Dethroning Christ the King once more…
Vatican Joint Statement with Buddhists:
‘We see the Buddha and Jesus as Great Healers’
The seventh so-called Buddhist-Christian Colloquium just concluded in Bangkok, Thailand, on Nov. 16, 2023.
The conference had been organized by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, “together with the Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University, Mahamakut Buddhist University, Chinese Buddhist Order of Sangha in Thailand, Wat Phra Chetuphon, the Sirivadhanabhakdi Foundation, and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Thailand”, according to a final statement released the same day, which was published also by the ‘Holy See’ press office:
- Final Statement of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue at the end of the Seventh Buddhist-Christian Colloquium (Vatican.va)
The content of the statement is terrible. Let’s examine it step by step, beginning with the fourth paragraph:
We agreed that today’s humanity is living in a rapidly changing world, with positive and negative consequences for the human family and the earth. Moreover, we met at a crucial moment when people all over the world are facing a multitude of global challenges from which no one is completely immune.
We see that a profound agreement has been reached. Onward!
Yet, in these troubled times, we refuse to give in to despair, for we strongly believe that in the midst of dark clouds, those who are deeply rooted in their respective religious traditions and willing to work together with everyone can bring a ray of hope to a desperate humanity.
Notice two things here.
First, the smooth phrase “religious traditions”. It is used more and more frequently in Vatican documents as a euphemism for the more blunt term “religions”. This is surely no accident, for if the powers that be want eventually to unite all religions under the one humanistic meta-religion of the Antichrist, it will be a lot easier to accomplish that if people think of religions in terms of mere traditions — something that has been handed on, whether true or false, good or bad, from God or from the devil.
If people are to be persuaded that all religions ultimately adore the same god and preach the same core doctrines, and that no one possesses the truth anyway because it is infinitely beyond us, it will be much easier to do that with the term “religious traditions”. Without noticing, the noun has been switched from religions to traditions. The adjective — religious — will go under very quickly. A clever linguistic sleight of hand!
Those who still claim religious supremacy or exclusivism — placing one religion above others or even saying that theirs alone is the true religion, while all others are false — will be denounced and persecuted as fundamentalists, radicals, extremists, fanatics.
We can clearly see the foundations being laid for this anti-Catholic ideology, and ‘Pope’ Francis — the apostate Jesuit Jorge Bergoglio — is at the forefront of making it happen.
Second, the claim or insinuation that the strict adherence to false religions, no less than to the only true religion, can help bring hope to mankind if only people are willing to work together. This, of course, dovetails perfectly with Francis’ false proclamation on May 4, 2019, that other religions are an ‘enrichment’ to humanity.
So what ‘hope’ to mankind does Buddhism bring, or Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Shintoism, Voodooism, etc.? Certainly not any hope of a spiritual-supernatural kind, since these religions, as creations of man or the devil, are the very antithesis of the only religion revealed by God: “Jesus saith to him: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me” (Jn 14:6).
The only kind of hope one could possibly gather from false religions would be, at best, that of a natural sort, a kind of optimism regarding man’s temporal happiness, since they are devoid of any supernatural salvific power. In other words, it would not be the hope of eternal salvation but the hope of better living conditions: having clean water, living in safety, earning enough money. These are important things, but they ultimately still end at death: “For the wages of sin is death. But the grace of God, life everlasting, in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 6:23). “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Gal 6:8).
Furthermore, although even false religions could help generate such naturalistic hope, they would do so not in their capacity of being religions but in their capacity of possessing certain truths that are knowable by means of natural reason. It has nothing to do with them being religions per se. In fact, false religions as such would be a hindrance to these natural truths, since anything true they may contain can only be found in them mixed together with many serious errors.
This means that in order to be able to extract some natural hope from false religions, there is a price to be paid. Buddhism, to use this particular false religion as an example, does not come in elements. It comes as one entire package. One can only extract whatever ‘good elements’ might exist in Buddhism by imbibing the whole toxic concoction. In other words, Buddhism offers certain natural truths and natural virtues only at the price of supernatural truth and life. That is, the best it could possibly do is aid the life of the body by requiring the death of the soul. A bad bargain if there ever was one!
By putting Catholicism and other religions on an equal footing, this paragraph in the final document is blasphemous and utterly indefensible. For either they are speaking about hope as a supernatural virtue, in which case it would be a blasphemy and a heresy to say that other religions can also bring this hope to humanity — or they are speaking of hope only in a naturalist sense, in which case it would be blasphemy to drag Catholicism down to the level of the false religions, as if the Church and the Gospel had no greater hope to offer to mankind than making the world a better place – until you die.
