To Be

In the Church there is openness to all truth. We have preserved all God revealed to his People: first the Jews, then the Christians. And we accept all God has revealed or human intellect discovered in addition to that revelation. In 1965, the bishops at Vatican II, recognizing the Church’s “task of promoting unity and love among people,” looked to “what humans have in common and what draws them to fellowship.” Mentioning specifically Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, the bishops affirmed, “The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions” (“Declaration On The Relation Of The Church To Non-Christian Religions,” 1, 2).

No one culture can best prepare people to appreciate, or enable them to express and embody in customs, all that is good and true and beautiful. When the church discovered she was “catholic” (kata-holos, universal) at the council in Jerusalem (Acts 15:1), she realized Christianity is not identified with its expression in Jewish culture or any other. Later attempts to impose Roman or European cultural forms on Christians of other countries were inconsistent with our Catholic character..

Declaration On The Relation Of The Church To Non-Christian Religions

1. In her task of promoting unity and love among men, indeed among nations, she considers above all in this declaration what men have in common and what draws them to fellowship

Mentions specifically Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam.

2. The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men. Indeed, she proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself.(4)