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Pope says other Christian churches aren't 'true'

Protestant leaders criticize the document, which reasserts a text he wrote in 2000.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published July 11, 2007

LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy - Pope Benedict XVI reasserted the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says other Christian communities are either defective or not true churches and that Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation.

The statement brought swift criticism from Protestant leaders. "It makes us question whether we are indeed praying together for Christian unity," the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, a fellowship of 75-million Protestants in more than 100 countries, said in a letter. It charged that the document took dialogue back to the era before the Second Vatican Council.

It was the second time in a week that Pope Benedict has corrected what he says are erroneous interpretations of the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-65 meetings that modernized the church. On Saturday, Benedict revived the old Latin Mass.

Among the council's key developments were its ecumenical outreach and the development of the New Mass in the vernacular, which essentially replaced the old Latin Mass.

Despite the harsh tone, Tuesday's document stressed that Pope Benedict remains committed to ecumenical dialogue.

Pope Benedict, who attended Vatican II as a young theologian, has long complained about what he considers its erroneous interpretation by liberals, saying it was not a break from the past but rather a renewal of tradition.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said it was issuing the new document Tuesday because some contemporary theological interpretations of Vatican II's ecumenical intent had been "erroneous or ambiguous."

The new document restates key sections of a 2000 text the pope wrote when he was prefect of the congregation.

The Rev. Sara MacVane of the Anglican Centre in Rome said that although Tuesday's document contains nothing new, "I don't know what motivated it at this time."

There was no indication why the pope felt it necessary to release it now.

Some analysts suggested it could be a question of internal church politics or a message to certain theologians it did not want to single out.

[Last modified July 11, 2007, 01:03:15]