http://sedevacantist.com/dominusiesus.html

Dominus Iesus -- A Reaffirmation of Heresy


True Catholics were interested to see that the heretics in the Vatican recently published a docuмent aimed at "answering questions that have arisen in the context of ecuмenical activities," to quote a Conciliar news organ. The docuмent, entitled Dominus Iesus, is 36 pages long, and was signed by "Cardinal" Joseph Ratzinger and "Archbishop" Tarcisio Bertone of the Conciliar Church "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith." This department of the Modernist curia is the toothless replacement for the Holy Roman Inquisition (The Holy Office), set up by Pseudo-Pope Paul VI to "research" the differences between religions.

However, despite the unhopeful source from which it issued, some more optimistic observers are convinced that finally "rome" is doing something to halt the rampant indifferentism which characterises so-called ecuмenical activity.

That hope, however, proves entirely illusory. Before taking a look at the doctrine presented in Dominus Iesus, let's recall the Catholic attitude to indifferentism.

Two papal docuмents are particularly relevant. Pascendi Dominici Gregis, of St. Pius X, which deals with the doctrines of the Modernists, and Mortalium Animos, of Pope Pius XI, condemning indifferentism and its fruit, ecuмenism.

Pope St. Pius X explains that the Modernists hold to a curious doctrine about the nature of religion itself. They believe that external religion, far from being directly revealed by God, is but the manifestation of an instinct in man which seeks to express itself externally.

He teaches that Modernists hold that, "… religions are mere developments of this religious sense. Nor is the Catholic religion an exception; it is quite on a level with the rest; for it was engendered, by the process of vital immanence, and by no other way, in the consciousness of Christ, who was a man of the choicest nature, whose like has never been, nor will be."

Thus, all religions have the same starting point - the religious consciousness of man - and all are therefore "valid." To a "Catholic" Modernist, Christ was nothing more than the religious spirit par excellence. In other words, He was but the "best" man, whose religious consciousness was highest and purest, so that His "religion" is to be preferred, but is not exclusive of others.

Hence, St. Pus X teaches, "In the conflict between different religions, the most that Modernists can maintain is that the Catholic has more truth because it is more vivid, and that it deserves with more reason the name of Christian because it corresponds more fully with the origins of Christianity. No one will find it unreasonable that these consequences flow from the premises."

Note that the "equality" of religions is not part of this. Modernist "Catholics" do not hold that all religions are "equal" but rather that they are all more or less good and praiseworthy.

Pope Pius XI, in the encyclical Mortalium Animos, explained and condemned the movement for false unity called "ecuмenism." In this encyclical we see that the root of this error of indifferentism is the very Modernism condemned by Pope St. Pius X. Pius XI writes. "Certainly such attempts [ecuмenist meetings] can nowise be approved by Catholics, founded as they are on that false opinion which considers all religions to be more or less good and praiseworthy, since they all in different ways manifest and signify that sense which is inborn in us all, and by which we are led to God and to the obedient acknowledgement of His rule. Not only are those who hold this opinion in error and deceived, but also in distorting the idea of true religion they reject it, and little by little, turn aside to naturalism and atheism, as it is called; from which it clearly follows that one who supports those who hold these theories and attempt to realise them, is altogether abandoning the divinely revealed religion." [Emphasis added].

Summarising this teaching, the Modernist notion of religion is that the religious sense produces outward signs and symbols, which differ according to time and place, and the character and education of different peoples. Hence there are different religions, some better and some not as efficient, but all more or less good and praiseworthy. The so-called Catholic version of this doctrine holds that the Catholic religion is the highest of all, because it arose in the religious consciousness of Christ, who was the religious spirit par excellence. Proceeding logically from this false premise, Modernists hold that since all religions are "valid" manifestations of the religious consciousness of man, there is no reason to prevent cooperation and compromise between them, with a view to promoting peace and unity. Pius XI condemns this heresy in the clearest terms, as nothing but apostasy. That is, altogether abandoning the true religion.

