Pope Francis

and the United Religions Initiative

Editor’s Note: In light of the recent concord between Francis and the Egyptian Imam, in which diversity of religions was declared "willed by God", we thought it a good time to remind our readers where Francis came from. The following appeared in The Remnant back in April of 2014.

MJM Back in 2013 and in dramatic fashion, PBS Frontline took it upon itself to highlight the contrast between the newly-elected Pope Francis who was going to reform the Church and his "evil predecessors" who’d more or less let it all go to hell.

The PBS Documentary Secrets of the Vatican (viewer discretion strongly advised) was so deeply disturbing that at the time I decided not to link to it from The Remnant website for fear of further scandalizing young people visiting our site. I remember several particularly sordid details of homosexual orgies in the shadow of St Peter’s Basilica which would conclude at sunrise with the participants offering Mass. Yes, "offering" it.

Now, of course, news reports have more than corroborated Frontline’s findings, and we see Francis—the great "reformer"—emerging now as the worst pope in history who, far from reforming the Church, seems poised to destroy her, at least in the human element.

It’s beginning to seem like a long time ago when Francis was declared Time magazine’s "Person of the Year" and Fortune’s "greatest leader in the world".

At that time, a CNN Money report captured the spirit of the moment when the world the flesh and the devil seemed positively on fire with love for the new Pope:

Francis has electrified the church and attracted legions of non Catholic admirers by energetically setting a new direction. He has refused to occupy the palatial papal apartments, has washed the feet of a female Muslim prisoner, is driven around Rome in a Ford Focus, and famously asked "Who am I to judge?" with regard to the church’s view of gay members.

After 2000 years contra mundum, it was Peter’s "new direction" that was garnering the accolades of a world gone mad—a world no longer capable of distinguishing right from wrong, a world at war with God, a world crushing Christian marriage, eradicating the last vestiges of truth, goodness and beauty while wiping out millions of unborn babies.

I’m sorry, I just don’t get it. There must be something else – something we’re missing, which is inspiring worldly hope that our Church is on the verge of an unconditional surrender. It is no secret that the Holy Father has his supporters in radical organizations such as the Council for a Parliament of the World Religions. He is also regularly praised for his extensive experience in interreligious relations in Argentina.

And then there is this strangely underreported connection between Pope Francis and a global organization called the United Religions Initiative (URI)—which, according to their website, "envisions a world at peace, sustained by engaged and interconnected communities committed to respect for diversity, nonviolent resolution of conflict and social, political, economic and environmental justice."

Pope Francis, while still Cardinal Bergoglio, was reportedly a friend and supporter of the San Francisco-based URI, which has regional offices in 83 countries and seems to have as its ultimate objective the establishment of what conspiracy theorists used to call the One World Religion, whereby Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Shintoists, Bahá’is, Sikhs, Hindus, Zoroastrians, New Agers, Wiccans, representatives of aboriginal religions, etc., would set aside all doctrinal differences or claims of religious supremacy in order to engender universal peaceful coexistence.

According to an article written by Lee Penn in the December 1998 issue of the New Oxford Review, The United Religions Initiative, A Bridge Back to Gnosticism, the URI hopes to enroll "60 million people in what it describes as ‘a Worldwide Movement to create the United Religions as a lived reality locally and regionally, all over the world.’" In 2007, URI celebrated its 10th anniversary in the Metropolitan Cathedral in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

And guess who was there. "Little did we know," writes an enthusiastic Maria Eugenia Crespo of URI in Argentina that "one of our esteemed participants and friends, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, would be named Pope just five years later!

Felicitations, Papa Francis!"

According to the Covenant of Faith blog site, Cardinal Bergoglio was a known supporter of the United Religions Initiative in his diocese for some time.

Maria Crespo, an Argentine Catholic and Global Support Coordinator for the URI said in an article last March that she had "worked directly with Bergoglio on interfaith efforts. He hosted a meeting of Crespo’s URI Cooperation Circle, which fosters interfaith cooperation, at the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral.

‘He is so open and welcoming and humble at the same time,’ she said."

(Laird Harrison, Bay Area Catholics May Find the New Pope a Mixed Bag, KQED News Fix, March 13, 2013.

In The One World Religion: The Details - Learn to Recognize Them, Lee Penn provides useful background information on the URI:

The United Religions Initiative (URI) is an interfaith movement founded in 1995 by William Swing, the bishop of the Episcopal Church’s diocese in the San Francisco Bay Area. It has expanded worldwide, with over 200 chapters – the majority of which are outside the affluent nations of North America, Western Europe, and the Pacific Rim.

