Religious inclusivity

Thank you for the article on Fr. Peter Phan's theology and his predicament (NCR, Sept. 28). His work falls into consonance with the divine plan once we Catholics realize that Jesus Christ did not come to found a religion. He had a religion. He was a Jew. He came to found a suprareligious gathering of people who would work within their own religions and in society to bring about openness to God's rule in their own lives and, by example, in their neighbors' lives.

We are all supposed to be "subversives," or perhaps the opposite of that, "assisters," to help our religions achieve oneness with God's will as revealed to each of us daily by the Holy Spirit and by the saints among us. The chief way to do that, of course, is by assisting our fellow human beings.

Religion is our response to the divine initiative, nothing more. Often it is a poor response. We Catholics made mistakes with the Crusades and with the Catholic church's (that is, the Catholic religious leadership's) current mode of monarchical government.

JOE MARREN

Chicago

Fr. Richard McBrien reminds us of the back door entry into the Catholic church through the device of communion "by desire" (NCR, Sept. 21). This Jesuitical legerdemain is grounded in the notion that non-Catholic Christians of good intention will be automatically included in the rolls of the church even though committed to the theology of their dissenting ecclesial bodies. Cradle Baptists, Lutherans and Presbyterians will deny they are virtual Catholics. Quite so because the Reformation erected an uncompromising wall of dissent. Instead, they proudly hold to dual membership in their denomination and in the wider society of Christian believers. Even so, welcome.

Contrary to Fr. Leonard Feeney's notion that the road to salvation is narrowed to permit only Catholic pilgrims, the "by desire" clause widens the road to all Christians. Virtual Catholics in the Protestant churches rightly claim their confession is valid and equal to the Roman church in a roundabout way.

Fr. Phan has taken this inclusivity a step further when he proposes the Asian churches and other prophetic religions are fellow travelers walking the same path to eternal bliss as Christians. Perhaps Fr. Feeney was more right than wrong.

JOHN J. WELSH

Huntingdon Valley, Pa.

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