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The Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith published, last August 6, a document treating of the unicity and
salvific universality of Jesus Christ and of the Church. This document has
provoked a rather violent reaction in progressive circles and outside the
Church, in the majority of the communities who are interested in ecumenism.
In effect, this document reminds us
forcefully and re-imposes numerous points of traditional Catholic doctrine on
the subject. At the same time, these truths of Faith are strongly moderated by
other propositions that have Vatican II as their only source. (The general
principles of Nostra Aetate, Lumen gentium, Gaudium et spes are spoken
of). The principles acquisitions of the last Council concerning the relations of
the Catholic Church with other religions, both Christian and non-Christian, are
presented as if they had been perfectly integrated into the Catholic Faith.
The same things that have been said of the
Council can be applied to Dominus Jesus: "Two theological
traditions that, deep down are incompatible, entered into collision" (Bishop
Henrici, La maturation du concile, Communio). "The real problem
is so unusual for a Catholic that we can easily understand the instinctive
blindness that enables one to escape from it: the will to be faithful to two
councils that are so clearly divergent one from the other is quite simply
impossible." 1
This contradiction in the text is clear,
especially when it treats of the unicity of the Catholic Church. The identity
between the Church of Christ and the Catholic Church does indeed seem to be
clearly affirmed, when it speaks of the historical continuity between the Church
founded by Our Lord and the Catholic Church of today (§16). But it is at the
same time denied by the "subsistit in". (§16 & 17).
Cardinal Ratzinger himself declared last Spring that continuity does not exist
between the "est" (which affirms this oneness of the Church)
and the "subsistit in" (which enables, alongside the one true
Church, other churches to be considered as "true". Cf. §17).2
In effect, in the same text Cardinal Ratzinger affirms on the one hand that the subsistit is the foundation of
ecumenism3 and on the other hand that this subsistit is in
contradiction with the traditional est : "Since sin is a
contradiction, we cannot in the final analysis fully resolve from a logical
point of view this difference between subsistit and est. In the
paradox of the difference between, on the one hand, the Church’s singularity
and concrete realization, and on the other hand the existence of an ecclesial
reality outside the unique subject, is reflected the contradictory character of
human sin, the contradiction of division." 4
It is consequently not difficult
to conclude that ecumenism, whose foundation is in contradiction with the
traditional doctrine, as its promoters admit, is itself just as opposed to
traditional doctrine.
We find in Dominus Jesus a tragic
confirmation that an indescribable darkness covers the Vatican. Never in times
past has contradiction been taught, even less that which is recognized as such.
This document, despite the
praiseworthy intention of condemning abuses, will be of no helping in resolving
the doctrinal crisis as it intends to do, for it only teaches true doctrine
halfway, which means in a falsified way.
Menzingen, October 29, 2000,
Feast of Christ the King
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