On this feast day, we celebrate the beauty of the Catholic faith and gratefully profess Christianity as the true God-given religion.
There is only one God – the Most Holy Trinity.
We worship the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
“The three divine Persons are only one God because each of them equally possesses the fullness of the one and indivisible divine nature. They are really distinct from each other by reason of the relations which place them in correspondence to each other. The Father generates the Son; the Son is generated by the Father; the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.”[1]
God exists from eternity and will always be – absolutely perfect and incomprehensibly beautiful. He is infinite love, radiant truth and the fullness of life.
“The immutable Godhead of this most Holy Trinity is one in its being, undivided in its working, unanimous in its will, equal in its power and coequal in its glory.”[2]
Through the sublimity of creation, man can recognize by means of his reason that there must be a Creator.
But who this God is, what He is like and what He wants from us, the Almighty had to reveal to mankind.
This happened in an unsurpassable way through the mystery of the incarnation of the Son. We are therefore talking about the self-communication of God in Jesus Christ.
At His incarnation, the Redeemer took on flesh through the Holy Spirit from the Immaculata, the perpetual Virgin Mary. He is true God and true man.
In Him, the fullness of divine truth is finally and completely revealed[3]: “No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side, has revealed Him” (Jn 1:18). “For in Him dwells the whole fullness of the Deity bodily” (Col 2:9).
The Lord came from heaven for our salvation and is the true Savior of humanity, which had lost the grace of God through sin (cf. Rom 3:23) and had fallen prey to corruption.
Jesus says: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (Jn 14:6). Only in Him can we find perfect happiness and one day the immortal joys of paradise, for “this is eternal life, that they should know You, the only true God, and the one whom You sent, Jesus Christ” (Jn 17:3).
The Messiah, who bore the sins of many and stood up for the guilty (cf. Is 53:12), sacrificed Himself on the cross for His own with incomprehensible mercy. “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).
Christ, the Lamb of God, has brought about redemption through the power of His Precious Blood (cf. Eph 1:7). He “died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures; that He was buried; that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures; that He appeared to Kephas, then to the Twelve” (1 Cor 15:3-5).
His glorious resurrection manifests the triumph over Satan, death and hell. In His radiant Easter victory, the King of the universe has broken the chains of the underworld, illuminated the darkness of the grave and thrown the gate to life wide open.
“It must therefore be firmly believed as a truth of Catholic faith that the universal salvific will of the One and Triune God is offered and accomplished once for all in the mystery of the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Son of God.”[4]
Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is the only Savior. “There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved” (Acts 4:12). He is the “mediator between God and the human race, Christ Jesus, Himself human” (1 Tim 2:5).
Before His victorious ascent to heaven, the Lord commanded His apostles: “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt 28:18-20).
Christ is the King of eternal glory, by whom everyone must decide: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned” (Mk 16:16).
For: “Who is the liar? Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Whoever denies the Father and the Son, this is the antichrist. No one who denies the Son has the Father, but whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well” (1 Jn 2:22-23).
In the outpouring of the Holy Spirit promised to the disciples at Pentecost, the mystery of salvation of the Church was born, which the Lord Himself founded on the rock of the Apostle Peter (cf. Mt 16:18; Jn 21:17). He and the other apostles are entrusted with the leadership and propagation of the Church (cf. Mt 28:18-20).
“Indeed, Jesus Christ continues His presence and His work of salvation in the Church and by means of the Church (cf. Col 1:24-27)”.[5] As the Holy Scriptures explain (cf. 1 Cor 12:12-13.27; Col 1:18), she is “His body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way” (Eph 1:23).
In the Creed, we confess the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
Thus, “in connection with the unicity and universality of the salvific mediation of Jesus Christ, the unicity of the Church founded by Him must be firmly believed as a truth of Catholic faith”.[6]
The Lord has victoriously gone before His Church and has prepared a place for His elect in the kingdom of heaven (cf. Jn 14:2-3): “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in Me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die” (Jn 11:25-26).
The King of eternal glory will return in the splendor of His divinity. He is “the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and ruler of the kings of the earth” (Rev 1:5). “Behold, He is coming amid the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him. All the peoples of the earth will lament Him. Yes. Amen” (Rev 1:7).
The Son of God will one day judge all men: “‘Behold, I am coming soon. I bring with Me the recompense I will give to each according to his deeds. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.’ Blessed are they who wash their robes so as to have the right to the tree of life and enter the city through its gates. Outside are the dogs, the sorcerers, the unchaste, the murderers, the idol-worshipers, and all who love and practice deceit” (Rev 22:12-15).
“The one who gives this testimony says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’
Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev 22:20)
Epilogue
In light of this statement, we reject with the utmost determination the blatant heresy that was spread in Singapore on September 13, 2024.
Bergoglio claimed there that all religions are a way to reach God (in the original Italian: “Tutte le religioni sono un cammino per arrivare a Dio”).
In contrast, we confess with emphatic clarity that Jesus Christ is the only Redeemer and true Savior.
He Himself says: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (Jn 14:6).
February 22, 2025
Cathedra Sancti Petri Apostoli
Priestly group Communio veritatis
Gloria a te, Cristo Gesu – Andrea Bocelli
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[1] Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (June 28, 2005), 48.
[2] Pope Leo the Great, Sermones, Sermo LXXVI, 2nd Sermon on the Feast of Pentecost, 2.
[3] Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Dominus Iesus (DI) on the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church (August 6, 2000), 5.
[4] DI 14.
[5] DI 16.
[6] Ibid.