Different voices call for and demand a greater presence of young people, or of women, or of minorities, or of pluralism, in the religions of our time.

In making claims of this kind, religions are supposed to be like human associations subject to the fashions and pressures of each group.

However, before any religion lie two questions that cannot be left aside, and that enable to focus on the essential.

The first question: Is this religion true? Do its origin, its doctrine, its promises, its rituals, offer valid answers to human existence and its most decisive longings?

The second: If a religion is shown as true, Are we willing to accept it fully, as it is, without adulterating it or subjecting it to temporary tastes or tendencies?

The two questions are intimately linked with each other. Because only if a religion shows that it is true it deserves to be received in a full and responsible way, without "screening" it according to personal or group preferences.

Discussing other aspects, asking for changes to religions without facing the center of these questions, is like getting lost in the contingent and temporary without focusing on the core of the religious question.

In a world where many live according to cliché phrases or spontaneous sociological tendencies or promoted “from the top down”, facing these questions prepares minds and hearts to important decisions.

Because human life, wounded by so many evils of body and soul, continually seeks paths that offer hope and, above all, a complete salvation before the two greatest evils: sin and death.

For those who write these lines, as for so many millions of human beings of the past and present, only one religion offers satisfactory answers: that of the Catholic Church, founded by Christ, Son of God and Son of Mary, Savior of the world, incarnated way to the Mercy of the heavenly Father.

Translated from Spanish by Luis Baudry-Simon (http://www.luisbaudrysimon.com)