VATICAN CITY — The Vatican on July 10 reasserted the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, calling other Christian churches defective and saying Protestant denominations are not even churches “in the proper sense.”
The statement, which was “ratified and confirmed” by Pope Benedict XVI and published with his approval, reiterates some of the most controversial ideas in a 2000 Vatican declaration published under Benedict's authority when he was still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
RNS PHOTO
Pope Benedict XVI during a visit to Turkey last fall.
The four-page document purports to correct “erroneous interpretation” and “misunderstanding” of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s, which paved the way for ecumenical dialogue between Catholics and other Christian churches.
The new document said Vatican II “neither changed nor intended to change” the teaching that the “one Church of Christ … subsists in the Catholic Church” alone. Other Christian denominations, it argues, can also be “instruments of salvation,” but “suffer from defects” insofar as they depart from Catholicism.
Eastern Orthodox churches, though lacking communion with Rome, nonetheless deserve the term “Church” because their priests follow in the succession of bishops and priests that started in the early church, the document explains.
Protestant denominations, however, “because of the absence of the sacramental priesthood, have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery,” and are therefore to be termed mere “Christian Communities.”
The document breaks little new ground but is likely to open old wounds from Dominus Iesus, the 2000 document produced by Ratzinger, which said non-Christians are in a “gravely deficient situation” on the question of salvation and that Catholics alone have “the fullness of the means of salvation.” It, too, said Protestant churches suffer “defects.”
One ecumenical scholar suggested the document is a piece of historical revisionism.
“From a careful reading of the documents of Vatican II, it is clear that the Roman Catholic Church wished to affirm the ecclesial reality of the Protestant churches,” said Vincent Cushing, former president of Washington Theological Union. Cushing sees the statement as part of a trend that has marked Benedict's papacy in which Vatican officials reinterpret the teachings of Vatican II as merely the reassertion of traditional doctrines, not something new.
The document will have a damaging effect on relations with other churches, Cushing believes, much like Dominus Iesus angered many Protestants in 2000.
“We're like a dysfunctional family sometimes. We keep going back to the same old argument and effectively insult our Protestant brothers and sisters,” he said.
At least one Southern Baptist leader agreed the Vatican statement is helpful.
Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said in his blog that he's not offended or surprised by the document, since it's consistent with previous statements from the Vatican. He said he welcomes the pope's clarity on the topic and suggested evangelicals be equally clear about their disagreements with Catholic doctrine.
“The Roman Catholic Church is willing to go so far as to assert that any church that denies the papacy is no true church,” Mohler said. “Evangelicals should be equally candid in asserting that any church defined by the claims of the papacy is no true church.”
“I actually appreciate the Pope's concern. If he is right, we are endangering our souls and the souls of our church members. Of course, I am convinced that he is not right—not right on the papacy, not right on the sacraments, not right on the priesthood, not right on the gospel, not right on the church.”
With additional reporting by Matt Kennedy of Associated Baptist Press.