Is ours the only way for salvation?

 (Devil’s advocate for church reform)

Jose Paul, Delhi

Every human being is a child of God. Every human being is equal in the eyes of God. God created every human being as his own child. If He created Catholics as a specially created group from whom he will select a few virtuous ones for salvation, He is cruel. For example in India, only 1.55% of the population is Catholics.

All of them are not fit to go to heaven according to our present teachings. Will a Loving Lord create 98.45% percent of Indian population to be doomed to hell fire for no fault of theirs? We believe in a loving and benevolent father figure God. We believe that Jesus came down from Heaven and lived amongst us as a man and sacrificed His life on the cross definitely not to save a few people whom the Catholic Church proclaims as “servants of God, blessed and saints”.

We cannot imagine of a loving Jesus not caring about the multitude of people in the world he has created as His own children in His own image. He molded you and me with his palm. It goes against any form of logic to believe that the salvation is only for those who are baptized and whose names are registered in a church. When we say that one must be registered in a church, for God to call him or her to his right side in heaven, we are defying the creator Himself. Are not we ridiculing and insulting the omnipotent epitome of Love? Most of the members of the Church with common sense and logical thinking understands and believe that Jesus Christ is not narrow minded. The Church authorities created the kinds of beliefs and formulated sets of laws and traditions which will make the lay Catholics the slaves of the so called men of God.

If the organized Church is so narrow minded, how can they represent Jesus who is God of all humanity? Shouldn't the church need to openly declare the fact that Catholic way of life is one of the ways for salvation? Will this humbleness help us to love more people with an open heart without prejudices? Will Jesus love us more for that? Is there anything to be ashamed of to accept the real truth in the eyes of the world or that of Jesus? Many a time the Church have done so many blunders and then corrected according to the reality. Example, Inquisition of the Scientist who stated that earth is of spherical shape. There was a time the church used to sell indulgences for money as if selling real estates in heaven. We came out of these kinds of wrong things by eventually accepting the truth. It is better to face the truth, accept the reality later than never. Let us build the Church in the hearts of the people, Let Jesus stay in the hearts of every human being in whatever form He wish to. Let us accept every human being as the son of the Father, as our own brothers and sisters. These people have a right and God is sure to give them means to be with us in Paradise with the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.

Please, dear shepherds, we are not  heretics. We are only putting our thoughts to get the right answers, logical and reasonable. Please help with reasonable answers which will make us stronger in faith and save us from wrong path.

Almayasabdam is one of the forums where we the lay people can ask the clergy our doubts in matters of faith and administration of the Church. Don’t consider Almayasabdam or other lay publications by laity as against the faith. We, the laity, are searching for ways and means of strengthening our faith in Jesus and His Church. They are partners with the clergy wanting to build a genuine Catholic community based on the teachings of Christ. Unfortunately, none of our great bishops or priests answers any of our questions in any open forum. If ever they communicate with laity, they only do it through the Sunday homily or through a pastoral letters just to tell us lay people what they want to inform us.  It is only a one way communication. There is no possibility for two way or multilevel communication with them. These are forums in which the lay people can only listen to the words of the high and mighty. There is no chance of even expressing our doubts and fears even on matters of faith or the functioning of our Church. We the lay people earnestly request the sincere shepherds, if there is any, who really follow Jesus to come forward and guide us Catholics through open interactive communication media where multi-way communication is possible. That will nurture good relationship and communication between the sheep and the shepherd to build a solid foundation for the Church which is the mystical body of Christ.