Christian tolerance

It was announced recently that the Pope had declared Catholicism the only true religion. It is very hard for me to believe that he would make such a statement. I wonder if he may have said something like “We believe that Catholicism is the only true religion but we respect that others may interpret the scripture differently” and the press chose to report only the first part.

Also, there was a recent announcement that the San Diego Diocese of the Episcopal Church is suing three parishes who have terminated their affiliation with the diocese. The purpose of the suit is to gain possession of the respective parishes’ church property. St. John’s of Fallbrook is one of those parishes. This action provides additional evidence of the unchristian nature of Episcopal Church leadership and validates the decision of these parishes to severe their affiliation.

Christianity should be about love and tolerance for diverse points of view. Many issues have occurred in the past several years where the policies pursued by the Episcopal leadership are considered to be unchristian by many Episcopalians. A major issue was the ordination of an openly gay bishop in New England. There were other issues. People can have differences about these matters and those differences should be respected.

The attitude and actions of the diocese are symptomatic of the intolerance that has existed within religion since the beginning of time and particularly during the Reformation period. Applying the policies of those days, the people of St. John’s would be labeled “heretics” and would be executed. We like to think that reason prevails now, so instead of resorting to such bestiality, we simply use the courts to destroy dissenters!

St. John’s was correct in leaving. The Episcopal Church in the US is becoming irrelevant.

Glen Holzhausen