New Vatican Document Opens Old Wounds

You may be planning on attending church this coming Sunday morning, but if the Pope is to be believed, despite appearances to the contrary, your church may not, in fact be, a Church. A new statement published at the Vatican with the full authority of the Pope, states quite clearly that outside of the jurisdiction of Rome (and some Eastern Orthodox communions), a church is not a Church.

According to the "Holy Father," your congregation may call itself a church, it may look like a church, function like a church, act like a church, but according to Benedict, it can't actually be a church because only the Vatican has the authority to decide whether or not your congregation can actually offer "the means of salvation."

To be sure, in reacting to this statement, some Protestants have over reached. The Vatican document is not saying that salvation is impossible outside of Roman Catholicism. In fact, just the opposite is true.

A careful reading of "Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church" reveals an openness to the possibility that people can be saved outside the bounds of Roman Catholicism.

It follows that these separated churches and Communities, though we believe they suffer from defects, are deprived neither of significance nor importance in the mystery of salvation. In fact the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as instruments of salvation, whose value derives from that fullness of grace and of truth which has been entrusted to the Catholic Church. (For the entire text of the Vatican document.)

The new statement -- formulated as five questions and answers -- reaffirms key sections of a 2000 text that Benedict wrote when he was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "Dominus Iesus," which drew strong reactions from Protestants, including Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran and other Christian denominations because it said they were not true churches but merely "ecclesial communities."

"Christ 'established here on earth' only one Church," said the document released while the Pope vacationed at a villa in Lorenzago di Cadore, in Italy's Dolomite mountains.

The other communities "cannot be called 'churches' in the proper sense" because they do not have Apostolic Succession -- the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ's original apostles -- and therefore their priestly ordinations are not valid, according to the long held, Catholic doctrine.

There are, of course, a number of objections that Protestants will raise, not the least of which is whether a priest is necessary to mediate one's relationship to God in the first place. Jesus said no such thing. Nor did the Apostle Paul. Further, neither Jesus nor the New Testament contains the doctrine of Apostolic Succession; this concept took shape long after the time of Christ. Finally, the entire hierarchy of Bishops, Cardinals, and the office of the Papacy itself was not contemplated by any New Testament writer, nor does Christ make any mention of such offices.

In this new document the Vatican reveals quite powerfully how out of touch with reality it has become. Christians of all denominations should get over the tired debate about whether there is one, true Church, or one true formulation of the faith. Clearly the peoples of the world could not care less about such arguments. What the world needs now is the light and truth of God, the liberating and empowering gifts of grace, and the assurance that our lives have meaning and purpose. Every ounce of energy spent splitting hairs about finer points of doctrine distract the many churches of the wider Christian family from their important mission, and rob our congregations of the opportunity to focus upon themes that truly matter, including the love, justice and mercy of God in whom alone we are saved.