Rome & relativism

...but in the precise sense of what ultimately binds believers and constitutes their identity as Philip Kennedy Catholic Christians...

...Also significant is that Dei verbum is often quoted and every- Here is a sobering thought...

...Rather, he preached mains a Deus absconditus, a the kingdom of God to reju- Yet religious pluralism is unavoidable God who always escapes venate Israel's religious life because of the ineffability or complexity human attempts to picture and enlisted the help of of God...

...The declaration's much criticized insis- gions...

...But the contemporary hierar- about God's salvific nature...

...ifest in Christ...

...It may be better than many science-these too may attain eternal salvation...

...While theological faith as an authoritative teaching is proper to the church, other of the Catholic church's rela- religions merely enjoy belief tion to other churches and re- I M~n (nos...

...In him, in whom God reconciled all things to himself This new declaration is a relatively brief text...

...To countercheck the tium, which confesses that Christ is "the light of all peoples" view that pluralism is tolerable or inevitable, the CDF puband that all are called to union with Christ...

...mandated by its Christocentric vision...

...Since Jesus is not the unveiling of the the sins and defects of the Catholic church that betray the fullness of God in the world, other religions may have their say reality and memory of Christ...

...Commonweal 15 October 20, 2000...

...It is of utmost and not what is measured...

...It is unable, however, to Iesus quotes Lumen gentium 15 and 17, but perpexingly over- control God and is therefore not the only possible nexus for looks section 16...

...It certainly acknowledges the right of men and women to be free from coercion in fulfilling their duty to worship God...

...Dominus Iesus could not have significance that the first citation is taken from the creed of said it better...

...It rejects as contrary to Catholic point to the dogmatic teaching of the Council of Florencefaith theories of God's saving action beyond the unique me- Ferrara (1442), which insisted that hell fire is the destiny of diation of Christ...

...God redaism...

...Manifest religious variety within Christianity and through Christ is not a retreat from ecumenical dialogue or among religions is currently troubling the Vatican's Contolerance...

...belief...

...In the statement, "Called to Be Catholic," that launched Cardinal Joseph Bernardin's Common Ground Initiative, we read: "Jesus Christ, present in Scripture and sacrament, is central to all that we do...

...revelation of God in history, but a partial manifestation of It is devoid of humble penitence and fails to acknowledge what God may be like...

...Because God is illimitable, God...

...Jn 14:6...

...Yet Judaism, ligions...

...Its answer is emthese religions...

...D the Council of Constantinople in its original articulation (without the later Western addition of the ' filioque"): the The Reverend Robert P. Imbelli, a priest of the Archdiocese of common Trinitarian faith of the undivided church...

...It is a recognition that God's grace is operative outside the visible rhetorically somber though theologically questionable docboundaries of the Catholic church in no way lessens the mis- ument...

...Dominus Iesus regards religious plurent Catholic church...

...in history, but a partial manifestation between theological faith and Dominus lesus styles itself of what God may be like...

...Therefore, churches or ecclesial is unavoidable because of the ineffability or complexity of communities that are not currently in communion with apos- God...

...Even according to classical dogchically constituted Catholic church is unable to regard it- matic theology, Jesus Christ is the enfleshment in history of the self as directly historically Second Person of the Trinity...

...bitrary or unenlightened...

...Hence the council's lished a declaration Dominus Iesus ("The Lord Jesus...

...Ours is an age of far-reaching devotional multifortence on the universal significance of the salvation offered mity...

...That state- and Muslims is properly theological because it is given to ment is, of course, section 16 of the constitution on the God...

...It is a stark counter- Philip Kennedy, O.P., teaches theology at the University of Oxford...

...Having asserted Christianity as superior to those who are not received into the Catholic church before other religions, the declaration comments on the Catholic their life's end...

...human beings in a variety of historical figures apart from Moreover, the equally celebrated Dignitatis humanae (also Christ...

...a sincere heart, and moved by grace, try in their actions to do The Catholic church of the Roman rite is one community his will as they know it through the dictates of their con- where God might be espied...

...Clearly, Christological normativity, the uniqueness and A salvific universality of Jesus Christ, was not invented by the current CDF...

...Contemporary Christianity is exercise of spiritual discernment, re-echoing the Christo-logic marked by a ubiquitous plurality of tenets and of the council in a new context in which it can no longer, alas, customs...

...It states (in a passage At base, Dominus lesus struggles with the most taxing of all several times referred to by the recent declaration): "The theological questions: How and where might human beings Catholic church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in chance upon a saving God in their world...

