Pope Francis signs document saying ‘differences in religion’ are part of ‘God’s will in creation’

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Pope Francis signs document saying ‘differences in religion’ are part of ‘God’s will in creation’
The Declaration echoes the 2019 Abu Dhabi document, which received widespread criticism from Catholics for the apparent dangers which it presented to the faith.



Pope Francis delivering his address at the Congress of World and Traditional Religions in Kazakhstan, September 15, 2022.
Vatican News video screenshot

Sep 15, 2022
UPDATE: The Congress has withdrawn the original Declaration and issued a new one since this article was published. Paragraph 10 now reads: “We note that pluralism in terms of differences in skin color, gender, race, language and culture are expressions of the wisdom of God in creation. Religious diversity is permitted by God and, therefore, any coercion to a particular religion and religious doctrine is unacceptable.”

NUR-SULTAN, Kazakhstan (LifeSiteNews [adapted]) – Pope Francis has joined ecumenical and political leaders in signing a document stating that the “pluralism and differences in religion…are expressions of the wisdom of God’s will in creation.”

The declaration, which can be downloaded here with English text at the end of the document, was the culmination of the 7th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions held in Kazakhstan.

It was read aloud by the leaders of the Congress on September 15, feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, after which Pope Francis delivered an address echoing the themes and language of the Declaration.

The Declaration, which Pope Francis joined in signing, contains a paragraph stating that God willed the plurality of religions which are present in the world. Paragraph 10 reads: “We note that pluralism and differences in religion, skin color, gender, race and language are expressions of the wisdom of God’s will in creation. Thus any incident of coercion to a particular religion and religious doctrine is unacceptable.” (Emphasis original)

–– Update: The Congress has withdrawn the original Declaration and issued a new one since this article was published. Paragraph 10 now reads: “We note that pluralism in terms of differences in skin color, gender, race, language and culture are expressions of the wisdom of God in creation. Religious diversity is permitted by God and, therefore, any coercion to a particular religion and religious doctrine is unacceptable.”

The Declaration also noted how the Congress participants “stand in solidarity with the efforts of the United Nations and all other international, governmental and regional institutions and organizations, to promote dialogue among civilizations and religions, states and nations.” (Emphasis original)

The roundtable of participants and religious leaders at the Congress

The Kazakhstan Declaration paid homage to, and noted its dependance on, the Abu Dhabi document which Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayeb, signed in February 2019. That document itself has been described as seeming to “overturn the doctrine of the Gospel.”

“We recognize the importance and value of the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together between the Holy See and Al-Azhar Al-Sharif,” read the Kazakh Declaration.

The Declaration also stated that “We pay special attention to the importance of strengthening the institution of the family,” but in his closing remarks, Kazakhstan’s president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said that the meeting had paid particular attention to digital and “gender issues.”

Pope Francis delivering his address at the Congress

Kazakhstan’s link to Abu Dhabi document

The recent Declaration almost repeats the Abu Dhabi document word for word, for the 2019 document stated: “The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings.”

At the time, Bishop Athanasius Schneider – auxiliary of Astana, Kazakhstan – raised concerns about that passage in the Abu Dhabi document. He was later told in a private meeting with Pope Francis in 2019 that the text only referred to “the permissive will of God,” not the positive will.

According to Bishop Schneider, in implementing the Abu Dhabi document without correcting its erroneous affirmation on the diversity of religions, “men in the Church not only betray Jesus Christ as the only Savior of mankind and the necessity of His Church for eternal salvation, but also commit a great injustice and sin against love of neighbor.”

Following his meeting with the Pope, and in light of Francis’ repeated promotion of the document, Bishop Schneider warned that the Abu Dhabi document was directly linked to problematic passages from Vatican II’s Dignitatis Humanae [Emphasis - The Catacombs].

RELATED: Bishop Schneider: There is no divine positive will or natural right to the diversity of religions

He stated:

“Dignitatis Humanae’s assertion that man has a natural right (positively willed by God) not to be impeded in choosing, exercising and spreading, even publicly, any form of religion according to his conscience, and the Abu Dhabi Document’s assertion that God wills the diversity of religions, in the same way as He wills positively the diversity of sex (based on man’s nature itself), will surely one day be corrected by the Papal Magisterium of the Cathedra of St. Peter — the cathedra veritatis.”

