Dominus Iesus

Dominus Iesus (English: The Lord Jesus) is a declaration by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (known as the "Holy Office"), approved in a Plenary meeting of the Congregation and signed by its then Prefect, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, and of its then Secretary, Archbishop Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, later Cardinal Secretary of State. The declaration was approved by Pope John Paul II and was published on August 6, 2000. It is subtitled "On the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church". It is most widely known for its elaboration of the Catholic dogma that the Catholic Church is the sole true Church of Christ.

A Catholic dogma, Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus (literally "no salvation outside the Church") has sometimes been interpreted as denying salvation to non-Catholic Christians as well as non-Christians, though Catholic teaching has long stressed the possibility of salvation for persons invincibly ignorant (through no fault of their own) of the Catholic Church's necessity and thus not culpable for lacking communion with the Church. In the 20th century this inclusive approach was expressed in the condemnation of Feeneyism and in the declaration of the Second Vatican Council, which said that "the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator," although this is ambiguous and numerous interpretations have arisen. Vatican II further affirmed that salvation could be available to people who had not even heard of Christ (cf. Acts 17:23)— but that all who gain salvation do so only by membership in the Catholic Church, whether that membership is ordinary (explicit) or by extraordinary means (implicit).

While affirming the teaching of Lumen gentium ("Light of the Nations", the 1964 Dogmatic Constitution on the Church that came out of the Second Vatican Council) that the Roman Catholic Church "is the single Church of Christ" and that "[t]his Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in (Latin: subsistit in) the Catholic Church," Dominus Iesus offers further comments on what it means for the true Church to "subsist in" the Roman Catholic Church. The document states that, "[w]ith the expression subsistit in, the Second Vatican Council sought to harmonize two doctrinal statements: on the one hand, that the Church of Christ, despite the divisions which exist among Christians, continues to exist fully only in the Catholic Church, and on the other hand, that 'outside of her structure, many elements can be found of sanctification and truth.'"

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