Tensions between the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations in Ireland over the Vatican's Dominus Iesus document look set to worsen following comments by the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Desmond Connell, yesterday.
Dr Connell said Dominus Iesus had ruled out the view "that the Church of Christ included the various Christian denominations". It did not, he said, as "the unity of the Church is an internal thing".
He also said the document "excluded the view" that the Church of Christ was a goal towards which the Christian denominations tended. That already existed. "Christ conferred unity on the (Catholic) Church. It is not a goal," he said.
Dr Connell was speaking at a press conference at St Patrick's College, Maynooth, yesterday to give details of discussions at the close of the Irish Bishops Conference three-day autumn meeting.
The archbishop described as "somewhat disingenuous" claims that there was nothing new in Do- minus Iesus. "There are new things in the document. There were things in it "not to be found explicitly in texts of the Second Vatican Council," he said.
As an example, it elucidated what was meant by "subsists" in Vatican Council documents, he said. The view that a single Church of Christ may subsist in the various different churches "is rejected here", he said.
In their statement, the bishops said Dominus Iesus addressed how "the one Church of Christ continues through history. It has always been the conviction of Catholics that the fullness of faith, worship and apostolic ministry given by Jesus Christ and enlivened by the Holy Spirit, continue in her. This is what is meant by the Second Vatican Council's statement that the Church of Christ `subsists in the Catholic Church'."
They continued that such conviction did not "in any way diminish our deep respect for the other churches".
The bishops are to reply by letter to the Church of Ireland bishops on the implications of Dominus Iesus for ecumenism in Ireland.
Dr Connell, who is a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) which published Dominus Iesus, said he was "a little disappointed to see it pilloried as `Ratzinger's document'."
It had been approved by the Pope "with his certain knowledge and apostolic authority", he said.
