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Dominus Jesus
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:date: 2006-12-01T08:02:00
:category: faith
:tags: catholic, ecumenism
When we were on the vacations of our church in Prague in the hotel owned
by our denomination, one sister, who is a professor of medieval
literature (and thus interested in M. John Hus & co.) mentioned in
passing “that horrible letter Dominus Jesus”. I have heard about that
letter before, but now my curiosity was ignited, so when we returned to
Prague, I have found this declaration `on the Vatican website`_ and read
it (or at least part IV., paragraphs 16 and 17, which I think constitute
the most important part of the letter for me).
I have to admit that some parts of this reading caused the strongest
attack on my hope of the Unity of the Church at all. All the time
before, whenever I met a Roman-Catholic who undestood ecumenism solely
as return of “separated brethern” to the arms of the Mother
Roman-Catholic church, sole source of salvation (and it happened couple
of times), I believed that at least since the II. Vatican Council such
belief is just a local closemindness and the official line of the
Catholic church is much more open. I expected more of the ecumenism and
longing for the unity of the Church, and I met many Catholics including
some priests who supported such belief. First time in my life it
occurred to me, that there is always the second possibility—that we were
mistaken by our wishful thinking and that actually the Roman-Catholic
church is still so stupidly closeminded as it was since at least
XVI. century, that all the talks of the Council were just cosmetic
changes of the finishing on the whole structure of the church, but that
particularly in the area of relations with other Christian denominations
not much has changed if anything at all.
.. _`on the Vatican website`:
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html
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