A NEW Vatican document, which has sparked criticism from a number of other Churches for emphasising the Catholic Church’s essential role in salvation, is merely restating long-held teachings, according to the Australian bishops’ spokesman on ecumenism.
Chairman of the Bishops’ Committee for Ecumenism and Interfaith Relations, Bishop Michael Putney of Brisbane, said the declaration, “Dominus Iesus: On the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church”, did not diverge from what has been stated previously by the Roman Catholic Church.
“There’s nothing in ‘Dominus Iesus’ which can’t be found in other published Vatican documents.
“Some parts are simply reiterations of what was said in the Vatican II Decree on Ecumenism,” Bishop Putney said of the new document which was released on September 5.
He told The Catholic Leader that other points made in the document, signed by the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, had been made before many times.
“What Cardinal Ratzinger has done is to put together in a concise way all of the statements which mark out the boundaries around a Catholic approach to ecumenism and interfaith relations,” Bishop Putney said.
The 36-page declaration says there is a tendency among modern Christians to be silent about Christ, to consider him as just one historical manifestation of God, to elevate other religions as pathways to salvation, to downplay Scripture and to undervalue the Church as an institution.
While there is a certain level of communion with other Christian Churches, Christ’s true Church is the Catholic Church, the document says.
Bishop Putney said it was a pity that the document had attracted a strong reaction from some other Churches.
“I’m sorry that representatives of other Churches have been disturbed by this document.
“This indicates that we still have a great deal of work to do in our dialogues to explain our differing understandings of ecumenism and the Church.”
