A prominent Roman Catholic theologian from Poland has rejected a demand from the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that he retracts and rewrites an article criticising its attitude to other Christian churches.
“I was told disciplinary sanctions would be imposed on me if I did not recall and renounce my unfair, unjust and disrespectful language about the congregation. I do not know what this means - maybe just a publishing ban or excommunication for disobedience,” Hryniewicz told ENI.
The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly the Holy Inquisition, defends theological orthodoxy within the Roman Catholic Church. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, once headed the body.
Professor Hryniewicz’s article, “The saviour uses many tunes”, was published in Open Theology, an online inter-faith journal based in London. The article criticised a June 2007 Vatican document that reaffirmed the Roman Catholic view that Protestant denominations are not churches, “in the proper sense”.
Hryniewicz wrote that the Vatican document represented a “serious regression” by reflecting attitudes that dated from before the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council, which sought to introduce reforms into the Roman Catholic Church.
He received the demand to retract his article in a January letter from Heinz Steckling, the Rome-based Father-General of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate order, to which the professor belongs.
However, Hryniewicz’s told his order he would not write “clarifications or rectifications”, and said other leading Roman Catholics shared his disappointment with the Vatican’s stance.
“My only intention was to share the pain and sorrow of many Protestant sisters and brothers in the Christian faith very profoundly hurt by the Vatican statement,” the 72-year-old said in a 26 March letter. [ENI]
British Church Newspaper
10 October 2008
Source: http://www.ianpaisley.org/new_details.asp?ID=601
“I was told disciplinary sanctions would be imposed on me if I did not recall and renounce my unfair, unjust and disrespectful language about the congregation. I do not know what this means - maybe just a publishing ban or excommunication for disobedience,” Hryniewicz told ENI.
The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly the Holy Inquisition, defends theological orthodoxy within the Roman Catholic Church. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, once headed the body.
Professor Hryniewicz’s article, “The saviour uses many tunes”, was published in Open Theology, an online inter-faith journal based in London. The article criticised a June 2007 Vatican document that reaffirmed the Roman Catholic view that Protestant denominations are not churches, “in the proper sense”.
Hryniewicz wrote that the Vatican document represented a “serious regression” by reflecting attitudes that dated from before the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council, which sought to introduce reforms into the Roman Catholic Church.
He received the demand to retract his article in a January letter from Heinz Steckling, the Rome-based Father-General of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate order, to which the professor belongs.
However, Hryniewicz’s told his order he would not write “clarifications or rectifications”, and said other leading Roman Catholics shared his disappointment with the Vatican’s stance.
“My only intention was to share the pain and sorrow of many Protestant sisters and brothers in the Christian faith very profoundly hurt by the Vatican statement,” the 72-year-old said in a 26 March letter. [ENI]
British Church Newspaper
10 October 2008
Source: http://www.ianpaisley.org/new_details.asp?ID=601
