Religion in Daily Life By the Rev. Edward Chinn, D.Min. Rector, All Saints’ Church 9601 Frankford Ave. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19114 (215) 637-5225 Written 8 September 2000

Christians around the world reacted to a new Roman Catholic document released on September 5 and titled “Dominus Iesus.” The document said that other Christian churches “which have not preserved the valid Episcopate [bishops] and the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery are not Churches in the proper sense.” While admitting that these non-Roman Churches have “significance and importance in the mystery of salvation,” nevertheless “there exists a single Church of Christ, which subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the Successor of Peter and the Bishops in communion with him.”

In Italy, the Rev. Valdo Benecchi spoke as president of the Methodist Evangelical Church. He said this about the new Vatican document: “It’s a jump backwards in terms of ecumenism and with dialogues with other religions. There is nothing new about this, but we had hoped they had taken another road. This is a return to the past . . . The salvation through Christ is not deposited in one religion only. This puts not only the Catholic Church at the center, but especially the Catholic hierarchy.” Another letter to bishops told them not to refer to Protestant churches as “sister churches.”

In the United States, Jerry Rankin spoke for the Southern Baptist Convention. He said, “Salvation comes by God’s grace [kindness] through faith in Jesus Christ and Christ alone – not through any institutional church body, be it Baptist, Catholic, or otherwise.” Rankin said tat this message of God’s kindness, a message to be accepted by a person’s trust, “is the message of the Christian gospel, according to the Scriptures.” He said this was the message carried by Baptist missionaries.

In England, the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, is the spiritual leader of the world’s 70 million Anglicans (the Episcopal Church in this country). The Archbishop said, “The Church of England, and the worldwide Anglican Communion, does not for one moment accept that its orders of ministry and Eucharist are deficient in any way. It believes itself to be a part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church of Christ, in whose name it serves and bears witness, here and around the world.” This is the Church to which I belong.

Thomas J. Reese, a Roman Catholic scholar and editor of the Catholic weekly magazine America, said he was dismayed that the statement had “practically no reference to the dialogue going on for the past 35 years between Catholics and Protestants” on various religious issues. “The danger,” he said, “is that this document will be seen as a rejection of that dialogue,” a message he said he did not think was intended.