...At the same time, Dignitatis humanae "professes its belief that God himself has made known to the human race the way in which men and women are to serve him, and thus be saved in Christ and come to blessedness...

...church's relation to other Christian denominations...

...4 to 7...

...Because God is illimitable, no historical reality can mantolically constituted Catholic Christianity are defective...

...Dominus other signs of divine redemption...

...shown in Jesus Christ...

...It makes a distinction sponse to him...

...E Section 16 is the most radical turnabout in ecumenical relations for five and one-half centuries...

...Christians, like Jews and Muslims, believe in the God conspicuously to repeat the council's single most revolu- of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob...

...Even so, it fails nition...

...There is no place on this planet insisting that salvation is entirely unavailable outside the where God is unable to draw close to human beings, and church, but Lumen gentium 16 is too historically momentous no situation in which people are incapable of glimpsing to be passed over in silence...

...Indeed, the declaration several times encourages precisely such reflection (see numbers 14 and 21...

...Yet religious pluralism successors of the Apostles...

...Its authors, no doubt, have no intention of divine-human encounters...

...ifest the full richness of God...

...Consenot establish a church with quently, there is more to God, bishops and diocesan struc- Dominus Iesus r ,"gars reiious g so to speak, than has been tures to break away from Ju- pluralism as a Worrying phenomenon...

...And so it is, but not Christianity, and Islam are all more so than Vatican II...

...According to that theory, Christ established ism is not a regrettable situation to be overcome, but an una church which stands in historical continuity with the cur- avoidable fact of reality...

...It insists that the fullness of divine revelation is manquoted by the declaration) affirms this same tensive both/and...

...Gaudium et spes, which many believe to be the most distinctively original of the council's documents, also proclaims, as it must, this Christological vision and faith...

...Thus the New York and a frequent Commonweal contributor, teaches Catholic declaration is "dogmatic," not in the invidious sense of ar- theology at Boston College...

...The seems to slight some world church evolved over time the full richness of God...

...Dominus lesus' ample citations from Vat- alive today who agrees with every belief of all ican II do not represent an exercise in proof-texting, but an other Christians...

...It Abrahamic religions by defidefers to the council a full forty-five times...

...It only reiterates the very first words of Lumen gen- gregation for the Doctrine of the Faith...

...Jesus Christ is not the complete Dominus lesus is a forceful text, yet it is far from convincing...

...twelve primary Apostles in no historical reality can manifest Oddly, Dominus Iesus his mission to Israel...

...Yet she proclaims, and is duty bound to pro- phatically clear: God is best encountered in the Catholic claim without fail, Christ who is the way, the truth, and the life church founded by Jesus Christ...

...Apart from neglecting Lumen ployed in a host of recent Vatican texts concerning ministry gentium 16, the declaration overlooks that religious pluraland the church...

...continuous with the ministry The fullness of the Trinity is of Jesus Christ because he did . not incarnate in Jesus...

...It is simply the doctrine of the faith...

...It instructs that God saves in only one way, Commonweal 14 October 20, 2000 which is through Christ...

...Bishops today are thought to be the ralism as a worrying phenomenon...

...It is not an irrevocable text for Catholics of the Roman sionary imperative to "preach the gospel to every creature...

...It re- In short, Dominus Iesus is something of a setback in Catholic peats a foundational explanation of Catholic origins de- teaching rather than an advance...

...But such theological exploration must be faithful to the dogmatic content of revelation, if it is truly to be theology: faith seeking understanding...

...It also stands alongside a host of other world relibe taken for granted...

...God's reality...

...Jesus Christ religions apart from Chrisafter his death and in re- is not the complete revelation of God tianity...

...he must always be the measure and the papal magisterium of John Paul II...

...It rejects the (2 Cor 5:18-19), men and women find the fullness of religious view that the ultimate mystery of God has been revealed to life...

...Therefore, the faith of Jews tionary statement concerning divine salvation...

...While Christians espouse a Trinitarian understanding church, Lumen gentium, which solemnly teaches that "Those of God, wherein the Second Person is the incarnation of a who, through no fault of their own, do not know the gospel passionate Logos unto death, their God nonetheless remains of Christ or his church, but who nevertheless seek God with the God of Abraham...

...rite because it fails to represent fully the profoundest teachSimilarly, the council's epoch-making Nostra aetate explicitly ing of Vatican II concerning divine salvation and the reliprofesses both respect and evangelical responsibility-both gions of the world...

...Dominus el Iesus' reaffirmation of this faith does not preclude further theological investigation...

...There is no Christian where presupposed...