Per Christum

Besides the new document on the Latin Mass, news outlets are having a field day with a recent release from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The document, Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine of the Church, reaffirms Catholic Teaching that is outlined in the Catechism and in Dominus Iesus. Essentially the document affirms what informed Catholics and Protestants have known for some time, that the Catholic Church considers herself “The Church” (as do the Orthodox), and that non-Catholic churches are defective in some senses, although Orthodox Churches are considered “true particular churches.”

The reaction from the news media, and from many Catholics and non-Catholics is anger and/or a lack of understanding about the document. For instance, this article in the Irish Times says:

For the second time in four days Pope Benedict XVI has laid out a traditionalist marker in a document released yesterday proclaiming that the “one Church of Christ . . . subsists in the Catholic Church”. It also said Reformed/Protestant churches were not churches “in the proper sense”, but were “ecclesial communities”.

This may be a “traditionalist marker,” but everything mentioned above is hardly news, and has been taught consistently since Vatican II.

Liberal Episcopal priest blogger Fr. Terry Martin writes in From the Office of the Inquisition: You Are All Heretics:

Nothing really new here, except that this new Pope continues to attempt to undo anything that was accomplished through Vatican II.

So, remember when you enter through those pearly gates and walk past the Roman Catholic mansion to drop your voice to a whisper. It is the polite thing to do. It would be poor form to destroy the illusion that they are the only ones there.

Once again, we see this document viewed as a return to pre-Vatican II beliefs, which is not true. Fr. Martin also suggests that we Catholics believe we will be the only ones in heaven (although it may just be sarcastic hyperbole, since Fr. Martin probably knows better), which is not true either, as a basic reading of Catholic magisterial documents shows. I wrote an article on the issue of salvation for non-Catholics entitled What About the Salvation of Protestants and non-Catholics?, in which I try to explain the issue accurately and charitably. Unfortunately, some commenters over at Fr. Martin’s blog have a strong hatred for the pope, and have resorted to outrageous, emotion-driven attacks (e.g. claiming the pope was a Nazi).

While many are accusing the Catholic Church of hindering ecumenical efforts here, the truth is that the Catholic Church is willing to do ecumenical work, but without sacrificing revealed Truth. Unfortunately, mainline ecumenism has often taken a “lowest common denominator” approach, which creates a kind of false unity, e.g. the Evangelical Lutheran Church sharing communion with the United Church of Christ, despite lacking any real common Eucharistic theology. The Catholic Church has two issues to deal with here, a commitment to ecumenism, as well as Catholic dogma. You cannot jettison the latter to simplify the former.

Again, this is not news, and given the nature of Catholic Teaching, it cannot be a surprise. I find the Catholic approach to ecumenism both self-differentiated (i.e. the Church must continue to be true to herself and cannot rid herself of revealed dogma) and open (i.e. the Church will do what it can to achieve unity, even though it is limited, as stated above), which will not appeal to those wanting a mainline Protestant approach, or those with a disdain for ecumenism, but this balance seems reasonable to me. After all, the Catholic Church most certainly affirms that the Holy Spirit operates in non-Catholic churches; Catholic Teaching is simply that based on how the Catholic Church defines the term “Church,” other churches are defective. I suspect most Protestants would happily admit that their ecclesiology is different than Catholic ecclesiology, and would be a bit offended if the Catholic Church smoothed over the differences in a superficial manner, rather than simply stating the obvious.