Non-Christian Religions
Such Vatican documents have led some to question the Church's commitment to ecumenism. Pope John Paul II personally endorsed Dominus Iesus, and ratified and confirmed it "with sure knowledge and by his apostolic authority" (a formal sentence used at the beginning or at the point of signature of an official document).
This document states that people outside of Christianity are "in a gravely deficient situation in comparison with those who, in the Church, have the fullness of the means of salvation", and that non-Catholic Christian communities had "defects." This is because, it states, the Catholic Church was the only Church historically established by Christ and is the true Church, the mystical body of Christ.
Read more about this topic: Dominus Iesus
Famous quotes containing the word religions:
“It is a quite remarkable fact that the great religions of the most civilized peoples are more deeply fraught with sadness than the simpler beliefs of earlier societies. This certainly does not mean that the current of pessimism is eventually to submerge the other, but it proves that it does not lose ground and that it does not seem destined to disappear.”
—Emile Durkheim (1858–1917)