Gregory Baum and Cardinal Ratzinger (Canada).

The Catholic New Times (CNT) for October 8, 2000, carried an article by Gregory Baum, the former Augustinian priest and co-founder of CNT, entitled "The fear-based theology of Cardinal Ratzinger." It concerned Dominus Iesus, the recent declaration issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), on the uniqueness of Christ and His Church.

In Baum's view, 'it offers a harsh and unfair criticism of those Catholic theologians who are open to the new understanding of religious pluralism which came out of Vatican II'. Because Ratzinger's perception is inspired by fear, Baum says, fear that the new ecumenical relationship between Christians of different traditions will lead to relativism and the view that all religions are equally valid, the document has a fault-finding and scolding tone which makes it singularly unattractive.

Baum has other objections. One is that dialogue and convert-making cannot go together. Dialogue is a conversation, based on trust and mutual acceptance, he says; to abuse that trust by trying to make the other party change his religion would be a betrayal of trust, in fact something unethical.

Baum also has the idea that Christians should no longer try to convert Jews, since the Jewish people are already in a convenant relationship with God. Finally, he denounces the Church's conduct in matters of slavery, colonialism, racism, sexism, the suppression of freedom--a long list of complaints.

Comment:

This is a spiteful article such as an unbeliever might produce with a triumphant flourish. For whatever it is worth, Dominus Ifesus is a solemn yet joyful reiteration of the Church's constant teaching that salvation comes to the world only through the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ. (See C.I., November 2000, pp. 9-10) It is not Cardinal Ratzinger's personal statement at all but something in which others, including the Pope himself, participated.

As for ecumenism, it is very important in the Church, but it is not all-important. It was precisely to remind everyone of this fact that the document was issued in the first place.

With respect to dialogue and conversion, in the best-known use of the form of Plato's dialogues, conversion is of the essence. One faulty understanding of a concept after another is overturned, to make way for a new understanding, a closer approach to the truth. Dialogue ought to be a search for the truth, a process of enlightenment.

As for Jews and their relationship with God, Saul must have been in such a relationship as a devout Jew; yet the Lord said to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" and knocked him down (Acts 9: 1ff). Just as the Church baptised Paul in the first century, it baptised the Jew Jean-Marie Lustiger, the present Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, in the 20th, in keeping with His command to baptise all nations. That is why Jesus' teaching is called the New Covenant in order that it might replace the old covenant.