“Fratelli Tutti” Nothing Doing. Before the Conclave, the Cardinals Should Reread “Dominus Iesus”

L'Espresso ^ | May 12, 2022 | Sandro Magister

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“Fratelli Tutti” Nothing Doing. Before the Conclave, the Cardinals Should Reread “Dominus Iesus”

For a few months, a new magazine created just for them has been circulating among the cardinals, with the stated aim of helping them “to know each other in order to make the right decisions during important moments in the life of the Church.” In other words: in view of the future conclave.

The magazine has the Latin title of “Cardinalis,” is sent to all the members of the sacred college, and can also be read online in four languages. It is published in France, in Versailles. Writing it is “a team of vaticanists… coming from different countries and of various tendencies.” The first issue was released in November of 2021 with a cover featuring Iraqi Cardinal Louis Raphaël Sako, patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans, and the second in April of this year with Cardinal Camillo Ruini on the cover.

The opening interview of this last issue, in fact, is with this cultured 91-year-old cardinal who played a role of absolute importance in the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

Settimo Cielo recently published two of Ruini’s reflections on God and on man, that is, on the questions vital to the Church’s mission in the world. And again in this interview with “Cardinalis” - conducted by the American vaticanista Diane Montagna - he insists on what are the “central and decisive” truths of Christianity, over which the Church wins or loses everything:

“The first and most important point is the one on which Benedict XVI insisted a great deal: faith and trust in God, the primacy of God in our life. The second point, inseparable from the first, is faith in Jesus Christ the Son of God and our only Savior. The third is man, created in the image of God and become in Christ his adopted son, the man called to eternal life, the man who already today is trying to live as a son of God.”

In particular there must not fall by the wayside, Ruini emphasizes, the truth of Jesus Christ as sole Savior of all, affirmed by the New Testament and reaffirmed by the declaration “Dominus Iesus” of 2000, a “fundamental document” against the relativism present even in the Church.

Ruini does not say it, but that this capital truth must return to the center of attention for the cardinals called to elect the next pope is strongly emphasized a few pages later in this same issue of “Cardinalis,” in a text with the unequivocal title of “Memorandum for a future conclave.”

Signed by Professor Pietro De Marco but the offspring of a larger think tank, the “Memorandum” warns against equating Christian revelation with other religions and stripping Jesus’ death on the cross of any redemptive value, reducing it to an ethical message of transformation for hearts and society:

“The affirmation of the unique and universal character of the saving mediation of Christ is instead a central part of the good news that the Church has been proclaiming continuously since the apostolic age. ‘This Jesus is the stone which, rejected by you the builders, has become the cornerstone. In no other is there salvation; in fact there is no other name given to men under heaven in which it is established that we can be saved’ (Acts 4:11-12).”

If this primordial truth is obfuscated, “as is unfortunately happening the dissolution of the Christian subject begins.” And therefore also in a conclave - the “Memorandum” warns - what must return to the center of reflection is “fidelity to the Petrine task of strengthening the brethren” on this cornerstone of the Christian Creed. With no more of those surrenders produced by certain irenicist and trivializing interpretations of an encyclical like “Fratelli tutti” of Pope Francis.

*

Surprisingly, but not for the well-informed, even in the leadup to the conclave of 2005, the one that elected Joseph Ratzinger as pope, there was one cardinal who strongly reminded his confreres to make the foundation of their reflection the truth of Jesus Christ as sole savior of all.

That cardinal was Giacomo Biffi (1928-2015), a skilled theologian and archbishop of Bologna from 1984 to 2003, who speaking on April 15 2005 in one of the closed-door meetings that preceded that conclave addressed those present as follows:

“A few days ago, I saw on television an elderly, devout religious sister who responded to the interviewer this way: ‘This pope, who has died, was great above all because he taught us that all religions are equal.’ I don’t know whether John Paul II would have been very pleased by this sort of elegy.

“I would like to point out to the new pope the incredible phenomenon of ‘Dominus Iesus’: a document explicitly endorsed and publicly approved by John Paul II; a document for which I am pleased to express my vibrant gratitude to Cardinal Ratzinger. That Jesus is the only necessary Savior of all is a truth that for over twenty centuries - beginning with Peter’s discourse after Pentecost - it was never felt necessity to restate. This truth is, so to speak, the minimum threshold of the faith; it is the primordial certitude, it is among believers the simple and most essential fact. In two thousand years this has never been brought into doubt, not even during the crisis of Arianism, and not even during the upheaval of the Protestant Reformation. The fact of needing to issue a reminder of this in our time tells us the extent of the gravity of the current situation. And yet this document, which recalls the most basic, most simple, most essential certitude, has been called into question. It has been contested at all levels: at all levels of pastoral action, of theological instruction, of the hierarchy.

“A good Catholic told me about asking his pastor to let him make a presentation of ‘Dominus Iesus’ to the parish community. The pastor (an otherwise excellent and well-intentioned priest) replied to him: ‘Let it go. That’s a document that divides.’ What a discovery! Jesus himself said: ‘I have come to bring division’ (Luke 12:51). But too many of Jesus’ words are today censured among Christians; or at least among the most vocal of them.”