He later added that:

“It contradicts Divine Revelation to say that, just as God positively wills the diversity of the male and female sexes and the diversity of nations, so in the same way he also wills the diversity of religions.”

Conclusion of the VII Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions

Prior to the signing of the Kazakhstan Declaration today, Bishop Schneider told the assembled media that the entire Congress risked undermining teaching regarding the primacy of the Catholic faith.

Speaking after Pope Francis met with Kazakhstan clergy, Bishop Schneider said that “the congress as such has a good aim to promote mutual respect and understanding in the world today.” Yet he noted how “it has also a danger because it could give the impression of a ‘supermarket of religions’ and this is not correct because there is only one true religion, which is the Catholic Church, founded by God himself.”

The bishop added that Francis’ strong support for the Congress could suggest that Catholicism is on a par with other religions. “This is not correct because there is only one true religion, which is the Catholic Church, founded by God himself, but commanded to all man, to all religions, to believe and accept his son Jesus Christ, the only Savior,” he said.

Yesterday, Pope Francis delivered his opening address to the Congress, in which he pushed for numerous religions and decried “proselytism and indoctrination.” The Pontiff also appeared to contradict previous Papal teaching regarding the promotion of other religions, saying that everyone “has the right to render public testimony to his or her own creed, proposing it without ever imposing it.”

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Document saying God wills ‘differences in religion’ was quietly changed just hours after Pope signed it
The inter-religious document was updated after the religious leaders had given their assent to it, and after it had been publicly pronounced during a live-stream.



Pope Francis listens to a closing address during the final proceedings of the Congress
Vatican News

Sep 15, 2022
NUR-SULTAN, Kazakhstan (LifeSiteNews [adapted]) – In a peculiar turn of events, the ecumenical Declaration read out and signed by Pope Francis at the 7th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions held in Kazakhstan, has since been changed. The original version appeared to go against Catholic teaching, and it is not known if Pope Francis agreed to the updated version.

The original version of the Declaration was read aloud by Anglican prelate Dr. Jo Bailey Wells in front of assembled leaders of the Congress, including the Pope. It was also live-streamed by media outlets, including Vatican News and EWTN.

Paragraph 10 of the document originally read: “We note that pluralism and differences in religion, skin color, gender, race and language are expressions of the wisdom of God’s will in creation. Thus any incident of coercion to a particular religion and religious doctrine is unacceptable.” (Emphasis in original)

As LifeSiteNews noted earlier today, this passage echoed Pope Francis’s Abu Dhabi document word for word – a document which faithful Catholics expressed strong concerns about. It was even described at the time of publication as seeming to “overturn the doctrine of the Gospel.”

A recording of the pronouncement can be found below.

However, following the live-streaming of the document’s pronouncement, and its subsequent publication on the Congress’s website, the document was updated some hours later.

The new passage now reads: “We note that pluralism in terms of differences in skin color, gender, race, language and culture are expressions of the wisdom of God in creation. Religious diversity is permitted by God and, therefore, any coercion to a particular religion and religious doctrine is unacceptable.” (Emphasis in original)

The new text represents a significant change in the theology of the document.

Local auxiliary bishop of Astana, Bishop Athanasius Schneider had previously expressed his concerns about the wording of the Abu Dhabi document to Pope Francis, wording which was almost exactly repeated in the Kazakhstan declaration. Bishop Schneider was later told in a private meeting with Pope Francis in 2019 that the text only referred to “the permissive will of God,” not the positive will.

Yet the auxiliary bishop noted that by implementing the Abu Dhabi document without correcting its erroneous affirmation on the diversity of religions, “men in the Church not only betray Jesus Christ as the only Savior of mankind and the necessity of His Church for eternal salvation, but also commit a great injustice and sin against love of neighbor.”

He later added that: “It contradicts Divine Revelation to say that, just as God positively wills the diversity of the male and female sexes and the diversity of nations, so in the same way he also wills the diversity of religions.”

With the change of the Kazakhstan text it seems that the published version is now more in line with that which Pope Francis confided to Bishop Schneider privately in 2019.

