“At this point, someone might object: ‘What about Dominus Iesus? Has not this document, issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in August 2000, reversed everything and put an end to all ecumenical hopes? Many people think so, many have been disappointed and hurt by this declaration–and this has hurt me too, since the sadness and pain of my friends makes me sad and pained. I must, however, add my impression that many of those who exaggerate the importance of the document are persons who never took ecumenism seriously. Now they are delighted to find confirmation of their own view that ecumenism is a waste of time.
I do not wish to play down Dominus Iesus, but I would like to try to indicate the proper framework for understanding it. The document does not intend to offer a comprehensive presentation of Catholic doctrine on ecumenism. All it wishes to do is to recall a number of conciliar statements that are in fact well known. Unfortunately, it does this in a manner that I find unnecessarily sharp and harsh. This is why Dominus Iesus must be read in the context of other, more comprehensive–and also more authoritative–texts such as the conciliar statements and the encyclical Ut unum sint. It has no power to invalidate those texts, nor to cancel the many positive ecumenical statements and actions by the pope in the period since August 2000 that show that “Vatican policies” have not changed. We have not gone back to the era before the council! Rather, as the pope says in Novo millennio ineunte (2001), the council remains the compass on the church’s path into the new century and the new millennium.
Dominus Iesus brought these ecclesiological questions out into the open. Many of our Protestant friends were offended by the passage in this document that says that the communities born out of the Reformation in the sixteenth century are not ‘churches’ in the truest sense of the word.
The point could certainly have been made in a friendlier manner, in terms less open to misunderstanding. But Dominus Iesus does not in fact deny that these bodies are ‘churches.’ It says only that they are not churches in the sense in which the Catholic Church understands itself to be a ‘church,’ and this is surely undeniable! In terms of their own ecclesiology, they have no desire whatever to be a church like the Catholic Church. They are a different type of ‘church.’ They do not possess the episcopal ministry in the historic succession, nor the Petrine ministry; but for us Catholics, both these elements are essential.
Nevertheless, they are not simply ‘non-churches.’ They possess essential ecclesial elements, especially the proclamation of God’s Word and baptism. As the encyclical Ut unum sint says, there is not simply an ecclesial vacuum outside the Catholic Church. Although ‘the church’ does not exist there, there is an ecclesial reality with a dynamic inherent propulsion toward full ecclesial life. This is why the episcopal ministry is a central theme in today’s international ecumenical discussion.
A declaration of the Protestant church in Germany, Church Fellowship in Protestant Understanding (September 2001), notes ‘that Protestants must oppose the Catholic position on the necessity and form of the ‘Petrine ministry’ and the primacy of the pope, the understanding of apostolic succession, the refusal to admit women to the ordained ministry, and not least the role of canon law in the Roman Catholic Church.’ This formulation is so harsh, so devoid of nuances and uninterested in the outcome of ecumenical dialogues up to this point, that it makes Dominus Iesus appear a positive ecumenical text by comparison. At any rate, these words make it clear that we still have great deal of work to do if we are to clarify all the doctrinal questions in the ecumenical sphere!”
Walter Cardinal Kasper, “Ecumenical Perspectives on the Future: One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism,” in Leadership in the Church: How Traditional Roles Can Serve the Christian Community Today, trans. Brian McNeil (New York: Crossroad), 183-84, 194-95. [Originally published as “Ein Herr, ein Glaube, eine Taufe: Ökumenische Perspektiven für die Zukunft,” Stimmen der Zeit 220 (2002): 75-89]
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In