The next paragraph in the document is even worse:
As Buddhists and Christians, we see the Buddha and Jesus as Great Healers. The Buddha pointed to greed and Jesus to sin as the cause of suffering. On many levels, Jesus and the Buddha proposed love and compassion as medicine to drive out the darkness in the human heart and the world. Nourished by their respective spiritual teachings, Buddhists and Christians, for thousands of years, have adopted compassionate ways of living to address the suffering of life.
Notice that it is both Buddhists and Christians who are said to view both Buddha and Jesus Christ as great healers. That is, the ‘Christians’ are acknowledging Buddha as a great healer too, and the Buddhists supposedly do the same with Christ. If the adverb “respectively” had been used, it would not be nearly as bad, because then it would mean that Buddhists recognize Buddha as a great healer, and Christians recognize Christ as one. But the word “respectively” was not used. (They use it in various other places in the text, including this very paragraph, thus understanding its significance and making this particular omission even more conspicuous and noteworthy.)
It is despicable how the joint statement, presented by the Vatican, again puts the Son of God and Savior of the World on the same level as the pagan Buddha. In this particular paragraph, they make it seem as if the medicine given by Christ were of the same kind and effectiveness as the false philosophy of Buddha. Whatever few individual natural truths may be contained in Buddha’s proposed way of living, they are no match for the perfect supernatural truths revealed by Christ, who created man and calls him to the Beatific Vision: “It is the spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life” (Jn 6:64).
Moreover, Our Blessed Lord did not merely teach the true way of living, He also provided the means to live in this manner: grace. Apart from Christ’s grace, no supernatural hope or salvation would be possible. With this grace, we may hope for eternal life:
That, being justified by his grace, we may be heirs, according to hope of life everlasting. (Titus 3:7)
But the water that I will give him, shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into life everlasting. (John 4:14)
For the law of the spirit of life, in Christ Jesus, hath delivered me from the law of sin and of death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh; God sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh and of sin, hath condemned sin in the flesh; that the justification of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. For they that are according to the flesh, mind the things that are of the flesh; but they that are according to the spirit, mind the things that are of the spirit. For the wisdom of the flesh is death; but the wisdom of the spirit is life and peace because the wisdom of the flesh is an enemy to God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither can it be. And they who are in the flesh, cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body indeed is dead, because of sin; but the spirit liveth, because of justification.
(Romans 8:2-10)
To reduce the Gospel, the life-giving words of the Word (cf. Jn 1:1), to the status of heathen ideology is an abomination of staggering proportions!
Without God’s help, fallen man can never free himself from his miserable condition. He can never save himself; he can never expiate his own sins, nor can he overcome concupiscence. Our sinful human condition can only be remedied by means of the redemptive work of Christ. Only through His grace can our fallen nature be buried and we be regenerated in baptism, becoming a ‘new man’ in Christ:
Jesus answered: Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. (Jn 3:5)
Not by the works of justice, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us, by the laver of regeneration, and renovation of the Holy Ghost. (Titus 3:5)
And put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth. (Eph 4:24)
If then any be in Christ a new creature, the old things are passed away, behold all things are made new. (2 Cor 5:17)
The guilt of original sin having been taken away in baptism, its wounds (consequences) remain: “For the flesh lusteth against the spirit: and the spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary one to another: so that you do not the things that you would” (Gal 5:17). This tendency to sin is what we mean by concupiscence, and the only remedy for it is prayer and self-denial (mortification), tracing with Christ the way of the Cross: “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple” (Lk 14:27). Thus St. Paul exhorts the Philippians to work out their salvation “with fear and trembling” (2:12).
None of Buddha’s ideas can accomplish anything in that regard. No matter how many times Francis hints at the notion, salvation by natural means is impossible:
Again and again we find that the Novus Ordo Modernists involved in interfaith dialogue reject the Catholic doctrine on original sin. We can see this in the following insane comments:
“The dialogue promises to be an opportunity for collaboration and a shared vision for the well-being of our communities,” said Bishop Olivier Schmitthaeusler, Vicar Apostolic of Phnom Penh in Buddhist-majority Cambodia, one of the colloquium participants. “The Lord created the world and created people. God saw that it was good, it says in Genesis. Nature and people are entrusted to our responsibility. Let us dream together of a world in which there is neither rich nor poor, in which no one is excluded or despised. So our task today, in Asia and in the world, is to create one big family that loves one another, listening to each other and forgiving. We start from harmony, from peace, from sharing with our neighbors the spiritual values on which we can build just and fraternal societies,” he said.
