ACTS AND DECRESS OF
THE FIRST PLENARY COUNCIL OF INDIA

APPROVED BY PIUS XII
1950
[excerpt]


11. We therefore reject the view so widely spread in our regions which holds that all religions are equal among themselves, and that, provided they are adhered to with sincerity, all are various ways to one and the same end, namely God and eternal salvation. We equally reject the syncretism according to which the ideal religion or the religion of the future is conceived as a sort of synthesis to be worked out by humanity from various religions that exist.

We acknowledge indeed that there is truth and goodness outside the Catholic religion, for God has not left the nations without a witness to himself, and the human soul is naturally drawn towards the one true God. But with the passage of the centuries serious errors have almost everywhere been mixed with these truths, and this is why the various religions contradict each other even on essential points. But the inadequacy of all non-Christian religions is principally derived from this, that, Christ being constituted the one Mediator between God and human beings, there is no salvation by any other name.



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