The Vatican document Dominus Iesus, released by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on September 5, contained no new doctrinal teaching. But the statement did reaffirm a traditional teaching of the Church which has sometimes been muted in recent years: the insistence that man can find salvation only through Jesus Christ, and that the salvation offered by Christ flows through the Catholic Church.

No student of Church teaching should have been surprised by this teaching; similar statements have issued from Rome several times over the centuries. But in the years after the Second Vatican Council the quest for ecumenical understanding and inter-faith dialogue has often prompted Catholic leaders to downplay these doctrinal points. Now, for the first time since the Council, the Vatican was taking pains to clarify the fundamental beliefs that form the basis for that dialogue with other faiths. And the frank statement from Rome apparently caught many other religious leaders by surprise.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, was the first major religious leader to criticize Dominus Iesus. The leader of the Church of England was understandably upset by the document’s insistence that Protestant sects “are not churches in the proper sense.” Lutheran leaders, who found the same phrase offensive, soon joined him.

Jewish leaders were next to join the chorus of protest, pointing to the new Vatican document’s clear statement that Jesus Christ offers the only path to salvation. Rabbi Elio Toaff, the head of the Jewish community in Rome, announced that he would not participate in a day of Christian-Jewish dialogue that had been scheduled to take place at the Vatican on October 3 as part of the year’s Jubilee festivities. When other Jewish leaders also backed out, the Vatican erased the event from the Jubilee calendar.

Officials at the Holy See were clearly disappointed by the setback in Catholic-Jewish talks and did their best to mend fences. Father Georges Cottier, OP, the theologian for the pontifical household, said that “an accumulation of misunderstandings” were responsible for the latest tensions, and said that he hoped to clear up the problems by speaking privately with Jewish leaders. Dominus Iesus has been widely interpreted as saying that Jews cannot achieve salvation, Father Cottier observed. But in fact, he pointed out, “while it repeats that the Church possesses the ‘fullness’ of the means of salvation, it does not exclude salvation for the Jews.”

“To be sure, Dominus Iesus was not addressed to a Jewish audience,” Father Cottier continued. He lamented that the new Vatican document had provoked some unanticipated negative reactions, and he hinted that some such reactions were provoked in turn by superficial media coverage of the Church statement. “However, it would be an illusion to think that today such a document could remain exclusively in the hands of the particular audience to which it was addressed,” he conceded. “With the international press coverage, a statement like this is immediately brought to the attention of the general audience.”

In general, however, officials in Rome took the Jewish protests philosophically, clearly believing that the “misunderstandings” would clear up with time. Father Remi Hoeckmann, an official of the Vatican commission on relations with Judaism, indicated to the Reuters news service that the Vatican is taking the latest setback in stride. “Ups and downs are characteristic of interpersonal relations,” he said. “A down comes after an up, but precedes another up.”

Mixed signals?
But Jewish and Protestant leaders were not the only ones expressing misgivings about Dominus Iesus. In the United States, Cardinal Roger Mahony said that the new Vatican document should not have any impact on ecumenical dialogue in his Los Angeles archdiocese; his statement was generally interpreted as an effort to distance himself from the statement. And similarly cautious voices could be heard even inside the Roman Curia. For example, Cardinal Edward Cassidy, the president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, assured reporters that Dominus Iesus would have been presented very differently if it had been prepared by his dicastery.

Cardinal Cassidy observed that Dominus Iesus “was not addressed to the ecumenical world.” The statement was “addressed to the academic world, to some Asian Catholic theologians, and edited by professors in a scholastic language,” the cardinal told the Italian daily Il Messaggero. He added that “those of us whose ears are more attuned to the nuances of dialogue” would have produced a different sort of document, and thereby avoided the negative reactions that Dominus Iesus provoked.

In an unusually forceful public response to the criticisms (both explicit and implicit), supporters of Dominus Iesus also began issuing pointed public statements. “There has been much criticism of the declaration, which has obviously not been given a proper reading or interpretation,” said Cardinal Jozef Tomko, Prefect of the Congregation for Evangelization, in one such pronouncement. The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano published a series of articles explaining and defending Dominus Iesus, and even added a large front-page photo of Pope John Paul II embracing Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the prefect of the Congregation that had issued the statement.

