Littlemore: October 7, 1845.
'My dearest H. W.,—Father Dominic the Passionist is passing this way, on his way from Aston in Staffordshire to Belgium, where a chapter of his Order is to be held at this time. He is to come to Littlemore for the night as a guest of one of us whom he has admitted at Aston. He does not know of my intentions, but I shall ask of him admission into the One true Fold of the Redeemer. I shall keep this back till after it is all over.

In 2000, the Vatican published the text "Dominus Iesus." Other denominations reacted with alarm that the Catholic Church continued to consider itself the only true one. The document remains valid today.

Binding declarations by the Vatican's authority on the faith are rare, and they almost always cause more of a stir than papal doctrinal letters. Sometimes they become milestones in Catholic doctrine. The 1984 Instruction on Liberation Theology is one of them, as is the 2023 declaration "Fiducia supplicans," with which Rome permitted the ecclesiastical blessing of homosexual couples. Both, however, also led to strains within the Church.

Cardinal Newman and Pope Benedict share fight against relativism, writes Vatican expert

But no declaration caused as much excitement beyond the Catholic Church as "Dominus Iesus - on the Uniqueness and Universal Salvation of Jesus Christ and the Church." The text was signed on August 6, 2000, by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith and later Pope Benedict XVI. Pope John Paul II expressly approved it before its publication on September 5, causing a stir.

His first core statement refers to Jesus and emphasizes: "It is to be firmly believed that Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Mary, and only he, is the Son and the Word of the Father. (...) Jesus is 'the Messiah, the Son of the living God' (...) 'in him alone truly dwells the whole fullness of God' (...). He is 'the only one who is God and rests at the heart of the Father' (...). 'Through him we have redemption' (...)".

Rejection of Relativism

This article of faith, supported by biblical passages, is linked to a clear rejection of the attitude of relativism that was widespread at the turn of the millennium. This assumes that no religion can claim the whole truth for itself, but that all, at best, only recognize parts of divine truth. Ratzinger calls this "the conviction that divine truth is unknowable and inexpressible, not even through Christian revelation." And he criticizes this as a "relativistic attitude toward truth," where "what is true for some is not true for others."

He further analyses: "The deepest basis of this opinion lies in the assertion that the truth about God, in its globality and completeness, cannot be grasped and proclaimed by any historical religion, including Christianity and not even by Jesus Christ." In the text, he counters this with a confession of Jesus as the sole revelation of God, valid for all people and cultures.

With this, the Supreme Guardian of the Faith clearly recalled something that—also as a result of certain gestures by Pope John Paul II—was only vaguely present in the general perception. The Pope's respectful encounters with heads of other faith communities and the World Prayer Meeting of Religions for Peace in Assisi gave many the impression that the Catholic Church had abandoned its claim that it alone possessed divine truth.

Harsh clarification on ecumenism as well

After calling this a mistake, Ratzinger also addressed ecumenism among the churches in the text. In this area, too, the Polish Pope had set much in motion – for example, through the encyclical "Ut unum sint" and through meetings with Protestant church leaders. Similar to the question of the truth claims of other religions, the text now focused on demarcation and emphasized, above all, what is not.

And he created a classification for non-Catholic churches that deeply offended many Protestants. It reads: "There is therefore one Church of Christ, subsisting in the Catholic Church and governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him. The Churches that (...) remain united to it by the closest bonds, such as apostolic succession and the valid Eucharist, are genuine particular Churches. Ecclesial communities, on the other hand, that have not preserved the valid Episcopate and the original and complete reality of the Eucharistic mystery are not Churches in the proper sense."

This sentence had an incendiary effect on the dialogue between the churches. Since then, countless ecumenical representatives have tried to take away its hurtful point. But it has never been taken back. However, it was supplemented by the suggestion of Curia Cardinal Walter Kasper that it would be better to say that the Protestant communities "are church in a different way".

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