Atheists Can Be Saved! Breaking News From 33AD! 15th Sunday OT.

Back in May, the Holy Father Pope Francis was giving a sermon. He has daily Mass in a chapel where he lives. They aren’t recorded or broadcast, and he generally doesn’t preach from a prepared text. It’s more informal, much like our weekday Masses here. But it seems people often take notes to quote the Pope’s sermons in the Vatican newspaper or something, and that's how it came to pass that a pretty informal, ordinary sermon from May caught the world’s attention. Maybe you saw the headlines: “Pope declares that atheists can go to Heaven!”


This is how someone present remembered the Pope’s words:

"The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! 'Father, the atheists?' Even the atheists. Everyone! And this Blood makes us children of God of the first class. We are created children in the likeness of God and the Blood of Christ has redeemed us all. And we all have a duty to do good. And this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace. If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: We need that so much. We must meet one another doing good. 'But I don't believe, Father, I am an atheist!' But do good: We will meet one another there."

It was a big story. It ran in all the majors and provided blog fodder for days. Then the plot thickened. A statement appeared from Fr. Thomas Rosica, a priest in Toronto who has previously and occasionally acted as a media attache for the Holy See. His statement was reported as a “Vatican response” to the Pope. Which it wasn’t at all. Fr. Rosica wrote a nuanced article covering various topics, but the part that got quoted everywhere was this: “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.”

This was interpreted as contradicting the Pope. I didn’t see anyone quote the very next sentence: “At the same time, thanks to Christ and to his Church, those who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ and his Church but sincerely seek God and, moved by grace, try to do his will as it is known through the dictates of conscience can attain eternal salvation.”

Well, here’s the thing. The Pope’s statement was nothing new. What he said is basic Catholic doctrine, Catholicism 101. Apparently a lot of people didn’t know this basic area of Catholic teaching, so it’s fantastic that the Pope has made them aware of it. But it’s not some kind of new idea. Of course Catholicism doesn’t teach that non-Catholics, or non-Christians, or atheists all go to Hell. We’ve got a list of people we know are in Heaven: the Saints. There’s no such list for Hell. There’s not a single person whom the Church names and teaches is in Hell. We don’t know. The only statement about who definitely can’t be saved is the one quoted by Fr. Rosica: someone who knows that the Catholic Church was founded by Christ and is necessary for salvation, but refuses to enter, can not be saved. But it’s hard to imagine that actually applying to anyone. If it did apply to someone, we would have no way of judging that.

So what was reported as a revolutionary statement by the Pope was simply a restatement of what anyone can find in the Catechism if they take two minutes to look it up. And what was reported as a “rollback by a Vatican spokesman” was not a rollback and wasn’t by a Vatican spokesman. Got that?

If lots of people thought that Catholics think everyone else is going to Hell, I’m glad they were corrected. But I wish closer attention had been paid to the Pope’s beautiful words, which go so far beyond “atheists can go to Heaven.”

Can I repeat part of it? The Holy Father said “this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace. If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: We need that so much. We must meet one another doing good. 'But I don't believe, Father, I am an atheist!' But do good: We will meet one another there.”

See, the Pope isn’t speaking to those who want to run around making lists of who goes to Hell. The Pope is speaking to those who want to heal the world. It’s not just about atheism vs. religion, it’s about the encounter between different religions too. In doing good, we can meet one another there. Even if our differences of culture or belief seem insurmountable, do good to others, and we will meet one another there.

Does that mean doctrine doesn’t matter? Does it mean truth doesn’t matter? Of course not. It only means we don’t have a monopoly on it. The Catholic Church was founded by Christ as the means of bringing his salvation to the world. That doesn’t mean that no one else can hear God’s voice speaking within. It doesn’t mean that no one else can serve God by doing good, whatever their beliefs may be. An atheist who does go to Heaven will be able to see how he responded through his life to the God he didn’t believe in. He will be able to see how everything he loved and valued was really God all along. He may be awfully surprised, but he will find that by serving Goodness he could not have helped serving God.

Our first reading was taken from Deuteronomy. Moses has given the Law, and now he tells the Israelites that this Law is not far away, up in the sky, or in some distant place. It is written on your hearts. It is near to you. It is not beyond your reach. In the Catholic tradition we call that the voice of Conscience. Your conscience isn’t infallible, it can make mistakes, but nevertheless it is there where we find God’s Law written on our hearts. An evil spirit of vengeance may rise within us, but the Law written on our hearts says mercy. A desperate, jealous desire to take what belongs to someone else might grab a hold of us, but the law written on our hearts says, “don’t do it.”

Doesn’t the parable of the Good Samaritan show this perfectly? The Samaritans were followers of a false religion in some ways, but that doesn’t mean they were cut off from the work of the Holy Spirit. The Samaritan wasn’t of the most true religion, but he was responding to the one true God.

Atheists are in for a surprise when they die, no question about that. But if a given atheist has responded in her life to that Law written on her heart, if she has sought Truth and Goodness, then she will recognize Truth and Goodness when she sees Him face to face, and she will feel right at home. A surprise, yes - but the best surprise imaginable.

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