Cardinal Ratzinger, before he became Pope, famously said, “There are as many ways to God as there are men and women.” But I don’t recall ever having seen before the fascinating quote by Mother Teresa on this topic, just now brought to my attention by a post at a Catholic website. In the version cited by Vox Nova, Mother Teresa says: “I’ve always said we should help a Hindu become a better Hindu, a Muslim become a better Muslim, a Catholic become a better Catholic.” (Looking around the Web, I find a few different versions of the quote. Back in the 1990s, AEI scholar Patrick Glynn quoted her as follows: “My job is to live out my spiritual calling and make a Muslim a better Muslim and a Hindu a better Hindu and a Buddhist a better Buddhist.” And there’s yet another version here, quoted by a Traditionalist Catholic critic of Mother Teresa.)
Mother Teresa was, of course, committed to the truth of her own Catholic faith. But, like Cardinal Ratzinger, she recognized that God was at work outside her own tradition, and that He revealed truths to others that could be built on, for the common good. In the process, some men and women might end their lives as converts to her faith — but many would benefit in other, incalculable ways. This deserving Nobel Peace Prize winner knew that the only true and lasting peace comes finally from neither war nor negotiation, but from an openness to the divine — to the fundamental truth about man, as an object of divine love and concern.