However, it remains unclear whether Pope Francis gave his agreement to the updated version or just the original. The updated Declaration was only published by the Congress after the papal flight was well on its way back to Rome.

While it is possible that Francis may have agreed to the updated version in private, the only public record of the Declaration being read aloud is of the original version.

Media reports note that the Pope signed the original version of the document, but make no mention of his assent to the updated text. [Emphasis - The Catacombs]

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Pope Francis hits back at critics following his latest statement that God wills ‘differences in religion’
Bishop Schneider had described the ecumenical Congress as a ‘supermarket of religions’ which could undermine the primacy of the Catholic faith.



Bishop Schneider meting Pope Francis outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, September 15, 2022.
Bp. Schneider/Twitter

Sep 16, 2022
NUR-SULTAN, Kazakhstan (LifeSiteNews [adapted]) – Pope Francis has appeared to reject criticism by Bishop Athanasius Schneider about the ecumenical Congress the pontiff recently attended in Kazakhstan, saying the meeting was a way to “honor” the Catholic faith.

The Pope made his comments while on the return flight from Kazakhstan to Rome, having been in the country for three days to attend the 7th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions.

At the start of his final day in the country, the Pontiff met with Kazakhstan’s clergy at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the mother-church of the Archdiocese of Astana, of which Bishop Schneider is an auxiliary. The bishop has often warned about Pope Francis’ teachings, particularly regarding their vague relation to, and deviance from, the Catholic faith.

Prior to welcoming the Pope at the cathedral, Bishop Schneider spoke about the inter-religious Congress to the assembled media outside.

He noted first that “the congress as such has a good aim to promote mutual respect and understanding in the world today.” Yet he added how “it has also a danger because it could give the impression of a ‘supermarket of religions,’ and this is not correct because there is only one true religion, which is the Catholic Church, founded by God himself.”

The bishop added that Francis’ strong support for the Congress could suggest that Catholicism is on a par with other religions.

“This is not correct because there is only one true religion, which is the Catholic Church, founded by God himself, but commanded to all man, to all religions, to believe and accept his son Jesus Christ, the only Savior,” he said.

Bishop Schneider continued by highlighting the primacy of the Catholic Church:

There is no other way to salvation, and in these meetings the Catholic Church is visually and exteriorly one of the many religions, and this is, in my opinion, a negative point and a dangerous point.

Far from being a good event, Bishop Schneider described the Congress as “a supermarket of religions, a show.”

In speaking to reporters on the papal plane while en-route to Rome yesterday, Pope Francis appeared to respond to this criticism of the Congress.

“Someone was criticizing, and they said to me: ‘This is fomenting; this is causing relativism to grow,’” he said.

“There’s nothing of relativism! Everyone had their say, everyone respected each other’s position, but we dialogue as brothers,” he continued.

The Pope defended this “dialogue” saying that “if there is no dialogue there is either ignorance or war. Better to live as brothers, we have one thing in common, we are all human. Let’s live as humans, with good manners: what do you think, what do I think? Let’s agree, let’s talk, let’s get to know each other.”

The Pope added that he saw the Catholic faith as being honored through such inter-religious meetings, and that “this is not relativism, I don’t give up my faith if I speak to another’s faith.”

On the contrary. I honor my faith because another listens to it and I listen to theirs.

While giving two keynote addresses at the Congress during his brief stay in the country, Pope Francis did not promote the Catholic faith [Emphasis - The Catacombs]. In his first, he failed to mention Jesus Christ by name at all, and predominantly used more ecumenically acceptable synonyms for God, such as “Almighty, Creator, the Divine.” He also quoted extensively from a Muslim philosopher instead of from Scripture.

Bishop Schneider’s words were already vindicated hours prior to the Pope’s in-flights comments, when Pope Francis signed a Declaration drawn up by the Congress participants, which stated – in apparent contradiction to Catholic teaching – that “pluralism and differences in religion, skin color, gender, race and language are expressions of the wisdom of God’s will in creation.”

That document was subsequently changed quietly, hours after it was signed and publicly pronounced. The new text now reads “Religious diversity is permitted by God and, therefore, any coercion to a particular religion and religious doctrine is unacceptable.”