The Pope himself joined the fray on October 1. After presiding at canonization ceremonies in St. Peter’s Square, he reminded the congregation that he had given his personal approval for the publication of Dominus Iesus, and he explained his own approach to the document: “I wanted to invite all Christians to renew their adherence to Jesus Christ, in the joy of faith, bearing unanimous witness that he is— today, tomorrow, and every day—’the way, the truth, and the light.’”

The Church’s insistence that Jesus Christ is the only path to redemption is not an arrogant claim, the Pope continued; it is merely an affirmation of the truth, as well as “a joyous recognition of what Christ has shown to us, through no merit of our own.” The Church, he went on, “continues to give what she has received, communicating to others what has been given to us—so that the truth we have been given, and the love that is in God, can be brought to all mankind.”

“Along with the apostle Peter, we make our confession of faith, that ‘there is no salvation in any other name,’” John Paul said. He explained that Dominus Iesus—following the teaching of Vatican II—does not claim that non-Christians cannot be saved; rather the Church teaches that all salvation flows through Christ, and thus through his Mystical Body which is the Catholic Church.

The purpose of the new Vatican document, the Pope said, is to clarify the basis for ecumenical dialogue. “A dialogue without foundation is destined to degenerate into plain verbosity,” he observed.

Finally, Cardinal Ratzinger weighed in, defending the document which had appeared over his signature. The cardinal indicated that he was “very much upset” by the charges that Dominus Iesus was a triumph of “fundamentalism, Roman centralism, and absolutism.” He remarked that Protestant leaders had no reason to be offended by the notion that the Church is the sole means to salvation, since this has been the constant teaching of the Church for centuries.

Responding to critics who have suggested that the language of Dominus Iesus was too harsh, Cardinal Ratzinger pointed out that “the words of Jesus are often terribly harsh and formulated without much diplomatic prudence.” While conceding that the language of the statement is quite different from the language generally used in the mass media, the cardinal suggested that Catholic teachers should take pains to help others understand the Church teaching. “The text should be explained rather than disdained,” he said.

Echoes in Asia
When Dominus Iesus first appeared, most Vatican-watchers agreed that the statement was intended primarily for an Asian audience. On that continent, where Christians are a small minority, some theologians have advanced the notion that in order to avoid conflicts with the dominant popular culture, missionaries should introduce the Gospel as only one among many possible paths toward salvation.

This theological approach holds particular strength in India, where Hindu nationalists have accused Christian missionaries of subverting the nation’s culture. It was no coincidence that on September 20—two weeks after the publication of Dominus Iesus—Cardinal Jozef Tomko was in Bangalore to speak at the opening meeting of the Indian bishops’ conference, and to underline the message of the new document. The best contribution that Catholics can make to India’s culture, he said, is to profess their faith in Jesus as savior of the world and to bear witness to the message of the Gospel.

Three weeks later, at a conference in Rome on the duties of diocesan bishops, an Indian prelate acknowledged that Dominus Iesus highlights “a challenge to which the Indian bishops must respond.” Archbishop Ivan Dias of Bombay pointed out that, for him and for his brother bishops on the subcontinent, the issues addressed in the Vatican document are anything but academic. “I speak as an Indian,” he said, “living in a country were we confront these problems every day.”

Archbishop Dias disclosed that Catholic theologians who reject the basic message of Dominus Iesus and promote a relativistic approach to religious beliefs have gained extraordinary influence in India. They have gained teaching posts in some seminaries, he said, and they are particularly active in inter-faith dialogue, where they give their Hindu counterparts an inaccurate notion of Catholic Church teaching. Dominus Iesus was welcomed by Indian hierarchy, Archbishop Dias reported, because this theological dissidence is a source of constant consternation, “for the bishops of India, not just the ones in Rome.”

Back to Catholic Infromation Center's Periodical Page

Back to Catholic World Report November 2000 Table of Contents