The Voice of God Speaks
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.
A new document and an accompanying commentary, released as the pope vacations Italy's Dolomite mountains, restates key sections of "Dominus Iesus," which set off a firestorm of criticism among Protestant and other Christian denominations. It said they were not true churches but merely ecclesiastical communities and therefore did not have the "means of salvation."
"Christ 'established here on earth' only one church," the document says. 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.
