Vatican Releases Statement on Other Religions

September 9, 2000

Source: The Times-Picayune

On September 9, 2000 The Times-Picayune reported that "several Protestant and ecumenical leaders around Louisiana said Friday they aren't very disturbed by this week's Vatican declaration that only the Roman Catholic church contains the fullness of Jesus Christ's teaching and work of salvation. 'My first reaction is that this is barely a ripple in the ecumenical stream,' said the Rev. C. Dana Krutz, an Episcopal priest who heads the Louisiana Interchurch Conference, a statewide ecumenical council of more than a dozen Christian denominations...Krutz's organization is preparing for a meeting next week of about 40 Protestant and Catholic religious leaders. Given its somewhat blunt tone, the Vatican document will almost certainly come up in conversation, but is not likely to increase tensions in the group or interfere with its work against poverty and discrimination in Louisiana, he said...Krutz and other non-Catholic leaders said some of the document's sharply worded claims send 'mixed signals' about the Catholic church's relations with other religions, given Pope John Paul II's outreaches to other faiths. 'That makes me think there's not unanimity throughout the Roman Catholic church, and they're struggling with this,' he said.

"...Released in Rome on Tuesday, the document was issued to counter research by some Catholic theologians 'who have wandered perilously close to indifferentism,' or the view that God is equally present in all faiths, said Eugene Fisher of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs at the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, D.C."