The One, True, Faith

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky ( bio - articles - email ) | Jun 22, 2026

Everyone has a worldview. Even the rejection of the “constraints” of any worldview is, well, an aimless worldview. Aimlessness has an appeal, until you need a destination. The Catholic faith is the “one true faith.” Arrogance? Not at all. Honesty. Why would I subscribe to any system of belief if I didn’t think it was true and defensible?

But there is no room for sinful pride. To paraphrase John Henry Newman, those of us who have a clear grasp of the Church’s faith are not made holier than others by it, but more accountable on the Day of Judgment.

Jesus teaches that He is the way, the truth, and the life. He adds, “no one comes to the Father except by me” (cf. John 14:6). The Church was born at Pentecost. By Baptism, we are incorporated into His Mystical Body. Confirmation confers the gifts of the Holy Spirit upon us. The Eucharist deepens our union with Him throughout a lifetime. Christ entrusted His Church with a hierarchical priesthood to serve His people through Word and Sacrament. Know the Church, know Jesus.

In Jesus, God and man are reconciled. Hence Catholic theology has long augmented faith with reason, including insights from ancient Greek philosophy. We have a body and a soul, an intellect and a will, supported by memory and imagination. Our emotional life integrates body and soul. Anger may affect our thinking and our blood pressure. God delights in this unity of body and soul. God did not create us to die. Death entered the world through sin, freely committed.

The perfect humanity of Jesus, united to His divinity, forms the heart of the Apostles’ Creed, the summary of our worldview. His humanity helps us understand authentic human nature, free from sin. When Jesus was lost and found in the Temple, He displayed the authentic human development proper to His age, yet He committed no sin. When Jesus, in righteous anger, cleansed the Temple of its “den of thieves,” zeal for His Father's house consumed Him. His anguish on the Cross was sinless.

The Lord’s personality traits are mysterious. Catholic spiritual writers and psychologists sometimes draw upon the four temperaments of antiquity—sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic—to help illuminate aspects of the human personality. We may suggest that Jesus manifested the strengths associated with every temperament without the distortions caused by sin.

Christ was outgoing and sociable when He ate and drank with sinners. He was decisive and strong-willed when He set His face toward Jerusalem and His crucifixion. He was thoughtful and exacting when He taught that we must be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. At the Last Supper, He was serene and delighted in the company of His friends.

The imbalances we often associate with temperament arise from the wounds of fallen nature. Jesus was unstained by Original Sin. Though tempted like us, He did not sin. Hence, Jesus was not impulsive, domineering, impatient, hypercritical, passive, complacent, or resistant to necessary sacrifice. He was courageous. Imagine that. Catholics ascribe courage to their God! The Church teaches us to imitate Christ.

The Church also directs us to appreciate what is true and good in non-Catholic religions while evaluating them in light of the fullness of truth revealed in Jesus.

The language of a “divine spark” found in certain Eastern religious traditions resonates with our natural desire for the divine. The Church teaches that every human being is created in the image and likeness of God and possesses a natural desire for the divine. Yet Catholics reject pantheistic or monistic systems that blur the distinction between Creator and creature. In Christ, we never lose our identity.

The conviction that actions have consequences, shown in Hindu reincarnation traditions, reflects an important truth about justice and moral responsibility. A Hindu acquaintance once joked that an irritating coworker would surely be reincarnated as a cockroach! Yet Catholics reject reincarnation.

Evangelical Protestantism, with its emphasis on "Scripture alone," has a zeal for Sacred Scripture. Yet Catholics must reject its truncated sacramental system and the teaching that salvation is understood primarily as a once-for-all acceptance of Jesus as Lord and Savior. Christ redeemed us, but His gift of salvation calls forth a lifetime of accountable discipleship.

Catholics admire the Muslim belief in one God and their reverence for Jesus as a prophet. Yet Muslims reject the divinity of Christ and the Most Holy Trinity, and Islamic schools offer differing and often disturbing interpretations of jihad.

Our beliefs about eternal destiny shape how we live and view life. In Gnostic systems, the awakened soul seeks liberation from the clutches of the material world. In Hindu thought, the soul seeks release from the cycle of rebirth. In many evangelical communities, those who have accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior are assured of salvation. Faithful Muslims hope to enter Paradise while the wicked face divine punishment.

Catholics proclaim that the ultimate destiny of man is eternal communion with the Blessed Trinity. Salvation is made possible ordinarily through the sacramental encounter with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We should not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. We should only fear the one who can destroy both body and soul in the fires of hell.

Reason itself suggests that all who sincerely seek the truth are, knowingly or unknowingly, attracted to Him who is Truth itself. Yet the fullness of truth subsists—a beautiful word from the Second Vatican Council—in the Catholic Church, and the sacraments are Christ's ordinary means of conferring grace. We may judge actions with sufficient evidence. But judgment of the human heart belongs to God alone (cf. Matthew 7:1).

Pope John XXIII's devotional prayer from his youth helps keep Catholics on track:

• Death, than which nothing is more certain.
• Judgment, than which nothing is more strict.
• Heaven, than which nothing is more delightful.
• Hell, than which nothing is more terrible.

Seek truth in humility. Persevere in His grace.