Cardinal Cahal Daly says "what has to be faced is that Dominus Iesus does state basic elements of the Catholic Church's self-understanding and self-definition". The church had never attempted in dialogue to present itself otherwise, he said.
Giving a Week of Prayer for Christian Unity address at the Church of St Mary and St Peter in Arklow last night, Dr Daly said: "Clarity and consistency in doctrinal statements cannot be an enemy of ecumenism, for all authentic ecumenical dialogue must be based on the truth."
He pointed out that Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had "emphatically rebutted" the charge that Dominus Iesus denied "ecclesial reality" to other churches. What Cardinal Ratzinger had said was that "there is also ecclesial reality outside the Catholic community".
Dr Daly said it was disappointing that Dominus Iesus was seen as a departure from the spirit of Vatican II. "It was particularly unfortunate, and surely painful to Cardinal Ratzinger, that the declaration was perceived as in discord with the thinking of Pope John Paul II, or indeed as not having being formally and fully endorsed by him." There should not have been need for the Pope's later formal endorsements of the declaration, he said.
He pointed out that Cardinal Ratzinger had said there was no new teaching in the document. He had said it had merely taken up the Council's texts and the post-Conciliar documents, neither adding nor removing anything.
Dr Daly felt it might in fact clarify the whole discussion if the other churches were to think of drawing up statements of how they understood themselves to be, or to belong to, the one Church of Jesus Christ. If churches were in agreement ecumenism was not necessary, but if churches did not state their own position clearly, while respecting the position of other churches, ecumenism in depth was not possible, he said.
Remarking that there was scarcely a sentence in the first two-thirds of Dominus Iesus that did not reflect the shared mainstream belief of all Christian churches, he felt it would be wonderful if all the Irish churches could produce an agreed declaration of the faith they jointly proclaimed in an increasingly faithless Europe.
