Pope Benedict XVI reasserted the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released yesterday that says other Christian communities are either defective or not true churches and Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation......The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Benedict headed before becoming pope, said it was issuing the new document yesterday because some contemporary theological interpretations of Vatican II's ecumenical intent had been "erroneous or ambiguous" and had prompted confusion and doubt.
The new document — formulated as five questions and answers — restates key sections of a 2000 text the pope wrote when he was prefect of the congregation, "Dominus Iesus," which riled Protestant and other Christian denominations because it said they were not true churches but merely ecclesial communities and therefore did not have the "means of salvation."
The commentary repeated church teaching that says the Catholic Church "has the fullness of the means of salvation." "Christ 'established here on earth' only one church," said the document released as the pope vacations at a villa in Lorenzago di Cadore, in Italy's Dolomite mountains.
The document said that Orthodox churches were indeed "churches" because they have apostolic succession and that they enjoyed "many elements of sanctification and of truth." But it said they lack something because they do not recognize the primacy of the pope — a defect, or a "wound" that harmed them, it said.
Despite the harsh tone of the document, it stresses that Benedict remains committed to ecumenical dialogue...
Here's the rest of this Washington Times story, one that comes as disturbing news to Orthodox Christians and most certainly to evangelical Christians who would stress that salvation from sin comes not from the organized Church but from the blood of Jesus Himself. I would suppose the Pope's reiteration of the Roman Church's primacy (no, make that, exclusivity) will even bother an awful lot of Catholics as well.
