The Pope has once again asserted the primacy of the Roman Catholic church. In answers to five questions about Catholicism's self understanding, on June 29, 2007, William Cardinal Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, writing with the explicit approval of Pope Benedict XVI, argued for "the full identity of the Church of Christ with the [Roman] Catholic Church."
Speaking for the Pope, Cardinal Levada held that it is acceptable to use the word "church" when speaking of the oriental [Orthodox ] Christian communities because, even though they "lack something," they have the true sacraments and apostolic succession stretching from Peter in the New Testament to the present. He found it impossible to use the word "church" when referring to the Christian denominations that resulted from the Protestant Reformation in sixteenth century Europe, however. They cannot "be called 'Churches' in the proper sense" because "these Communities do not enjoy apostolic succession in the sacrament of Orders," he wrote.
Both aspects of this claim deserve notice. On the one hand, it asserts that the leaders of the Protestant denominations do not stand today as links in an unbroken chain of succession reaching all the way back to the New Testament. On the other hand, the leaders of the Protestant denominations are not sacramental in the same sense as are Roman Catholic priests; i.e., they do not officiate at the Eucharist, or the most solemn ceremony of Christianity, in the same way. These are not two arguments but partly distinguishable aspects of a single claim.
This claim is as audacious as it is unsurprising. For centuries Roman Catholicism has come as close as humanly possible to identifying itself with the "one holy catholic [universal] church" of the Christian creeds. Today, as always, it is a part of the world wide community of Christians, although it is probably the largest and most powerful portion. But instead of accepting this station in life, significant though it is, it claims to be the whole. It does this despite the historical dubiousness of the idea of an unbroken chain of apostolic succession and the obvious limitations and distortions in its own life.
No Christian community of faith should dare to identify itself so completely with the true Church of Christ. Each in its own way is a partial and somewhat perverse approximation of the genuine thing. If Roman Catholicism cannot accept this counsel of humility, the rest of us who are also Christians must do so for it. We must prod and prick its pretentiousness. Although we Christians need not all be Protestants, we should all protest inflated claims. These from Benedict XVI are among them.
Yet things are not quite this bad because this document says that "the Church of Christ subsists in the [Roman] Catholic Church," a claim that falls a bit short of saying that the first is the second. [Emphasis supplied.] While continuing to claim that "the word 'subsists' can be attributed to the [Roman] Catholic Church alone," the use of this term allows it to affirm that "the Church of Christ is present and operative in the churches and ecclesial Communities not yet fully in Communion with the [Roman] Catholic Church." It goes on to say that "the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as instruments of salvation."
This is good news. The bad news is that this sentence goes on to say that the value of these other communities of faith "derives from that fullness of grace and truth which has been entrusted to the [Roman] Catholic Church." [I think it helpful to insert "Roman" before each of this document's references to the "Catholic Church" to emphasize how parochial it is in some ways.]
Clearly, in this discussion, and those upon which it is based that took at Vatican II, the Roman Catholic Church is struggling with the tension between its exaggerated claims and its recognition that the Church of Christ is also effective elsewhere. It uses the terms "subsists in" rather than "exists as" to manage this tension and the powerful constituencies that champion one or the other of these two themes. Actually, if they were applied to all Christian communities, the terms "subsists in" would be helpful because they would assert that all of them are the Church of Christ only to the degree to which they conform to its presence and power within them.
My own view is that we should apply the language of "subsists in" to all religious movements, Christian and non-Christian alike. The point of this would be that everywhere and always God is "present and operative " and that each movement deserves to be affirmed for the ways and degrees in which it collaborates with this Provocative Presence and criticized for how it doesn't. Again, this standard should apply to all religious movements irrespective of whether they are Christian. None of them, not even the Roman Catholic Church, which claims so much for itself, gets to blur the differences between what it is and what it ought to be.
Applying the language of "subsists in" to all religious movements, Christian and non-Christian alike, would probably be difficult for many Roman Catholics. It would be impossible for many Evangelical Protestants in North America today because they insist that all those who have not consciously accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior are forever lost, even though they may have never heard of him through no fault of their own. When we couple this doctrine with that of hell as the experience of unending conscious torment, we have a theological brew that even the worst of witches could not stomach.
The New Testament addresses this issue with unmistakeably clarity. Toward the end of the Gospel of Matthew it portrays Jesus talking about the Final Judgment. Some who will claim to know and follow him will be lost and some who assert that they never heard of him will be saved. The difference between these two groups does not depend upon the religious movement to which each person belongs, if any. It depends upon how they related to people with genuine and urgent needs:
"Then the king will say to those at his right hand, "Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me....Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me." Matthew 25: 31 - 36 & 40. New Revised Standard Version.
Here we read nothing about what eventually would become the Roman Catholic Church. Neither do we see anything about consciously accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. This passage destroys any basis for Christian exclusivism whether it is Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox or anything else.
Those of us who are Christians should not build walls where Scripture tears them down. We should not exclude those whom the New Testament embraces. We should not say "go away" where God says "come in"!