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Authentic evangelization is sensitive to local culture and custom, always respecting the "inalienable right" of each and every person to religious freedom. Here the principle remains valid: "The Church proposes, she imposes nothing" (Redemptoris Missio, 39). Therefore, in your relations with your brothers and sisters of other religions, I encourage you to "strive to discern and welcome whatever is good and holy in one another, so that together you can acknowledge, preserve and promote the spiritual and moral truths which alone guarantee the world's future" (cf. Address to Religious Leaders in India, 7 Nov. 1999, 3). This openness, however, can never diminish the obligation to proclaim Jesus Christ as "the way, and the truth and the life" (Jn 14:6). For the Incarnation of our Lord enriches all human values, enabling them to bear new and better fruit.
Pope John Paul II, To the Syro-Malabar bishops of India on the occasion of their "Ad limina" visit (13 May 2003). |
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