Vatican II taught a series of errors which, together, amount to a complete Modernist system of ecuмenism. Firstly, there is the strange new terminology in which the True Church of Christ, the Mystical Body, is said to "subsist in" the Catholic Church. This was a radical departure from the traditional teaching of the Church, by which it is declared that the Mystical Body of Christ, the True Church founded by Our Lord, "is" the Catholic Church. The novelty of Vatican II was taken to signify a breach with the past, which indeed it was, not only in terminology but in meaning also. Furthermore, false as it was in itself because it did not assert the essential identity of the Catholic Church and the Church founded by Christ, it also opened a gap through which was permitted to enter the idea that non-Catholic sects were somehow part of the True Church.

This awful falsehood was compounded by the blasphemous heresy that the Holy Ghost uses non-Catholic sects as means of salvation. And as if these errors were not sufficiently disastrous, the trilogy was completed by the error which was implied in the assertion that all who are Baptised are members of Christ, as though all of the Baptised maintained membership in the Church throughout their lives.

It has been noted from the beginning that Vatican II did not teach the openly anti-Catholic view that all religions are equal. No, that would have been too much for even the most "conciliatory" Catholic to accept. What the anti-Council taught, as has been shown, was that the Catholic Church has more truth than the other religions. That while the other religions are more or less good and praiseworthy, none of them reaches quite the pitch of perfection to which "our" Church attains. For this is the characteristically "Catholic" version of the Modernist doctrine, and Vatican II was dominated by "Catholic" Modernists.

Having reviewed the history and nature of the opposing Catholic and Modernist doctrines, we are now in a position to assess the latest word on the subject, Dominus Iesus. And it fully confirms the Modernist doctrine of Vatican II, so clearly condemned by Popes Pius X and Pius XI..

Dominus Iesus teaches that, "The Church of Christ is present and operative also in these [non-Catholic] Churches, even though they lack full communion with the Catholic Church since they do not accept the Catholic doctrine of the primacy, which, according to the will of God, objectively has and exercises over the entire Church." And, while asserting that other "Christian" churches "suffer from defects," the docuмent says they have not been deprived of what it calls "significance and importance in the mystery of salvation."

Confirming this heretical filth, Dominus Iesus asserts that far from being certainly lost if they die outside the Church, non-Christians were at a "disadvantage" regarding salvation.

The docuмent also teaches that, "The truth of faith does not lessen the sincere respect which the Church has for the religions of the world, but at the same time, it rules out … the belief that 'one religion is as good as another.'" Here we have not just the assertion that non-Catholics are in the way of salvation, nor merely that their religions are somehow used by the Holy Ghost as means of salvation (both of which assertions are heretical), but if possible the even worse error that Holy Church respects false religions.

Dominus Iesus defines the Catholic Church as the Church which has maintained "apostolic succession," and says that this Church is the one true Church. As if there are not other notes essential to the nature of the true Church. But the reason for this narrowly-based definition appears immediately. Dominus Iesus teaches that some Oriental sects have maintained apostolic succession also, and therefore represent the true Church.

We might ask, then, what is it that could possibly have led some commentators to see this docuмent as a condemnation of the ecuмenist heresy? And the answer must be that these men have so lost sight of the teaching of the Catholic Church as to think that a reaffirmation of Vatican II amounts to a stand in favour of truth. Such men are positively rapturous in the warning of Dominus Iesus that one must not say that "one religion is as good as another."

At any rate, "Cardinal" Ratzinger himself has ended debates about the meaning of Dominus Iesus, in statements published in L'Osservatore Romano on October 8. Ratzinger explained that, quite deliberately, Vatican II (and likewise Dominus Iesus) did not use the traditional terminology, according to which "the Roman Catholic Church is the only Church of Jesus Christ." Instead, it preferred the expression, "The Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church ruled by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him," because, he said, it wished to affirm "that the being of the Church as such is a larger identity than the Roman Catholic Church." Which, taken any way one likes, is a heresy.

True Catholics stand with all of tradition and affirm that there can be no communion of Christ with Belial. As the Rev. Pierami writes, in his "The Life of the Servant of God, Pius X", that Saint "understood that it [Modernism] sought the hybrid union of truth and error, and the exchange of the kiss of peace between the believer and the heretic."

What else can one expect from such a devilish union, but a monster?

John Lane
October 30, 2000
St. Theonestus