(LifeSiteNews) — In an essay that appeared on the Vatican’s official news website last week, Moroccan Cardinal Cristóbal López Romero, SDB, repeated a scandalous claim first made by Pope Leo XIV last week that implies the Catholic religion does not possess the fullness of truth.

“Religions, for their part, have the responsibility to offer paths of meaning and truth, not of domination,” Romero suggested. “No religion can appropriate the truth, as if it were its sole owner. No one possesses the truth; if anything, it is the truth that possesses us all, and in every religion there are glimmers of truth.”

Romero’s remarks echo comments made by Pope Leo during a sermon he delivered in St. Peter’s Basilica on October 26 during Mass for the closing of the Jubilee of Synodal Teams and Participatory Bodies. The event was held in Paul VI Hall from October 24-26 and featured workshops on topics such as the role of women in the Church, youth and synodality, and interreligious dialogue.

During his sermon, Leo claimed that “being a synodal Church means recognizing that truth is not possessed but sought together, allowing ourselves to be guided by a restless heart in love with love.”

He also argued that “one should impose his or her own ideas; we must all listen to one another” before stating “no one is excluded [from the Church]; we are all called to participate. No one possesses the whole truth; we must all humbly seek it and seek it together.”

READ: Pope Leo says ‘no one possesses the whole truth’ in Sunday sermon

Leo’s remarks sparked immediate outcry among orthodox Catholics worldwide, primarily due to fact that the Catholic Church, as the Mystical Body of Christ, has always taught that it is the sole guardian of truth revealed by God.

The “the Church of the living God” is “the pillar and bulwark of the truth,” St. Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 3:15. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me,” Our Lord said in John 14:6.

Leo’s comments were seen by many as a rejection of the Church’s unambiguous and infallible previous declarations on the subject. Others argue, however, that he only failed to make a distinction between individual members of the Church being fallible in their understanding of truth and the Church itself guarding and proclaiming the one true faith, a promised given to it by Our Lord Himself.

Romero’s remarks were published two days after Leo’s sermon on October 28. He reiterated the syncretistic and ecumenical nature of Leo’s comments.

After praising dissident 20th century theologian Hans Küng, as well as heralding Nostra Aetate as a “revolutionary document” that “completely changed” how the Catholic Church views non-Christians, Romero repeated Nostra Aetate’s assertion that God can be found outside of the Catholic Church. He further praised Nostra Aetate for encouraging “dialogue” with non-believers, a development he said that has helped bring about a “universal fraternity” among men.

“We must abandon the false paradigm of ‘true religion, false religion,’” he then shockingly alleged.

Romero is the Archbishop of Rabat, Morocco, an Islamic country located in northwest Africa that is 99 percent Muslim. A member of the Salesians who was born in neighboring Spain in 1952, Romero was appointed cardinal by Pope Francis in 2019 after having been named archbishop of Rabat by him in December 2017.

Responding to Leo’s sermon where he claimed “no one is excluded” from the Church, author and commentator Erick Ybarra published an X post noting:

“Are Jesus and the Apostles welcome? Do their commands have any value? In particular, about not even eating with Christians who live in outward contradiction to the commands of Christ and/or those who obstinately contradict the dogmas of Tradition? (1 Cor 5:1-13; 2 John 1:10) and treating the impenitent ‘faithful’ as heathen and tax collectors? (Mathew 18)” [sic]

“I think Catholic liberals would vomit at the teaching of Jesus and the Church of the Apostles,” Ybarra continued. “They can barely take a Christianity with any testosterone to begin with. They are more interested in the Church that appeals to the pleasure and honor of man than God.”