Zmirak vs. Catholicism

In what promises to be a very ahhhhh .............interesting...........series of articles in which Zmirak takes on "integralism," he begins with condensing the offensive elements thereof.  First on his list of offensive elements is this:

Catholicism is not only the true religion, but the only belief system even worthy to be called a “religion.” All other creeds are forms of idolatry or heresy. (This appears in the very first pages of Right and Just, and marks the first time I threw the book across the room. But not the last.)

Oh, really? 

Zmirak apparently thinks that 'other creeds' are true?  Or does he think that other beliefs are 'religions'?

Inquiring minds want to know.  

As to the truth of Catholicism, Fr. John Hardon's Catholic Catechism puts it this way:

There is only one Church established by Christ; not only one but uniquely one.  What, then, about the many "Churches" we see in contemporary Christianity?  Is the Roman Catholic Church only a Christian denomination, one of many branches of the Church, each of whom shares in a partial possession of Christ's revealed truth and its own equally valid and effective means of sanctification?....

....The issue is where this one Church of Christ can be found.  The Second Vatican Council's answer is unequivocal.  That which constitutes the one true Church....not merely exists but it subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the Successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him.  Behind the carefully chosen verb "subsists" stands the affirmation that the objective fullness of Christ's heritage to the Church--totality of His revelation, totality of His sacraments, and totality of authority to rule the people of God in His name--resides in the Catholic Church, of which the Bishop of Rome is its visible head.

Other Christian bodies participate, in greater or less measure, of those elements of sanctification and truth that exist in their divinely ordained fullness (hence 'subsist') in the Roman Catholic Church.  --P. 213

Note that Hardon didn't bother to address non-Christian bodies at all.

Perhaps Zmirak wants to quibble about the definition of "heresy" or "idolatry" to make his case.  That's about all he'll have left to quibble about, and he'll be on very shaky ground in ALL instances save the Orthodox, or Judaism (of the Torah, not the Talmud.)  With the Orthodox there is the little problem of the Primacy, and with the Torah Jews, the problem of their rejection of the entire New Testament.

Zmirak has a lot to resolve there.

His main contention, that the Church should not govern the world, is conditionally solid, since evangelization is far from complete and the Church's governance in civil matters can only be complete if She is established as 'the' religion in any given country.  

Can that be more or less 'perfect' a governance than what exists in the United States?  Only if the Churchmen doing the governing are more perfect than any other group of men, and so long as Original Sin remains in play, good luck.....

But it will be fun to see his development of that first complaint of his.