Benedict XVI's Religious Indifferentism Heresies (Winter 2011)

By Bro. Michael Dimond, O.S.B.
Read more of Benedict XVI’s Recent Heresies

Benedict XVI’s October 31, 2011 Address of the Ivory Coast: “Like many African countries, Ivory Coast has a diversity of religions and ethnic groups. This is a great wealth. Living together must always be ardently desired and encouraged. As I said in my first Encyclical: ‘The State may not impose religion, yet it must guarantee religious freedom and harmony between the followers of different religions.’” [1]

Benedict XVI states that to have the presence of various false religions in your country is “a great wealth.”

Benedict XVI’s October 7, 2011 Address to “Bishops” of Indonesia: “Appropriately, Indonesia’s constitution guarantees the fundamental human right to practice one’s religion… I can only encourage you in your continuing efforts to promote and sustain interreligious dialogue in your nation. Your country, so rich in its cultural diversity and possessed of a large population, is home to significant numbers of followers of various religious traditions… Believers in Christ, rooted in charity, ought to be committed to dialogue with other religions, respecting mutual differences.”[2]

Benedict XVI says that a country is rich when it possesses a large number of false religions. Benedict XVI frequently mentions how we should respect differences and false beliefs about God.

Benedict XVI’s December 15, 2011 Homily for university students of Rome: “The Lord asks each one of you to cooperate in building the city of man…”[3]

Benedict XVI’s November 24, 2011 Address: “Attention to the country and to its animation then gives rise to the ability to interpret the evolution of the life of its inhabitants…”[4]

Benedict XVI promotes the unchristian idea of “the evolution of life.”

Benedict XVI’s December 8, 2011 Message for the World Day of Peace: “In order to be true peacemakers, we must educate ourselves in compassion, solidarity, working together, fraternity, in being active within the community and concerned to raise awareness about national and international issues and the importance of seeking adequate mechanisms for the redistribution of wealth…”[5]

Benedict XVI promotes the communist and socialistic belief of “redistribution of wealth.”

Benedict XVI’s October 17, 2011 Address to Delegation of the Syro-Malabar “Church”: “I know that life for Christians has been complicated by sectarian mistrust and even violence, but I would urge you to continue to work with people of good will of all religions in the area…”[6]

Benedict XVI states that the practitioners of false religions are “people of good will.”

Benedict XVI’s November 10, 2011 Address to religious leaders of the Israeli Religious Council:

“Your Beatitude,
Your Excellencies,
Dear Friends,

It is a great pleasure for me to welcome you, the members of the Israeli Religious Council, representing as you do the religious communities present in the Holy Land, and I thank you for the kind words addressed to me in the name of all present. In our troubled times, dialogue between different religions is becoming ever more important in the generation of an atmosphere of mutual understanding and respect that can lead to friendship and solid trust in each other… In this situation, as religious leaders we are called to reaffirm that the rightly lived relationship of man to God is a force for peace. This is a truth that must become ever more visible in the way in which we live with each other on a daily basis. Hence, I wish to encourage you to foster a climate of trust and dialogue among the leaders and members of all the religious traditions present in the Holy Land. We share a grave responsibility to educate the members of our respective religious communities, with a view to nurturing a deeper understanding of each other and developing an openness towards cooperation with people of religious traditions other than our own. Unfortunately, the reality of our world is often fragmentary and flawed, even in the Holy Land. All of us are called to commit ourselves anew to the promotion of greater justice and dignity, in order to enrich our world and to give it a fully human dimension. Justice, together with truth, love and freedom, is a fundamental requirement for lasting and secure peace in the world. Movement toward reconciliation requires courage and vision, as well as the trust that it is God himself who will show us the way. We cannot achieve our goals if God does not give us the strength to do so. When I visited Jerusalem in May 2009, I stood in front of the Western Wall and, in my written prayer placed between the stones of the Wall, I asked God for peace in the Holy Land. I wrote: ‘God of all ages, on my visit to Jerusalem, the ‘City of Peace’, spiritual home to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, I bring before you the joys, the hopes and the inspirations, the trials, the suffering and the pain of all your people throughout the world.’” [7]

The Israeli Religious Council includes rabbis, a Muslim leader, etc. Benedict XVI states that God will show these leaders of false religions “the way.”

Benedict XVI’s October 31, 2011 Address to new ambassador of Brazil: “The Church hopes that the State, in its turn, will recognize that a healthy secularism must not view religion, simply as an individual sentiment that can be relegated to the private sphere but rather as a reality which, also organized in visible structures, needs her public presence in the community in order to be recognized. This is why the State is responsible for guaranteeing the possibility of the free exercise of worship of every religious denomination… For this reason it is appropriate to reaffirm, as was confirmed in the above-mentioned Agreement of 2008, that far from implying that the State assumes or imposes a specific religious creed, denominational religious teaching in state schools, means recognition of religion as a necessary value for the person’s integral formation. And the teaching in question cannot be reduced to a generic sociology of religions, because there is no such thing as generic, non-denominational religion. Thus, not only does denominational religious teaching in state schools do no damage to the secularism of the State…”[8]

Benedict XVI’s December 22, 2011 Discourse to the “College of Cardinals”: “It would take too long now to go into detail concerning the encounter in Assisi, as the significance of the event would warrant. Let us simply thank God, that as representatives of the world’s religions and as representatives of thinking in search of truth, we were able to meet that day in a climate of friendship and mutual respect, in love for the truth and in shared responsibility for peace.” [9]

Benedict XVI’s October 21, 2011 Address to new ambassador of the Netherlands: “I am heartened also by your words about the Dutch Government’s intention to promote freedom of religion which, as you know, is a matter of particular concern to the Holy See at the present time… It is therefore greatly to be hoped that your Government will be vigilant, so that freedom of religion and freedom of worship will continue to be protected and promoted, both at home and abroad.”[10]