*

In fact, the declaration “Dominus Iesus,” published on August 6 2000 with the signature of then cardinal prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith Joseph Ratzinger, was the object of strong criticism not only from outside the Catholic Church but also from high-ranking members of the hierarchy like Cardinal Edward Cassidy, at the time president of the pontifical council for Christian unity, and his successor Walter Kasper.

To diminish its authority, opponents used to attribute the paternity of “Dominus Iesus” to the prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith alone, without real approval from the pope.

But that’s not how things were at all. In a contribution to a book in memory of John Paul II, written in 2014 after his resignation from the papacy, Ratzinger reiterated the total harmony between him and the pope in publishing that document. In these exact words:

“Among the documents on various aspects of ecumenism, the one that prompted the greatest reaction was the declaration ‘Dominus Iesus’ of 2000, which summarizes the indispensable elements of the Catholic faith. [. . .]

“In the face of the firestorm that had developed around ‘Dominus Iesus,’ John Paul II told me that he intended to defend the document unequivocally at the Angelus.

“He invited me to write a text for the Angelus that would be, so to speak, airtight and not subject to any different interpretation whatsoever. It had to be completely unmistakable that he approved the document unconditionally.

“So I prepared a brief address: I did not intend, however, to be too brusque, and so I tried to express myself clearly but without harshness. After reading it, the pope asked me once again: ‘Is it really clear enough?’ I replied that it was.

“Those who know theologians will not be surprised that in spite of this there were afterward some who maintained that the pope had prudently distanced himself from that text.”

*

Also in another of his writings a few months later, in the form of a message to the Pontifical Urbaniana University, pope emeritus Benedict XVI reiterated the vital importance of the truth contained in the “Dominus Iesus,” albeit without mentioning it explicitly.

The Urbaniana is the missionary university par excellence, in conjunction with the congregation for the evangelization of peoples.

And Ratzinger took his cue precisely from this to react to the doubts that threaten the very idea of the mission “ad gentes,” which many would like to replace with an egalitarian dialogue between religions, in view of “a common force for peace.”

Without realizing that by doing this - Ratzinger wrote - one sets aside “the truth that moved the first Christians” to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth:

“It is presupposed that the authentic truth about God, in the final analysis, is unattainable and that at most the ineffable can be made present with a variety of symbols. This renunciation of the truth seems realistic and useful for peace among religions in the world. And nonetheless this is lethal to faith. In fact, faith loses its binding character and its seriousness if everything is reduced to symbols that are ultimately interchangeable, capable of pointing only from far away to the inaccessible mystery of the divine.”

*

Not only that. In addition to the signature of Cardinal Ratzinger, at the bottom of the declaration “Dominus Iesus” there was also that of the secretary of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith at the time, Tarcisio Bertone.

In a subsequent book-length interview, Bertone revealed more of what went on behind the scenes in both the genesis of “Dominus Iesus” and the complete agreement between John Paul II and Ratzinger:

“One element typical of John Paul II’s doctrinal firmness concerns his passion for a true, authentic Christology. He himself was personally calling for the dogmatic declaration on the uniqueness and salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the Church, ‘Dominus Iesus,’ despite the rumors that have attributed to a ‘fixation’ of Cardinal Ratzinger or of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith the fact of having wanted this famous declaration, rumors that had also spread in the Catholic camp. Yes, it is John Paul II himself who had asked for the declaration personally, because he was struck by the critical reactions to his encyclical on the missionary spirit, ‘Redemptoris Missio,’ with which he wanted to encourage missionaries to proclaim Christ even in contexts where other religions are present, in order not to reduce the figure of Jesus to that of just any founder of a religious movement. The reactions had been negative, especially in Asia, and the pope had been very much embittered by this. So in the Holy Year of 2000 - the Christological year par excellence - he said: ‘Please prepare a dogmatic declaration.’ This was how ‘Dominus Iesus’ came about, dense, streamlined, and in dogmatic language. It remains rather important in the current climate of the Church because, starting from the analysis of a worrying situation on a global scale, it offers Christians the outlines of a doctrine founded on revelation that must guide behavior  that is consistent and faithful to the Lord Jesus, the sole and universal savior.”

To the interviewer who asked him how the Vatican reacted to the criticism, Bertone replied:

“Not only in the secular camp, but also in the Catholic camp there were some who sided with these critiques. The pope was doubly embittered. There was a session of reflection precisely on these reactions, especially from Catholics. At the end of the meeting, the pope told us forcefully: ‘I want to defend “Dominus Iesus,” and I want to talk about it on Sunday October 1, during the Angelus prayer’ - I, Cardinal Ratzinger, and Cardinal Re were present - ‘and I would like to say this and that.’ We took note of his ideas and drafted the text that the pope approved and then pronounced. It was the Sunday on which the Chinese martyrs were canonized. The concurrence had suggested to some a certain prudence: ‘It is not appropriate,’ some were suggesting to him, ‘for you to speak of “Dominus Iesus” on that very day, it would be better for you to do so in another context.’ But the pope had this response to these objections: ‘What? Now I have to delay? Absolutely not! I have decided on October 1, I have decided on this Sunday, and on Sunday I will do it!”

In effect, at the Angelus of October 1 2000 John Paul II presented “Dominus Iesus” as “approved by me in a special form.” And he concluded: “It is my hope that this declaration that is close to my heart, after so many wrong interpretations, can finally perform its function of clarification.”

A function today more relevant than ever.

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