(“Buddhist, Catholic scholars in Bangkok agree to use ‘compassion’ to heal world”, La Croix International, Nov. 17, 2023)
Apparently this ‘Bp.’ Schmitthaeusler has never heard of original sin. He describes the world before the fall of man, that is, he describes paradise. But that is not the world we live in.
When sin entered into the world, all creation was affected (cf. Rom 8:22), and for human beings, their likeness to God was lost, and the image of God in them was obscured. Only through sanctifying grace and actual grace can we remedy this condition. This is basic Catholic catechism.
If Mr. Schmitthaeusler is dreaming of a world in which there is neither rich nor poor, he is dreaming a Communist dream. The existence of different social classes among men is not wrong, and to attempt to eliminate them would be to destroy society. Popes Leo XIII and Pius X said as much, as we will see shortly.
‘Bp.’ Schmitthaeusler does not understand, or at least does not believe, that there is no commission from Christ to build some great ‘civilization of luv’ consisting of people of all creeds who live together in the bonds of dignity, dialogue, respect, and fraternity. Rather, as Pope St. Pius X said,
the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work; no, civilization is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City. It has only to be set up and restored continually against the unremitting attacks of insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants.
…No, Venerable Brethren, there is no genuine fraternity outside Christian charity. Through the love of God and His Son Jesus Christ Our Saviour, Christian charity embraces all men, comforts all, and leads all to the same faith and same heavenly happiness.
(Pope Pius X, Apostolic Letter Notre Charge Apostolique; underlining added.)
A Catholic’s task must be to build Christian civilization! Even if it cannot always be accomplished, it must always be the goal.
The final statement issued by the Vatican’s interreligious dialogue crew along with the Buddhists continues:
We believe that now more than ever, we need to work together and with a great sense of responsibility, we concurred on the following:
Acknowledge: Even though our respective religious teachings invite us to build a culture of compassion, we often turn a blind eye to today’s sufferings. We deplore the words and actions that have voluntarily or involuntarily contributed to sow death and destruction, hatred, and revenge. We need to acknowledge that we belong to one human family and owe everyone equal dignity and respect.
Dialogue: We are convinced that there will be no peace without dialogue. Dialogue can prevent violence, heal both the wounded victim and the perpetrator, and inspire people to find non-violent ways of resolving conflicts. It can mobilize different religious groups to seek justice and truth, to protect the planet, and to protest against its destruction.
Cultivate: Individually as well as socially, we need to cultivate empathy for the suffering of others and the environment. Thus, we need compassion in political and economic decisions to prevent exclusion and inequality and to foster inclusion, justice and respect.
Notice how they continually equate “inequality” with “injustice”, as if the two concepts were interchangeable. But they are not.
On Dec. 18, 1903, Pope St. Pius X issued an Apostolic Letter motu proprio entitled Fin Dalla Prima Nostra, in which he presented in summary fashion in the context of the lay Catholic Action movements the teachings of his predecessor Leo XIII on the social question. Among them are the following truths (notice the beautiful emphasis on man’s supernatural end):
I. Human society, as established by God, is composed of unequal elements, just as the different parts of the human body are unequal; to make them all equal is impossible, and would mean the destruction of human society. (Encyclical Quod Apostolici Muneris.)
II. The equality existing among the various social members consists only in this: that all men have their origin in God the Creator, have been redeemed by Jesus Christ, and are to be judged and rewarded or punished by God exactly according to their merits or demerits. (Encyclical Quod Apostolici Muneris.)
III. Hence it follows that there are, according to the ordinance of God, in human society princes and subjects, masters and proletariat, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, nobles and plebeians, all of whom, united in the bonds of love, are to help one another to attain their last end in heaven, and their material and moral welfare here on earth. (Encyclical Quod Apostolici Muneris.)
(Pope St. Pius X, Apostolic Letter Fin Dalla Prima Nostra, nn. I-III)
The joint ‘Christian’-Buddhist statement continues:
Cooperate: No one is saved alone; we can only be saved together for we are interconnected and interdependent. Thus, we need to cooperate with everyone: civil society, followers of other religions, media personnel, governments, international bodies, academic and scientific communities, and all other interested parties in order to foster an inclusive world.
Notice how they draw their conclusion from a premise that is simply asserted without evidence: “No one is saved alone”. It is a mantra introduced by ‘Pope’ Francis around 2020, and its meaning is rather elusive, for the word “saved” does not fit the context in which it is usually presented, namely, that of making the world a better place. But no one typically speaks of the attainment of temporal necessities as being “saved”.
