I was just starting to gather my thoughts together regarding whether or not all Christian faiths are just as good as the next one when I stumbled upon this article by Archbishop Fulton Sheen. He addresses what I was wondering so much better than I could that I'm just going to link to his article rather than write something...for now.
It starts like this...
“The Catholic Church is intolerant.” That simple thought, like a
yellow-fever sign, is supposed to be the one solid reason which should
frighten away any one who might be contemplating knocking at the portals
of the Church for entrance, or for a crumb of the Bread of Life. When
proof for this statement is asked, it is retorted that the Church is
intolerant because of its self-complacency and smug satisfaction as the
unique interpreter of the thoughts of Christ. Its narrow-mindedness is
supposed to be revealed in its unwillingness to cooperate effectively
with other Christian bodies that are working for the union of churches.
Within the last ten years, two great world conferences on religion have
been held, in which every great religion except the Catholic
participated. The Catholic Church was invited to attend and discuss the
two important subjects of doctrine and ministry, but she refused the
invitation..."
For those who don't want to read a long article, here are some of the "Money Quotes":
Tolerance applies only to persons, but never to principles. Intolerance applies only to principles, but never to persons. We must be tolerant to persons because they are human; we must be intolerant about principles because they are divine. We must be tolerant to the erring, because ignorance may have led them astray; but we must be intolerant to the error, because Truth is not our making, but God’s.
The man, in our country, who can make up his mind and hold to certain truths with all the fervor of his soul, is called narrow-minded, whereas the man who cannot make up his mind is called broadminded. And now this false broadmindedness or tolerance of truth and error has carried many minds so far that they say one religion is just as good as another, or that because one contradicts another, therefore, there is no such thing as religion. This is just like concluding that because, in the days of Columbus, some said the world was round and others said it was flat, therefore, there is no world at all.
Such indifference to the oneness of truth is at the root of all the assumptions so current in present-day thinking that religion is an open question, like the tariff, whereas science is a closed question, like the multiplication table. It is behind that strange kind of broadmindedness which teaches that any one may tell us about God, though it would never admit that any one but a scientist should tell us about an atom.
It has created the general impression that any individual opinion about religion is right, and it has disposed modern minds to accept its religion dished up in the form of articles entitled: “My Idea of Religion,” written by any nondescript from a Hollywood movie star to the chief cook of the Ritz-Carlton.
This kind of broadmindedness which sacrifices principles to whims, dissolves entities into environment, and reduces truth to opinion, is an unmistakable sign of the decay of the logical faculty.
A bridge builder must be intolerant about the foundations of his bridge; the gardener must be intolerant about weeds in his gardens; the property owner must be intolerant about his claims to property; the soldier must be intolerant about his country, as against that of the enemy, and he who is broadminded on the battlefield is a coward and a traitor. The doc¬tor must be intolerant about disease in his patients, and the professor must be intolerant about error in his pupils. So, too, the Church, founded on the Intolerance of Divinity, must be equally intolerant about the truths commissioned to her. There are to be no one-fisted battles, no half-drawn swords, no divided loves, no equalizing Christ and Buddha in a broad sweep of sophomoric tolerance or broad-mindedness, for as Our Blessed Lord has put it: “He that is not with Me is against Me.”
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