Synergy or Syncretism? From Abu Dhabi to Astana

Astana, 17 September 2025 — The 8th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions in Kazakhstan once again placed the Catholic Church at the centre of global interfaith diplomacy. Pope Leo XIV, though not present in person, sent a written message to the assembly of Muslim imams, Buddhist monks, Jewish rabbis, Hindu swamis, and Christian representatives. In it he urged “synergy” among religions as a path to peace, fraternity, and solidarity.¹ His words recalled the interfaith vision of his predecessor, Pope Francis, whose controversial 2019 Abu Dhabi declaration claimed that the “diversity of religions” is “willed by God.”² Traditional Catholic voices, notably Bishop Athanasius Schneider, have consistently warned that such formulations tend toward pluralism and syncretism, contradicting the perennial teaching that salvation is found in Christ alone.

Leo XIV and the Language of Synergy
In his message, Pope Leo XIV insisted that “religion, at its core, is not a source of conflict but a wellspring of healing and reconciliation.”³ He praised diversity as “a source of mutual enrichment” and urged that interreligious cooperation be “unarmed and disarming, humble and persevering.”⁴ Historical milestones were cited: John Paul II’s Assisi prayer gathering (1986), Francis’ Abu Dhabi declaration (2019), and the previous Astana congress (2022). For Leo XIV, such encounters demonstrate that faith communities united in dialogue can model global solidarity and peace.

Francis and the Abu Dhabi Declaration
Yet it is precisely here that theological controversy emerges. In February 2019, Pope Francis and Ahmad al-Tayyeb signed the Document on Human Fraternity, which stated:

“The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom.”²

Critics immediately noted that this formulation, if taken literally, implies that God positively wills false religions — a claim directly opposed to the First Commandment. Francis attempted clarification in April 2019, saying that God “permits” the existence of many religions as part of His permissive will, not His positive will.⁵ Nevertheless, the original text was never corrected.

Bishop Schneider’s Intervention
Bishop Athanasius Schneider met with Francis personally to raise these concerns. He later reported that Francis allowed him to state publicly that the Abu Dhabi phrase should be understood in the sense of permissive will.⁶ Yet Schneider also stressed that leaving the uncorrected text in circulation “risks giving the faithful the impression that all religions are equally willed by God.”⁷ In June 2019, Schneider, Cardinal Burke, and others published a Declaration of Truths affirming:

“The religion born of faith in Jesus Christ… is the only religion positively willed by God.”⁸

This declaration was widely seen as a direct corrective to Abu Dhabi and an implicit rebuke of papal ambiguity.

Perennialism: Two Competing Visions
The deeper issue at stake is perennialism. In Catholic tradition, philosophia perennis refers to the enduring truths of reason and revelation, safeguarded by the Church and articulated by thinkers such as Augustine, Aquinas, and Leo XIII. This perennial philosophy affirms the natural law, metaphysical realism, and the unique mediation of Christ. It insists that truth does not change with culture or history.

By contrast, modern religious perennialism — popularised by figures such as René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon — holds that all religions are valid expressions of the same transcendent reality. This view treats Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism as parallel paths to the divine, each equally willed by God. It is a philosophy of syncretism that relativises revelation.

When Francis declared in Abu Dhabi that the “diversity of religions” is willed by God, and when Leo XIV now praises religious diversity as “mutual enrichment,” critics argue that the Church appears to have shifted from the Catholic perennis to the syncretic perennialism of modern comparative religion. The former proclaims Christ as Truth; the latter treats truth as scattered and equal among all traditions.

The Magisterial Contrast
This trajectory stands in sharp tension with the clear teaching of earlier popes. Pius XI, in Mortalium Animos (1928), condemned interfaith congresses which presuppose that all religions are “more or less good and praiseworthy.”⁹ Pius XII in Humani Generis (1950) warned against “false irenicism” that compromises revealed truth.¹⁰ Leo XIII taught that “it is a sin to believe that all religions are alike and equally good.”¹¹ By contrast, Leo XIV and Francis both describe religious pluralism as a positive enrichment rather than a sign of humanity’s fallen condition.

From Dialogue to Relativism
The practical effect of such rhetoric is to replace evangelisation with dialogue. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre warned that post-conciliar ecumenism respects error rather than converting souls:

“Instead of converting souls, they respect error, and in respecting error they betray Christ.”¹²

By treating religions as interchangeable partners in a “synergy of peace,” both Francis and Leo XIV risk confirming precisely the relativism and syncretism their predecessors condemned.

The Only Name Given for Salvation
Sacred Scripture is unambiguous: “There is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Christ alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6). Cooperation for temporal peace is possible, but it must never obscure the Church’s mission to convert all nations to Christ the King. As Pius XI declared in Quas Primas (1925):

“When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony.”¹³

Conclusion
From Abu Dhabi to Astana, the rhetoric of “diversity of religions” and “synergy of faiths” signals continuity between Francis and Leo XIV. Yet this continuity represents a rupture with the perennial magisterium. Where Catholic perennial philosophy affirms Christ as the exclusive source of salvation, modern syncretic perennialism relativises Him as one option among many. Only by reasserting the true philosophia perennis — that God positively wills one true religion and only permissively allows error — can the Church avoid betraying her mission and confusing the faithful.

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Footnotes

1. Pope Leo XIV, Message to the 8th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, Astana, 17 September 2025.
2. Pope Francis and Ahmad al-Tayyeb, Document on Human Fraternity, Abu Dhabi, 4 February 2019.
3. Pope Leo XIV, Message to the 8th Congress, 2025.
4. Ibid.
5. Pope Francis, General Audience, 3 April 2019.
6. Bishop Athanasius Schneider, public remarks on papal clarification, 2019.
7. Bishop Athanasius Schneider, interview with OnePeterFive, March 2019.
8. Cardinal Raymond Burke, Bishop Athanasius Schneider et al., Declaration of Truths, 10 June 2019.
9. Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, 2 (6 January 1928).
10. Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, 11 (12 August 1950).
11. Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, 31 (1 November 1885).
12. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, They Have Uncrowned Him (Kansas City: Angelus Press, 1988), 230.
13. Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas, 19 (11 December 1925).