Tuesday, July 10, 2007
CDF REAFFIRMS SUPERIORITY OF CATHOLICISM
While everyone is occupied with the Motu Proprio, the CDF has issued a pamphlet titled "Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church". As reported by Earthtimes.org, the pamphlet essentially reaffirms Dominus Iesus, and "seeks to address 'erroneous' interpretations and theological 'misunderstandings' deriving from the adoption of the Second Vatican Council" according to the article.
This is the only article I could find about this pamphlet. Searching the Vatican website didn't turn up a copy of it either. It did turn up the title of another document the CDF has issued:
Notificazione sulla validità del battesimo conferito dalla «Christian Community» o «Die Christengemeinschaft» di Rudolf Steiner (Notificatio de validitate baptismatis apud «Christian Community» Rudolfi Steiner confessionem), March 9, 1991
AAS 83 (1991) 422
DocCath 88 (1991) 813 [Gall.]; EV 13, 16-17; LE 5417
Wouldn't a translation of that document be interesting!
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UPDATE
I found an article at kath.net on "Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church". It contains a series of questions and responses, the first of which is:
First Question: Did the Second Vatican Council change the Catholic doctrine on the Church?
Response: The Second Vatican Council neither changed nor intended to change this doctrine, rather it developed, deepened and more fully explained it.
This was exactly what John XXIII said at the beginning of the Council1. Paul VI affirmed it2 and commented in the act of promulgating the Constitution Lumen gentium: "There is no better comment to make than to say that this promulgation really changes nothing of the traditional doctrine. What Christ willed, we also will. What was, still is. What the Church has taught down through the centuries, we also teach. In simple terms that which was assumed, is now explicit; that which was uncertain, is now clarified; that which was meditated upon, discussed and sometimes argued over, is now put together in one clear formulation"3. The Bishops repeatedly expressed and fulfilled this intention4.
The document goes on to discuss the word "subsists" that has caused so much confusion.