Innovate: We possess religious classics and centuries of experience and wisdom. We need to make these relevant to our wounded humanity and to save the battered earth. We therefore advocate for scholarly endeavours among academic and research institutions with the goal of helping religious movements to alter how they perceive, think and conceive of the other as well as the planet.
Here we see the Vatican endorsing pagan literature as “religious classics” and it contents as “wisdom”. Perhaps the Vatican publishing house can begin to reprint them so as to make them “relevant to our wounded humanity”. Oops! They already did:
By no means does Francis want Buddhists to abandon their false and dangerous ‘spiritual’ teachings. Back in March of this year, the fake pope expressed to a delegation of Buddhists his “hope that this educational pilgrimage will lead you, guided by the thoughts of your spiritual teacher Buddha, to a deeper encounter with yourselves and with others, with the Christian tradition, and with the beauty of the earth, our common home” (source; underlining added).
No one confirms infidels in their infidelity quite like Francis!
Educate: Families, communities, educational institutions, religious leaders, and the media have a leading role to play in educating all, especially children, in caring and sharing relationships with one another and with the environment. In addition, in order to inspire and reawaken our society, we need to tell the stories of individuals who have made sacrifices to help others and the earth.
Pray: We believe that prayer and meditation can turn things upside down by purifying our hearts and minds; generating loving-kindness, mercy and forgiveness where there is hatred and vengeance creating a spirit of respect and care for the other and the earth. We need to reawaken the spiritual energy in our respective followers.
Prayer and meditation are very different things for a Catholic compared to what they are for a Buddhist. For a Catholic to sign a statement that expresses Buddhists’ desire to “reawaken the spiritual energy” in other Buddhists, is an unspeakable disgrace. Once again we see a reckless equalization or relativization taking place, if not directly, at least in effect.
To underscore how evil this is, we turn to a Vatican-endorsed book published in 1886 against the then-emerging Liberalism, which was a foreshadowing of the errors of Vatican II. The work in question is Liberalism is a Sin (#commissionlink) by Fr. Felix Sarda y Salvany. It is a devastating refutation of the Novus Ordo religion, written roughly 80 years in advance. See what Fr. Sarda, with the explicit approval of Pope Leo XIII’s Sacred Congregation of the Index, wrote about how antithetical to true Catholicism the Liberal attitude towards Buddhism is:
When [Sir Edwin] Arnold’s Light of Asia appeared [a work promoting Buddhism –N.O.W.], not a few Catholics joined in the chorus of fulsome praise which greeted it. How charming, how beautiful, how tender, how pathetic, how humane; what lofty morality, what exquisite sentiment! Now what was the real purport of the book and what was its essence? To lift up Guatama, the founder of Buddhism, at the expense of Jesus Christ, the Founder of Christianity! The intention was to show that Guatama was equally a divine teacher with as high an aspiration, as great a mission, as lofty a morality as our Divine Lord Himself. This was the object of the book; what was its essence? A falsification of history by weaving a series of poetical legends around a character, about whose actual life practically nothing is known. But not only this, the character was built up upon the model of Our Lord, which the author had in his own mind as the precious heirloom of Christianity; and his Gautama, whom he intended to stand out as at least the divine equal of the Founder of Christianity, became in his hands in reality a mere echo of Christ, the image of Christ, made to rival the Word made flesh! Buddhism, in the borrowed garments of Christianity, was thus made to appeal to the ideals of Christian peoples, and gaining a footing in their admiration and affections, to usurp the throne in the Christian sanctuary. Here was a work of literary merit, although it has been greatly exaggerated in this respect, praised extravagantly by some Catholics who, in their excessive desire to appear impartial, failed or refused to see in Edwin Arnold’s Light of Asia a most vicious, anti-Christian book! What difference does it make whether a book be excellent in a literary sense or not, if its effect be the loss of souls and not their salvation? What if the weapon in the hands of the assassin be bright or not, if it be fatal? Though spiritual assassination be brilliant, it is nonetheless deadly.
