U.S. bishops' doctrinal official says Vatican ruling no surprise

Published: 2005-02-09

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The Vatican's notification that there are doctrinal errors in the book, "Jesus Symbol of God," by Jesuit Father Roger Haight, "doesn't surprise me," said Capuchin Franciscan Father Thomas G. Weinandy, executive director of the U.S. bishops' Secretariat for Doctrine and Pastoral Practices. "Yes, I did expect that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith would find this book unsound," Father Weinandy said. The doctrinal congregation's notification, dated Dec. 13, was published in the Feb. 7-8 issue of the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano. It said the book contained a number of "affirmations contrary to the truths of the divine and Catholic faith" -- including errors about "the pre-existence of the Word, the divinity of Jesus, the Trinity, the salvific value of the death of Jesus, the uniqueness and universality of the salvific mediation of Jesus and the church, and the resurrection of Jesus." While one of Father Haight's stated intentions was to "affirm together the normativity of Jesus, the true and salvific character of other religions, and thus the positive character of religious pluralism," a Catholic expert in interreligious dialogue said his book is not helpful for such dialogue. Father Francis Tiso, staff specialist for interreligious relations in the U.S. bishops' Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, said Muslims and Buddhists -- the two main world religions with which Catholics are engaged in active interreligious dialogue -- would draw back from a dialogue based on "the postmodernist point of view" that frames Father Haight's work.

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