Jesuit discusses teaching on salvation in Catholic, other religions

Published: 2004-02-16

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Belgian Jesuit Father Jacques Dupuis, an expert on the theology of religions, said in a New York lecture that faith in Christ as "universal savior of humankind" could be combined with acknowledgment of "salvific significance" in other religious traditions. He said Christ was "the apex and the summit" of God's revelation, "the center of history," its "culminating point" and the key for interpreting the divine plan of salvation. But the historical work of Christ is "circumscribed by the limits imposed upon it by time and space," and actions of the word of God and the Spirit of God are "neither limited nor exhausted" by what they do through Christ, he said Feb. 12 at the Interfaith Center of New York. As the Word and the Spirit were active before the incarnation of Christ, he said, so their actions continue to go "beyond that which takes place through the risen humanity of Jesus" and "do not cease to infuse into the religious traditions of the world divine truth and grace conductive to the salvation of their followers." Father Dupuis, who taught in India and then at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome until his retirement in 1998 at age 75, underwent a long investigation by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in relation to his 1997 book, "Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism." The 1998-2001 investigation concluded that while the book contained no doctrinal errors, there were "ambiguities and difficulties on important points which could lead a reader to erroneous or harmful opinions." But the congregation asked that future editions include an affirmation that Christ is "the sole and universal mediator of salvation for all humanity."

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