VATICAN CITY - Pope John Paul tried to calm a row with other religious leaders on Sunday following last month's highly controversial document which rejected the concept that other religions could be equal to Roman Catholicism. Protestant and Anglican leaders, theologians and Jews reacted with dismay and disdain to the document, which was published on September 5 by the Vatican's doctrinal department, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The document was also partly responsible for the cancellation of a day to mark Christian-Jewish dialogue in the Vatican's 2000 celebrations after Jewish leaders refused to attend a ceremony which had been scheduled for October 3.
The 80-year-old Pope, clearly concerned about the effect the document's reception has had on inter-religious dialogue, dedicated nearly all of his regular Sunday address to the issue and tried to clarify the Vatican's intentions.
He said the Christian belief that Christ was the Son of God through which they reached the Father "is not arrogance which shows contempt for other religions..." After the Vatican's doctrinal department published the complex document, there was general concern among non-Catholic leaders that it could hurt inter-religious dialogue that has advanced greatly since the 1962-1965 Second Vatican Council. The bitterness appeared to be felt most by other Christian religions, which the document implied were second-rate because of "defects", including their refusal to recognise papal primacy.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, spiritual leader of the world's 70 million Anglicans, rejected the Vatican's contention as unacceptable, saying it appeared to question efforts to cement closer ties among various branches of Christianity.
In his comments on Sunday, the Pope said that there had been "many wrong interpretations" about the document and added that he hoped any problems that it caused could be overcome.
The pope said the document was an attempt to "clarify essential Christian elements".
These elements, he added, "do not block dialogue but lay out its foundations, because a dialogue without foundations would be destined to degenerate into empty verbosity." The document repeated Catholic Church teachings that non-Christians were in a "gravely deficient situation" regarding salvation and that other Christian churches had "defects".
But the Pope said on Sunday that interpretations that the document said non-Christians were denied salvation were wrong.
The document said clarification and restatement of the official Catholic position was necessary to contest "relativistic theories which seek to justify religious pluralism" as a principle rather than a de facto practice.
It said only the revelation of Jesus Christ was "definitive and complete" and that Christian revelation could not be seen as complementary to that found in other religions.
Apart from the many criticisms, one concrete effect was that Rome's chief Rabbi Elio Toaff and his deputy, Abramo Piatelli, informed the Vatican they would not attend the October 3 day to commemorate Jewish-Catholic dialogue.
After the Rabbis withdrew, Vatican officials said the ceremony had been "postponed indefinitely".
It was not clear if the timing of the Pope's words on Sunday were an attempt to salvage this coming Tuesday's Dialogue Day.