Vatican statement on salvation is a
'public relations disaster' for ecumenism
by Edmund Doogue and Stephen Brown
Ecumenical News International, from PCUSA News, Fri Sep 15
GENEVA -- A week after publishing a document which
casts doubt on the validity of Protestant Christianity and asserts Roman
Catholic superiority over all other churches, the Vatican continues to
draw criticism both from other churches and from within its own ranks.
The general secretaries of two organizations
representing major wings of Protestantism have publicly lamented the
harm done to ecumenism by Dominus Jesus, on the Unicity and Salvific
Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church, published on Sept. 5 by the
Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The document
declares that churches that do not have a "valid Episcopate
[bishops] and the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic
mystery are not churches in the proper sense."
Another document from the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith published in an Italian magazine this month orders
Catholic bishops not to use the term "sister church" in
reference to Protestant churches. This too has also caused dismay in
ecumenical circles.
Although many theologians pointed out that there is
nothing new in the Vatican documents, the reaffirmation that the Vatican
does not consider Protestant churches to be authentic churches has
provoked widespread irritation, especially within those organizations
involved in long-standing dialogue with the Vatican.
Commenting on the two documents, Ishmael Noko, general
secretary of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), which represents 59
million of the world's 63 million Lutherans, pointed out that on Oct.
31last year the Vatican and the LWF signed the "Joint Declaration
on the Doctrine of Justification" which uses the word
"church" in reference to Lutherans and Catholics "to
reflect the self-understanding of the particular churches, without
intending to resolve all the ecclesiological issues related to
them."
In his statement, issued on Sept. 8 at LWF
headquarters in Geneva, Noko expressed "dismay and
disappointment" that 35 years of ecumenical dialogue between Roman
Catholics and Lutherans seem not to have been considered in the
documents issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He
added that the impact of the recent statements from the Vatican is more
painful because they reflect a different spirit "than that which we
encounter in many Lutheran-Roman Catholic relationships."
He added that "Lutheran churches, together with
other churches of the Reformation, are not ready to accept the
categories now emphasized by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, nor the definitions and criteria underlying them."
Also in Geneva, Setri Nyomi, general secretary of the
World Alliance of Reformed Churches, has written to Cardinal Edward
Cassidy, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian
Unity, to express "disappointment and dismay" about Dominus
Jesus.
Nyomi, whose organization represents more than 75
million Christians in 215 Congregationalist, Presbyterian, Reformed and
United churches world-wide, said in his letter to Cardinal Cassidy that
the declaration is "made without ecumenical sensitivity" and
"seems to go against the spirit of Vatican II ... and the progress
made in relationships and dialogues since then." "We in the
World Alliance of Reformed Churches have attached much importance to the
dialogue we have engaged in for a long time now," Nyomi said.
"In many nations a number of our constituent members have made
major strides in relationship, often relating as 'sister churches' in
common witness and diaconal work vis-a-vis challenges in their
communities."
Nyomi drew attention to the Catholic decree on
ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio, approved in 1964 by the Second
Vatican Council, which committed the Roman Catholic Church to
whole-hearted participation in the ecumenical movement and was widely
seen as the beginning a new phase in ecumenism.
By contrast, he stated in the letter to Cardinal
Cassidy, slighting remarks on other Christian communities in Dominus
Jesus, coupled with the note on the use of the term "sister
churches," seem to be "part of a sustained effort by Catholic
conservatives" to deny the growing relationship and respect between
the Roman Catholic and Reformed and other churches.
By seeming "to contradict commitment to
ecumenical co-operation within the Christian family or even to take us
back to a pre-Vatican II spirit," such statements raise questions,
Nyomi wrote, concerning "how we can continue in dialogue with
integrity -- trusting and respecting one another."
Ironically, Dominus Jesus was issued a week before
WARC was scheduled to begin a further session of international bilateral
dialogue with the Catholic Church. WARC considered calling off this
session pending clarification from the Catholic Church over what it has
described as the "special affinity and close relationship"
binding it to Protestant churches. WARC has however decided to go ahead
with the session, but Nyomi stated in the letter that "we will be
putting on the table for discussion the questions we have regarding how
the Roman Catholic Church views the Reformed family, and its
implications for our continued dialogue."
The Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), the country's
main Protestant body, issued a statement Sept. 7 pointedly declaring
that it wanted, despite the statements from Rome, to improve ecumenical
co-operation with its "Catholic sister church."
The governing board of the United Evangelical Lutheran
Church in Germany (VELKD), which has as members eight regional Lutheran
churches, said on Sept. 8 that there was no biblical justification for
the claim in Dominus Jesus that only the Catholic Church fully
incorporated the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. "To make
this claim at the present time shows a lack of ecumenical
sensitivity."
The publication of Dominus Jesus on Sept. 5 took place
a day after representatives of the VELKD and the Catholic Church in
Germany published a new statement on the nature of the church drawn up
by a joint working group. The VELKD board said that it was confident
that the German (Catholic) Bishops' Conference would deal with the
statements of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in an
"ecumenical spirit" and that there would continue to be a good
partnership between Lutherans and Catholics in Germany in further
bilateral discussions.
However, in Switzerland, Heinrich Bolleter, bishop of
the Evangelical Methodist Church of central and southern Europe, said
that he could not understand "why Protestants are getting so
excited about the statements." According to the Reformierte
Nachrichten (RNA), based in Zurich, Bishop Bolleter said: "In our
practical ecumenical work we have always known that we are not of one
mind when it comes to the issue of the nature of the church. We too
easily forget how in recent decades we have dealt with the issue of
mutual recognition. We have always avoided the question of the
understanding of the church. But we have constructed a common platform
on which we can have fellowship despite different ecclesiologies."
In Italy, Gianni Genre, newly elected moderator of the
Waldensian Church, said that he was concerned about the
"anti-modernist accent accents being set in recent times by the
Catholic Church," RNA reported.
In Paris a prominent Orthodox theologian, Olivier
Clement, commenting on Dominus Jesus, said it was an "act of
blasphemy against the church to say that the Eucharist celebrated by
Anglicans and Protestants is empty." Asked by a Swiss news agency,
Agence de Presse Internationale Catholique, if Orthodox Christians were
closer to Roman Catholics than Protestants, Clement replied: "Of
course, I'm convinced of that. But another step should be taken -- a
step which would prove that the closer relations between Orthodox and
Catholics have positive ramifications for Anglicans and Protestants. But
we can't see any sign of such a step. I would like to add that the
beatification of Pope Pius IX [in Rome early this month] is a disaster
for the Orthodox, for he is the man of the First Vatican Council [which
proclaimed] the dogma of papal infallibility, which poisoned relations
between the divided churches."
In London, the deputy general secretary of the Baptist
Union, Myra Blyth, told the Baptist Times: "We are all part of the
one holy, catholic and apostolic church. For one part of Christ's Church
to claim superiority over the other is inappropriate for the times in
which we live, and is unhelpful to the cause of mission."
In the United States, Joe Hale, general secretary of
the World Methodist Council (WMC), and Geoffrey Wainwright, the chair of
the WMC''s committee on ecumenism and dialogues, said that the WMC
welcomed the reaffirmation in Dominus Jesus of "Jesus Christ as the
one Savior of the world" but added that in its continuing dialogue
with the Roman Catholic Church it looked forward to "further
explanation on the question of how each partner can come to a fuller
recognition of the churchly character of the other." For many
progressive Catholics, Dominus Jesus was at best embarrassing and at
worst offensive. The German branch of the We are Church movement, a
Catholic organization campaigning for radical changes in the church,
described the declaration as a "questionable attempt to bring back
the absolutist view of the church of the First Vatican Council with the
unlimited primacy of the Pope." The declaration, it continued, was
"in stark contrast to the hopeful endeavours initiated by the
Second Vatican Council for ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue."
It warned that the declaration was putting at risk plans to hold an
ecumenical Kirchentag (church convention) in Berlin in 2003. We Are
Church called for a clear statement by Germany's Catholic bishops
distancing themselves from the declaration.
Hans Kung, a prominent Swiss Catholic theologian often
at odds with the Vatican, told an Italian news agency that Dominus Jesus
was "a mixture of medieval backwardness and Vatican
megalomania."
In London, The Tablet, a leading independent Catholic
publication, described Dominus Jesus as "a public relations
disaster -- what a pity that it sounds notes of triumphalism that the
sympathetic style and way of acting of Pope John XXIII [who initiated
the Second Vatican Council], newly beatified, seemed to have dispelled
forever."
