Cardinal Cassidy Attacks Dominus Jesus
Sept 16, 2004
In a highly unusual public spat, Australian Cardinal Edward Cassidy has claimed that Dominus Iesus, thh declaration issued by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) three weeks ago does not faithfully represent the Catholic Church's current position on ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue.
(Source unknown, Rome, 27 September 2000) Speaking in Lisbon, at the annual inter-religious and ecumenical meeting hosted by the Rome-based, non-Vatican Communita di Sant'Egidio, Cardinal Cassidy appeared to give a new dimension to the role and significance of Dominus Iesus within the magisterium (or teaching authority) of the Catholic Church.
He pointed out that it had not been signed by Pope John Paul II, but rather by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the German Prefect of the CDF.
As president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, Cardinal Cassidy, unlike Cardinal Ratzinger, is daily engaged in ecumenical dialogue. He pointed out that the Pope himself spoke of the "irrevocable" path of the ecumenical process in his 1995 Encyclical, Ut Unum Sint, On Commitment to Ecumenism.
"The point is, the Pope himself wrote and signed Ut Unum Sint but not the Dominus Iesus declaration," he said.
Among other things, Dominus Iesus claims that "there exists a single Church of Christ, which subsists in the Catholic Church", adding that Protestant churches are not "churches in the proper sense". Furthermore, the declaration states that followers of religions other than Christianity are "in a gravely deficient situation".
Cardinal Cassidy's claim that the Pope did not sign the declaration is correct. The document bears the signatures of Cardinal Ratzinger and Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, both of the CDF. This is in itself normal practice.
But Cardinal Cassidy's attempt to distance the Pope and church teachings from Dominus Iesus is undermined by the second-last paragraph of the document, which states that John Paul II "ratified and confirmed this Declaration" at an audience on June 16th this year.
Cardinal Cassidy Attacks Dominus Jesus