Pope Francis on Fellow Travelers and True Believers

Last updated on: December 23, 2014 at 5:15 pm by willduquette

Pope Francis on Fellow Travelers and True Believers 2014-12-23T17:15:57-05:00 willduquette

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Historically, the phrase “fellow travelers” was used of those who sympathized with the aims and goals of the Communist Party but chose not to join it. Though not members, they were traveling in the same direction. That doesn’t mean they precisely shared the beliefs of the Communist Party—presuming that the members of the Party themselves had a precisely unified set of beliefs beyond that week’s party line.

We see something similar in every area where people band together to do something: they’ve decided to work together toward some particular goal, but they pursue that goal for their own reasons. And in fact we expect them to do so. Pope Francis speaks of this phenomenon in paragraph 47 of Lumen Fidei:

These days we can imagine a group of people being united in a common cause, in mutual affection, in sharing the same destiny and a single purpose. But we find it hard to conceive of a unity in one truth. We tend to think that a unity of this sort is incompatible with freedom of thought and personal autonomy.

We have words for those who seem to have given up their freedom of thought. A man who claims to support the party line 100%, and acts like it, him we call a “True Believer”, and we don’t trust him—and often, with reason, because the ideology he believes in so fervently is a human construct and not worthy of ultimate faith.

Faith must, ultimately, be based on truth, on the real world, on what truly is. And what truly is, is God.

What is the secret of this unity? Faith is “one”, in the first place, because of the oneness of the God who is known and confessed. All the articles of faith speak of God; they are ways to know him and his works. Consequently, their unity is far superior to any possible construct of human reason. They possess a unity which enriches us because it is given to us and makes us one.

I’ve written about this before. There is only one truth, one objective reality; and faith in anything that isn’t part of that objective reality is doomed to fail. But God is the source and summit of objective reality, the ultimate cause of all that is; and through contemplation of Him and His revelation to us (without which we’d be adrift) we begin to glimpse that ultimate reality even if only as through a mirror darkly.

And that shared vision draws us together:

Yet the experience of love shows us that a common vision is possible, for through love we learn how to see reality through the eyes of others, not as something which impoverishes but instead enriches our vision. Genuine love, after the fashion of God’s love, ultimately requires truth, and the shared contemplation of the truth which is Jesus Christ enables love to become deep and enduring.

Is the Church a collection of fellow travelers? In part, surely it is. People come to the faith for all manner of reasons, and at are all stages of the journey. Perfection is not to be sought this side of the grave. But at its core, at its heart, at its best, no. We’re called to more than that. We’re called to the contemplation of God, of what truly is; and to receive His love, and to love with His love and pass His love along to all we meet. And that’s only possible as we approach Him as He is.

Lumen Fidei

lumen fidei

Pope Francis

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