Do you belong to a church?
Do you belong to a church?
In July, Pope Benedict XVI clarified the Roman Catholic doctrine about the church. Forward in Christ asked Professor John Brug from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary to respond.
When I was on vacation early in July, I turned on the TV to catch the news. The story was about comments made by Pope Benedict. He asserted that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church, and his comments stirred controversy among Christians. My first reaction was, “Why is this news?” This has always been the position of the Roman church, and both John Paul II and Benedict XVI have been emphatic about stating this position publicly.
There is, of course, nothing new about this declaration. It has been the public doctrine of the Roman church for centuries. In 1302 in the papal bull Unam Sanctam, Pope Boniface VIII asserted, “We declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.” This has remained the teaching of the Roman church to this day.
Even Vatican II did not change the doctrine. The Council declared, “The Roman Catholic Church is the one true church which does not err” (VII, Lumen Gentium 8). “Whoever refuses to enter or does not remain in the Roman Catholic Church cannot be saved” (Lumen Gentium 12).
The most emphatic affirmation of this teaching was presented in two more recent documents.
The first document is the Catechism of the Catholic Church, issued in 1992 as an official guide to Catholic doctrine. It states, “The sole Church of Christ is that which our Savior, after his resurrection, entrusted to Peter’s pastoral care, commissioning him and the other apostle to extend and rule it. . . . This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him” (Paragraph 816).
The one significant change since Unam Sanctam is that Rome now recognizes that Protestants can be saved as “anonymous Catholics.” Those who are baptized may be in an imperfect communion with the Catholic Church as long as they do not knowingly reject the pope.
At the same time the Roman church teaches that non-Christians who try to please God by works can be saved as “anonymous Christians.” (Documents of Vatican II, p. 35).
If we take these teachings literally, non-Christians who try to live a moral life are in better standing than Lutherans who trust in Christ but reject the headship of the pope.
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