LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY eiredrake) xposted to my LJ

Pope: Other denominations not true churches

I've been hearing a lot from my one Catholic friend about how 'we don't do that' whenever I describe the stuff that Dommies pull. She's not referring to her particular church, but to Catholicism in general. While it's believable that her specific church doesn't have these sort of ideas, it's hardly constructive to try to extend that idea to the entire Catholic religion given it's history. Just like you can't say all Protestant churches are 'bad' just because Westboro is you cant' say all churches are 'good' because one is either.

Just like any group, you've got the conservatives, liberals, authoritarians and so forth. Apparently  the head of the church just called out the rest of Christianity.

Pope Benedict XVI has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches. 

Benedict approved a document from his old offices at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that restates church teaching on relations with other Christians. It was the second time in a week the pope has corrected what he says are erroneous interpretations of the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-65 meetings that modernized the church.

...

It restates key sections of a 2000 document the pope wrote when he was prefect of the congregation, “Dominus Iesus,” which set off a firestorm of criticism among Protestant and other Christian denominations because it said they were not true churches but merely ecclesial communities and therefore did not have the “means of salvation.”

In the new document and an accompanying commentary, which were released as the pope vacations here in Italy’s Dolomite mountains, the Vatican repeated that position.

“Christ ‘established here on earth’ only one church,” the document said. 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.

..

The document said Orthodox churches were indeed “churches” because they have apostolic succession and that they enjoyed “many elements of sanctification and of truth.” But it said they lack something because they do not recognize the primacy of the pope — a defect, or a “wound” that harmed them, it said.

“This is obviously not compatible with the doctrine of primacy which, according to the Catholic faith, is an ‘internal constitutive principle’ of the very existence of a particular church,” the commentary said.

...

“The Church is not backtracking on ecumenical commitment,” Di Noia told Vatican radio.

“But, as you know, it is fundamental to any kind of dialogue that the participants are clear about their own identity. That is, dialogue cannot be an occasion to accommodate or soften what you actually understand yourself to be.”

This whole thing, especially the last comment smacks to me of "All you people are wrong. Especially you Protestants.". I'm sure this will make the Protestant world very happy. The question is what precisely is Ratzinger attempting to accomplish here? Is he actively trying to start some sort of religious war with the more conservative Dommie sects of Christianity? Tell them "You are wrong to not recognize me as your leader" seems like a hell of a sure fire way to do it.