Heresy under a charming disguise is a thousand times more dangerous than heresy exposed in the harsh and arid garb of the scholastic syllogism — through which the death’s skull grins in unadorned hideousness. Arianism had its poets to propagate its errors in popular verse. Lutheranism had its humanists, amongst whom the elegant Erasmus shone as a brilliant writer. Arnauld, Nicole, Pascal threw the glamour of their belles lettres over the serpentine doublings of Jansenism. Voltaire’s wretched infidelity won its frightful popularity from the grace of his style and the flash of his wit. Shall we, against whom they aimed the keenest and deadliest shafts, contribute to their name and their renown! Shall we assist them in fascinating and corrupting youth! Shall we crown these condemners of our faith with the laurels of our praises and laud them for the very qualities which alone make them dangerous! And for what purpose? That we may appear impartial? No. Impartiality is not permissible when it is distorted to the offense of truth, whose rights are imprescriptible. A woman of bad life is infamous, be she ever so beautiful, and the more beautiful, the more dangerous. Shall we praise Liberal books out of gratitude? No! Follow the liberals themselves in this, who are far more prudent than we; they do not recommend and praise our books, whatever they be. They, with the instinct of evil, fully appreciate where the danger lies. They either seek to discredit us or to pass us by in silence.
Si quis non amat Dominum Nostrum Jesum Christum, Sit anathema [“If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema”], says St. Paul. Liberal literature is the written hatred of Our Lord and His Church. If its blasphemy were open and direct, no Catholic would tolerate it for an instant; is it any more tolerable because, like a courtesan, it seeks to disguise its sordid features by the artifice of paint and powder?
(Fr. Felix Sarda y Salvany, Liberalism is a Sin, Chapter 18; some formatting changed.)
No one in the Vatican interreligious dicastery, much less the ‘Pope’ himself, is in the least concerned for the salvation of pagans. Even if they do not come out and state directly and explicitly that all religions are equally good, they undoubtedly hold that all religions are at least good enough for salvation — if salvation is even a meaningful concept for them, at this point.
But this is not a position a Catholic is allowed to hold, for it is nothing short of the heresy of religious indifferentism — the idea that it ultimately doesn’t matter what religion you are. In 1846, Pope Pius IX taught:
Also perverse is the shocking theory that it makes no difference to which religion one belongs, a theory which is greatly at variance even with reason. By means of this theory, those crafty men remove all distinction between virtue and vice, truth and error, honorable and vile action. They pretend that men can gain eternal salvation by the practice of any religion, as if there could ever be any sharing between justice and iniquity, any collaboration between light and darkness, or any agreement between Christ and Belial.
(Pope Pius IX, Encyclical Qui Pluribus, n. 15)
Notice that there is no talk here of honoring ‘what is good and holy in other religions’ — neither is there talk of ‘ecclesial elements’ or of the Holy Ghost using other religions as means of salvation, as Vatican II says.
In 1928, Pope Pius XI condemned “that false opinion which considers all religions to be more or less good and praiseworthy, since they all in different ways manifest and signify that sense which is inborn in us all, and by which we are led to God and to the obedient acknowledgment of His rule” (Encyclical Mortalium Animos, n. 2).
Interreligious dialogue — which ‘Pope’ Benedict XVI underscored in 2012 “does not aim at conversion, but at understanding” — inevitably tends to indifferentism or relativism.
In 1892, Pope Leo XIII warned:
Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to Masonry or to affiliated groups. Know them by their fruits and avoid them. Every familiarity should be avoided, not only with those impious libertines who openly promote the character of the sect, but also with those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution. These men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God.
(Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Custodi di Quella Fede, n. 15; underlining added.)
That is exactly what we’re seeing today, and no one should be fooled by the Vatican’s recent document reiterating that Catholics cannot join the Freemasons, a mere alibi paper that is as credible as Planned Parenthood lobbying for child safety.
Other links of interest regarding the Vatican II Church’s approach to Buddhism can be found here:
- Kentucky Trappists receive Buddhist Monks
- Jesuit Superior ‘Fr.’ Arturo Sosa visits Buddhist Temple (fun pictures!)
The Catholic author Fr. Michael Müller (1825-1899) hit the nail on the head when he wrote: “It is impious to say, ‘I respect every religion.’ This is as much as to say: I respect the devil as much as God, vice as much as virtue, falsehood as much as truth, dishonesty as much as honesty, Hell as much as Heaven” (The Church and Her Enemies, p. 287).
And that is precisely what the apostate, post-Catholic Vatican is doing now. They no longer care for God, for truth, for the supernatural, for souls. All they care about is making the world a better place.
But even that won’t succeed, for the very world they are trying to make a better place was made by the same God who gave us His revelation in Jesus Christ with a mission to save souls from hell.
The inevitable end result of the Vatican II Sect apostasy will be hell here on earth and hell forever thereafter. Have no part with it!
Image source: Shutterstock (beachlane)
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