The Vatican has updated its online English translation of comments that Pope Francis made to children in Singapore on “all religions” being “paths to God” after critics highlighted a misleading discrepancy between the published material and the original comments in Italian.
On Friday, as part of an “interreligious meeting with young people” in Singapore and speaking in Italian, Pope Francis told the group – “Tutte le religioni sono un cammino per arrivare a Dio” – translated live at the time as “every religion is a way to arrive at God.”
The same day, the Holy See Press Office originally published this statement on its online portal as “Religions are seen as paths trying to reach God,” markedly altering the meaning of Francis’ words.
The Vatican’s English transcription now reads “All religions are paths to God,” aligning with the original Italian and, indeed, many of the other foreign language translations on the Holy See Press Office website.
Pope Francis additionally stated in his address:
There are different languages to arrive at God, but God is God for all. And how is God God for all? We are all sons and daughters of God. But my god is more important than your god, is that true?
There is only one God and each of us has a language to arrive at God. Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, they are different paths.
Inside the Vatican managing editor Matt Gaspers responded to the Pope’s comments on X, noting that the original press office publication was a “paraphrase” of the Pope’s message, which he characterized as “an obvious attempt at damage control” since, he said, “what Francis said is objectively heretical.”
Following up after the press office issued a corrected English version, Gaspers stated that “The root problem remains, of course, since his words are objectively heretical – which is why we need members of the Church’s hierarchy to publicly admonish Francis (see Titus 3:10-11) per Cajetan, Bellarmine, John of St. Thomas, and others.”
According to the teaching of the Catholic Church, the only true Church is indeed the Catholic Church, the Body of Christ (Eph 1:22), and it exercises the charge given by Christ to spread the Gospel to all nations and to bring souls into the Church (Mark 16). Consequently, the Church teaches that all souls must “belong” to the Church to be saved: “All are obliged to belong to the Catholic Church in order to be saved.” (Baltimore Catechism Q 166)
Following the Vatican correction, Catholic author and speaker Erik Ybarra wrote on X that Pope Francis’ statement “is a bottomless pit of sewage gunk.” Ybarra remarked that Francis’ “analogy to languages is especially alarming since the diverse languages are acceptable to the phenomenon of communication.”
“No one decries the variety of languages as if it were an inherently evil thing,” he continued, adding that “what the Pope is saying here (never mind what he may have meant, but we are justified in taking him at his word) is that the variety of religions, all which contradict each other theologically, are not anymore in competition than are the diverse languages of the world.”
“It screams the implication of universal acceptance and legitimacy,” Ybarra concluded.
Pope Francis’ trip to Asia caused ripples across the Catholic world, between his decision not to make the Sign of the Cross in a public blessing and his controversial comments on all religions being “paths to God.”
Upon his return to Rome, during an in-flight press conference, the Pontiff declared that he “doesn’t know” who among U.S. presidential hopefuls Kamala Harris or Donald Trump can be considered the lesser of two evils, since Harris supports unrestricted abortion and Trump opposes mass illegal migration, both of which Francis called “anti-life” positions.