The URI works closely with the United Nations, and it has received funding from many sources. Among them are wealthy donors (including foundations headed by George Soros and Bill Gates), a Federal agency (the United States Institute of Peace), and organizations (the Rudolf Steiner Foundation and the Lucis Trust World Service Fund) that promote various forms of Theosophy, an anti-Christian, New Age spiritual movement. . .

URI leaders repeatedly equate evangelism to manipulative "proselytizing" and violence. As Bishop Swing has said, "In order for a United Religions to come about and for religions to pursue peace among each other, there will have to be a godly ceasefire, a temporary truce where the absolute exclusive claims of each will be honored, but an agreedupon neutrality will be exercised in terms of proselytizing, condemning, murdering or dominating. These will not be tolerated in the United Religions zone" (1) - which evidently covers the whole world.

URI leaders say "proselytizing" is the work of "fundamentalists," and Paul Chafee (who was then a URI board member) said at a URI forum in 1997, "We can’t afford fundamentalists in a world this small." (2) If the URI vision prevails, Christian evangelism based on the unique, saving identity and acts of Christ would be ruled out.

Could this provide context for Pope Francis’ famous quip "Proselytism is solemn nonsense. It makes no sense"?

( See Eugenio Scalfari interview) Might it even explain our Holy Father’s not infrequent scolding of "fundamentalist" and "neo-pelagian" Catholics? Is the Holy Father still somehow committed to the vision of the URI—an organization opposed by the Church under the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, as the author of the 1998 New Oxford Review article observes:

Within the Catholic Church, opinion about the URI is divided.

Rome stands firm against it, but some theologians, priests, and sisters – and a few members of the hierarchy – actively support it. At Rome in 1996, Bishop Swing met with Cardinal Arinze, head of the Vatican’s Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue.

Bishop Swing received a firm rebuff from the Cardinal; he reported that the Cardinal "said that a United Religions would give the appearance of syncretism and it would water down our need to evangelize. It would force authentic religions to be on an equal footing with spurious religions." Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, who works under Cardinal Arinze, pointedly ignored Bishop Swing’s invitation to attend the 1997 URI summit conference.

Some Catholics, however, are not

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Pope Francis (then Cardinal Bergoglio) in Argentina in 2007, where he celebrated the 10th Anniversary of URI in Latin America in the Altar of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Buenos Aires with Bishop Swing, Swami Pareshananda, Raul Mamani, Beytullah Cholak, Rabbi Sztokman, and Maria Crespo.

The United Religions Initiative

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following Cardinal Arinze’s lead. Paul Evaristo Cardinal Arns, the recently retired Archbishop of São Paulo, Brazil, is claimed by the URI as a "strong supporter," and Archbishop Anthony Pantin of Trinidad is forming a URI support group in his country.

Fr. Gerard O’Rourke, director of ecumenical affairs for the Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco, has been an enthusiast for the URI from its beginning, serving on its Board of Directors. He took part in its 1995 interfaith service which announced the URI to the public. Other Catholic URI supporters include Fr. John LoSchiavo, S.J., Chancellor of the Jesuit-run University of San Francisco (and a member of the URI Board), and Fr. Luis Dolan and Sister Joan Kirby (associated with the Temple of Understanding). Theologians supporting the URI include Paul Knitter, senior editor of Orbis Books and professor at Xavier University, and Hans Küng.

If Francis is still a "friend and supporter of URI" this could shed some light on the media’s optimism that a papal declaration of a doctrinal and moral ceasefire is imminent. It would also suggest that when Pope Francis reprimands "reactionary, selfabsorbed neo-Pelagians" he is, in fact, not referring merely to Latin Massloving traditionalists (a small and comparatively insignificant group), but rather to all those who insist on rigid fidelity to the doctrines of the Catholic Church. This could include EWTN, Catholic Answers, Opus Dei and any number of conservative, pro-family, pro-life organizations whose dogmatic belief that Christ founded only one true church -- the Catholic Church -- would be regarded as divisive and counterproductive.

Protecting the environment, refusing to "judge", tearing down the old Catholic bastions of Tradition, not being "obsessed" with the life issues, showing limitless "compassion" to dissenters from the Church’s moral teachings—these are elements the URI would naturally employ to bring about the "religious ceasefire" so key to their utopian vision, what some have called a new world order.

In other words, the precedent for scandal was set long ago and today diabolical disorientation is turning the Church and the world upside down. The Mystery of Iniquity is at hand, and anyone who tells you he has it all figured out is either lying or insane. We must neither panic nor despair but rather watch and pray for Pope Francis even as Christ prayed for Peter—that ‘his faith will not fail him.’ ■