Rome working at two levels - paper

An editorial in the Church of Ireland Gazette has criticised what it describes as the increasing polarity between official teaching and general practice in the Roman Catholic Church.

Referring to the Vatican's Dominus Iesus document, which it said denied "the full ecclesial reality of the Church of Ireland as well as other churches", it said: "We believe that the publication of this declaration as well as the recent document One Bread One Body (which banned Roman Catholics from receiving communion in other churches and only allows non-Roman Catholics receive in Roman Catholic churches in rare instances) signals a certain dilemma which currently faces the Roman Catholic Church, and which explicitly involves other churches.

"It appears to us that the Roman Catholic Church is increasingly operating on two levels," it said. Those were that of "formally enunciated doctrine and rules" and "the everyday life of the church."

It referred to the "extremely restrictive" Catholic regulations on sharing communion with other Christians but which "clearly are being mainly ignored by the faithful". It explicitly compared this to the teaching and practice in Catholicism following Humanae Vitae.

This "polarity' in Catholicism surely presented the Vatican with a serious dilemma, it said. "Is the Roman Catholic Church to proceed along the path of issuing laws and regulations that may simply be ignored?" Such an approach was "doomed," it said.

"Authoritative pronouncements may be made, but if they are not generally treated as such then the authority itself is diminished more and more and, ultimately, becomes hollow".

Ecclesiastical authority should be exercised "in a creative, not stifled, relationship with its faithful", which was not the same as telling people what they wanted to hear.

"There is no doubt that in parishes, dioceses and indeed countries throughout the world there are increasingly close relationships between Roman Catholics and Protestants," but all this was taking place against a background of teaching which "denies the full ecclesial reality of Protestant churches," it said.

It noted that the Catholic Church here had decided to join the recently proposed Conference of Churches in Ireland group and pulled back only when the Presbyterian Church declined to join.

It also pointed out that the Irish Catholic Church was an associate member of the Churches Together in Britain and Ireland group, of which the Catholic Church in Scotland, England and Wales was a full member.

"One could surely be forgiven for thinking that there is at least some kind of inconsistency between denying that ecclesial reality (of reformed churches) on the one hand, and on the other hand being a full member of a nationally constituted churches body," it said.

It hoped the Catholic Church would "choose the way that is truly in touch not only with its own faithful, but also with Christians of other traditions".