§ 226. General View of the Relation Between the Church and Other Faiths

Christianity is spread throughout the whole world among many peoples, but not even a third of all the people that exist in the world are subject to Christian laws. Alongside Christians there exist various other faiths, among them the Mohammedan and the Jewish, and, in the most varied forms, polytheism and idolatry. The adherents of these various faiths are called, in theological terminology, unbelievers. But Christianity itself, too, is not today one, as it once was, but within it there exist various confessions, which differ among themselves and live and govern themselves independently. Each of these confessions considers itself to be the true Church, and calls those who do not belong to it heterodox (ἑτερόδοξοι).

It is the commandment of the divine Founder of the Christian faith that it be preached to the whole world and that all peoples be converted; from this arises also the duty of the Church to be concerned for the spreading of Christian teaching (§132) and to guard the faithful from every false teaching (§133). And just as she carries out the work of preaching itself by the command of her Founder, so too the manner in which she is to carry it out must be consonant with the teaching of that same Founder of hers. The fundamental thought of the Christian faith, in its teaching on relations toward men, is love, and therefore the Church must be penetrated by the spirit of love alone toward every man, when she carries out the work of preaching, and the means which she employs for this must likewise be only an expression of love.

Just as in the work of converting unbelievers, so too the Church and her ministers must be penetrated by love in their relations toward persons of other faiths. Only by love and mutual forbearance can the differences that exist today among the various Christian confessions be smoothed away, and the path prepared for arriving at “one flock and one shepherd”; whereas in the contrary case, an even greater division among them will be fostered, while all the time statistics will continue to count, on the one side, not even a full third of the cultured peoples, and, on the other, a full two-thirds of uncultured peoples.