresponds perfectly to what the holy Pope John XXIII said in the great opening speech of the Second Vatican Council: “This certain and immutable doctrine, which must be faithfully respected, must be deepened and presented in such a way that it responds to the needs of our time. In fact, the very deposit of faith is one thing, namely the truths contained in our venerable doctrine, and the form in which they are enunciated is another thing, while maintaining the same meaning and scope” (11 October 1962).

7.  Coming now to the second problem: distinctions must be made regarding the statement found in the Abu Dhabi declaration.
The first concerns the diversity of religion which is something essentially different from the diversity of colour, sex and race.
The latter diversities are according to the order of nature. They are a good thing and constitute mutual enrichment.
Language diversity is not in the order of nature, but of culture. However, it gives rise to a legitimate and also beautiful variety.
However, the same thing cannot be said for fundamental truths such as those concerning religion.
Muslims themselves will never put Christianity on par with their religion. If they did they might as well become Christians, but that would be denying their faith.
Likewise Christians, knowing that having faith in Jesus Christ means being subjected to the saving and supernatural action of God carried out in the intellect and will (Jesus said: “No one comes to me unless the Father draws him” John 6:44), cannot put Jesus Christ at the same level as other founders of religions.
Jesus Christ is true God and true man, while Buddha, Muhammad and others are simply true men.
This difference is fundamental.
Diversity of religion is therefore not a diversity deriving from nature, like the others.
Jesus Christ said he was “the truth” (Jn 14:6). And this is why the magisterium of the Church states: “God calls all peoples to himself and he wishes to share with them the fullness of his revelation and love. He does not fail to make himself present in many ways, not only to individuals but also to entire peoples through their spiritual riches, of which their religions are the main and essential expression, even when they contain “gaps, insufficiencies and errors”. (Redemptoris Missio, 55)

8. We now ask ourselves: what does it mean that the plurality of religions corresponds to a wise divine will?
Certainly God cannot will gaps, insufficiencies or errors.
It is therefore a permissive and non-deliberative will. The kind of permissive will of which the liturgy of the church in one of its ancient prayers recites: “Deus, cuius Providentia in sui dispositione non fallitur”.
The Italian Episcopal Conference translates: “O God, who in your providence arrange everything according to your plan of salvation…”. Literally translated: “O God, whose Providence  does not fail in its own disposition”.
This means that God is not wrong even in his permissions. There is a providential design even in allowing error, sin.
This is the wise will of God.

9. Undoubtedly the language used in the statement lends itself to misunderstandings.
It should not be forgotten, however, that this is a declaration in which everything possible has been done to reach a common ground, which in some points is very small.
In any case, it is not a magisterial act of the Catholic faith, but an agreement in the context of an undeniably important declaration.

10. What Jesus Christ said in the dialogue with the Samaritan woman also remains true: “salvation comes from the Jews” (Jn 4.22) because divine revelation passes through the law and the prophets and is fulfilled in Christ.
Furthermore, all truths of our Christian faith are saving truths.
The same thing cannot be said of other religious doctrines, precisely because they contain “gaps, insufficiencies and errors”, such as for instance those concerning the unity and indissolubility of marriage.

I bless you, wish you well and remember you in my prayer.
Father Angelo

Questo articolo è disponibile anche in: Italian Spanish Portuguese