Pope Francis makes us think. What is the bigger universe? What contains what? Does the concept God contain the concept religion? Or is it religion which contains the concept God. If God is the bigger universe, it could certainly contain more religions than one. It might even contain the idea of no god.
Once we wondered as children what happened to non-Catholics after they died? Used to be, we were told they ended up in Limbo where all souls go who were not baptized. Which answer eventually grew in absurdity inside us as we grew older in faith. But there was a Jesuit priest who once told a child growing into his religion a better answer than that. He said, God in his perfect love will find a way to solve that problem even if it is to us for now a mystery.
When Pope Francis says that Jesus Christ saved everyone including atheists by his death. Or when he suggests that atheists who do good will go to Heaven, we cannot help but feel he is guided by the Holy Spirit as much as all other humans who want finally to have peace in a better world.
He makes us happy and proud to be Catholics. He removes from us a primordial fear of eternal suffering in Hell and all because we might disagree with our church or its ministers. For if indeed atheists are saved by doing good then it follows, So too those of other persuasions and other religions. So too those of us who might be accused also of being “bad” Catholics.
In a previous time it had been quite difficult to be a “good” Catholic unless we ignored entirely the dissonance which affected us especially when we thought seriously about our church inside the context of the social and political environment. While there might be relatively more Catholics here by proportion compared to other countries. Our Catholicism has always existed inside a unique context.
Our religion was the religion of our colonizers, once therefore the religion of our enemies. And we did have to wonder if Dr. Jose Rizal would be in Heaven now. The thought of him burning in Hell could only have bothered us while we obediently trooped to the altar for communion. Pope Francis eases our spirit by opening for us a true reconciliation with our past, especially this particular chapter of our past.
Yes, our Dr. Jose Rizal is in Heaven. And it doesn’t have to be because he recanted himself in the end or yielded to the commands of the friars. We can tell ourselves and our children, He is in Heaven because he freed his people sacrificing himself in the tradition of martyrs and by the example of Jesus himself.
And then we might look back into history and see how many others freed their people that same way, by speaking against their religion when it did wrong. And surely this sort of thinking will lead to much critical thinking and much debate about our religion and all religions in general. But it is important for us now to see religion as a human institution traveling through history sometimes making the most pragmatic decisions along the way. As all human institutions often do.
And while these decisions may have been imperfect and many times downright wrong, this should not take from us a deep spiritual appreciation and faith in God’s love for us. Which love is perfect. Those of us who have been “bad” Catholics cannot help but pray He has sent to us Pope Francis to show to us precisely the perfection of that love.
So we might finally forgive ourselves for such sins as loving Dr. Jose Rizal and God at the same time. And such other sins as hoping perhaps against hope that we might as one community and church do more now to free our own people from poverty. And then hoping as well it will be the church renewed by the Holy Spirit who will lead us there.