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August
6, 2007
VOL.
45, NO. 14Oakland,
CA
Vatican congregation
reaffirms
truth, oneness of Catholic Church
VATICAN CITY
(CNS) -- In a brief document, the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation
reaffirmed that the Catholic Church is the one, true Church, even if elements
of truth can be found in separated churches and communities.
Touching an ecumenical sore point, the document said some of the separated
Christian communities, such as Protestant communities, should not properly
be called “churches” according to Catholic doctrine because
of major differences over the ordained priesthood and the Eucharist.
The Vatican released the text July 10. Titled “Responses to Some
Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church,”
it was signed by U.S. Cardinal William J. Levada, prefect of the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, and approved by Pope Benedict XVI before
publication.
In a cover letter, Cardinal Levada asked the world’s bishops to
do all they can to promote and present the document to the wider public.
The text was the latest chapter in a long-simmering discussion on what
the Second Vatican Council intended when it stated that the church founded
by Christ “subsists in the Catholic Church,” but that elements
of “sanctification and truth” are found outside the Catholic
Church’s visible confines.
The related discussion over the term “churches” surfaced publicly
in 2000, when the doctrinal congregation -- then headed by Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict -- said the term “sister churches”
was being misused in ecumenical dialogue.
In a format of five questions and answers, the new document stated that
Vatican II did not change Catholic doctrine on the Church. It said use
of the phrase “subsists in” was intended to show that all
the elements instituted by Christ endure in the Catholic Church.
The sanctifying elements that exist outside the structure of the Catholic
Church can be used as instruments of salvation, but their value derives
from the “fullness of grace and truth which has been entrusted to
the Catholic Church,” it said, quoting from Vatican II’s “Decree
on Ecumenism.”
The text said the Second Vatican Council used the term “church”
in reference to Orthodox churches because, although separated from the
Catholic Church, they have preserved apostolic succession, the ordained
priesthood and the Eucharist. Nevertheless, they “lack something
in their condition as particular churches” because they are not
in union with the pope, it said.
The Christian communities born out of the Reformation, on the other hand,
do not enjoy apostolic succession -- the unbroken succession of bishops
going back to St. Peter -- and therefore “cannot, according to Catholic
doctrine, be called ‘churches’ in the proper sense,”
it said.
In his cover letter, Cardinal Levada said the document came in response
to critical reactions to the teaching of “Dominus Iesus,”
another doctrinal congregation document of 2000, which said the Catholic
Church was necessary for salvation, and to ongoing confusion over interpretations
of the phrase “subsists in.”
An authoritative commentary published July 10 in the Vatican newspaper,
L’Osservatore Romano, said the congregation had acted to protect
the unity and uniqueness of the Church. The document, the commentary said,
took aim at the notion that the “church of Christ” was “the
sum total of the churches or the ecclesial communities” or that
it exists only as a future goal.
“If this were the case, the church of Christ would not any longer
exist in history, or would exist only in some ideal form emerging either
through some future convergence or through the reunification of the diverse
sister churches,” it said.
What Vatican II intended was to recognize ecclesial elements in non-Catholic
communities, it said.
“It does not follow that the identification of the church of Christ
with the Catholic Church no longer holds, nor that outside the Catholic
Church there is a complete absence of ecclesial elements, a ‘churchless
void,’” it said.
The council’s wording does not signify that the Catholic Church
has ceased to regard itself as the one true church of Christ but that
it recognizes that true ecclesial realities exist beyond its own visible
boundaries, it said.
Regarding the doctrinal congregation’s insistence that communities
originating from the Reformation are not churches, the article said:
“Despite the fact that this teaching has created no little distress
in the communities concerned and even among some Catholics, it is nevertheless
difficult to see how the title of ‘church’ could possibly
be attributed to them, given that they do not accept the theological notion
of the church in the Catholic sense and that they lack elements considered
essential to the Catholic Church.”
The commentary said that, at first glance, Catholic ecumenism might seem
somewhat paradoxical, because it holds that the Catholic Church has the
“fullness” of the means for salvation, but recognizes the
value of elements in other churches.
The Catholic Church’s teaching, it said, is that the fullness of
the Church “already exists, but still has to grow in the brethren
who are not yet in full communion with it and also in its own members
who are sinners.”
U.S. Dominican Father J. Augustine Di Noia, undersecretary of the doctrinal
congregation, said the document does not call into question Pope Benedict’s
pledge to work for ecumenical progress.
“The Church is not backtracking on its ecumenical commitment. But
... it is fundamental to any kind of dialogue that the participants are
clear about their own identity,” he told Vatican Radio.
Father Di Noia said the document touches on a very important experiential
point: that when people go into a Catholic church and participate in Mass,
the sacraments and everything else that goes on there, they will find
“everything that
Christ intended the Church to be.”
