Pope Francis Once Said 'All Religions Are Paths to God'

Internet users have attributed this quote to Pope Francis: "All religions are paths to God."

Popular evangelists have posted variations of the quote on social media platforms such as Facebook and X since mid-September 2024. The alleged remark has received tens of thousands of interactions. Also, at least one Reddit post questioned whether Francis said the phrase.

"All religions are paths to reach God."

- Pope Francis

"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

- Jesus Christ

— Shane Pruitt (@shane_pruitt78) September 14, 2024

The underlying assertion was correct based on Italian-to-English translations of the pope's words to a crowd at Singapore's Catholic Junior College on Sept. 13, 2024. According to the Vatican's transcript, he said, "All religions are paths to God." Meanwhile, a video by the Catholic News Service shows an interpreter who translated the phrase as "every religion is a way to arrive at God." 

Since the meanings of those translations are generally the same, the in-question quote is correctly attributed.

Here are the pope's words translated in the official Vatican transcription (the emphasis is ours): 

One of the things that has impressed me most about the young people here is your capacity for interfaith dialogue. This is very important because if you start arguing, "My religion is more important than yours...," or "Mine is the true one, yours is not true....," where does this lead? Somebody answer. [A young person answers, "Destruction".] That is correct. All religions are paths to God. I will use an analogy, they are like different languages that express the divine. But God is for everyone, and therefore, we are all God's children. "But my God is more important than yours!". Is this true? There is only one God, and religions are like languages, paths to reach God. Some Sikh, some Muslim, some Hindu, some Christian. Understood?

Below is the video of Francis' speech on the Catholic News Service's YouTube page that features the English interpreter. (The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops owns Catholic News Service.) 

While this alleged quote by the pope is authentic, Snopes has debunked other statements falsely attributed to him, such as "all religions are true" and "it is not necessary to believe in God to be a good person."