This is a followup to my earlier post regarding the CDF’s (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s) announcement that the Roman Catholic Church is the one true church. I had mentioned a paper by prof. John Dadosky, “Towards A Fundamental Theological RE-Interpretation Of Vatican II.” An advanced copy is now available for download. It is also available through other services like Scholar’s Portal.
I had raised this article and the work of John Dadosky generally as a caution to Protestants not to view the Roman Catholic church as a monolithic organization. Our relations to the Roman Catholic Communion should not be framed in dialectical terms as “us” against “them,” given that there are many and widely varied voices speaking from within the Communion.
With his ecclesiology of friendship, prof. Dadosky proposes a refinement of the Roman Church’s self-understanding to include the notion of mutual self–mediation. This creates space for the possibility that the Church can be changed by its encounters with the world. This is about approaching one another with humility and letting go our vested interests so that we may engage one another in ways that are mutually enriching.
There are still reasons to celebrate.