A Neglected Opportunity
Robert Hart on the Criticisms of Dominus Iesus
In the Fall of 2000, the document Dominus Iesus: On the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church was put out by the Vatican to make it clear that sound doctrine is not superseded by the passing of time and that eternal verities are not subject to any essential change simply because mankind, including the Church, experiences the increase of knowledge. Among the eternal verities, it included, much to the indignation of some other Christians and the press, the claims of the Roman Catholic Church.
I am an Anglican priest, not a Roman Catholic, and when I first read the news reports, I was sure that the Vatican had gone much too far. I began to exchange words to that effect with my Roman Catholic brother, until I read the declaration for myself. Then I said, in his language, mea maxima culpa, which in my language means, “by my own most grievous fault.” For what I saw in it was simply what the Holy Father intended, as America Press would later report: “The cardinal [Ratzinger], responding to criticism . . . said it was written because Pope John Paul II ‘wanted to offer the world a great and solemn recognition of Jesus Christ as Lord at the culminating moment of the Holy Year.’”
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Robert Hart is rector of St. Benedict's Anglican Catholic Church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina (Anglican Catholic Church Original Province). He also contributes regularly to the blog The Continuum. He is a contributing editor of Touchstone.
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
33.1—January/February 2020
Do You Know Your Child’s Doctor?
The Politicization of Pediatrics in America by Alexander F. C. Webster
35.4—Jul/Aug 2022
The Death Rattle of a Tradition
Contemporary Catholic Thinking on the Question of War by Andrew Latham
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
