Is Rome a True Church? Part 2
Author: Chris Castaldo, PhD
August 09, 2024
Last week, in Part 1, Pastor Chris asked whether the Roman Catholic Church is a true church. He answered, in part: “A serious application of truth and grace would have us recognize it as belonging to Christendom, and, inasmuch as it elucidates the orthodox core, see it as a true church, but one with major problems that often distort the gospel.” Here, in Part 2, he focuses on the doctrine of justification.
The most common protest to this approach among Protestants is instigated by the Roman Church’s condemnation of justification by faith alone at Trent in 1547. As mentioned above, Protestants see this judgment, which Rome cannot formally retract, as a repudiation of the gospel, an error of such proportions that it undermines the Roman Catholic claim to Christian orthodoxy. But while Rome can’t retract the condemnation, it can reinterpret it. And it has been doing just that.
The Catholic Church, it must be remembered, has a vast hermeneutical tradition of paradoxical subtlety—a “both-and” approach (“et-et” in Latin) that interprets and applies doctrinal development in unanticipated ways. For example, one remembers, says Henry Blocher, “the maxim Extra ecclesiam nulla salus [there is no salvation outside the Church], whose interpretation was reversed (by 180 degrees), in the course of history, from an exclusive to an all-inclusive understanding.”1 In some respects, such developments have occurred in the Roman Catholic understanding of justification.
This development is illustrated by the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ), the Roman Catholic Church’s most important contemporary discussion of the subject.2 The document makes no pretense to having ended all the disagreements between Catholic and Lutheran doctrines of justification. Indeed, it doesn’t. For example, it fails to address imputed righteousness and offers only passing attention to issues such as purgatory and indulgences.
But it does something new and significant for the question at hand: in the Annex, which possesses the same magisterial authority as the Official Common Statement (a detail that is sometimes misunderstood),3 the JDDJ qualifies the condemnations of Trent by accepting the “faith alone” formula. It says, “Justification takes place ‘by grace alone’ (JD 15 and 16), by faith alone (emphasis added), the person is justified “apart from works” (Rom 3:28, cf. JD 25).4 When Protestants (Lutheran and other ecclesial bodies that have later supported the declaration, including certain Methodists, Anglicans, and Reformed) remain in the limits set forth by the document, the condemnations no longer apply.
It should be noted that this affirmation of faith alone was also expressed by Pope Benedict XVI in Saint Peter’s Square on November 19, 2008, when he said, “Being just simply means being with Christ and in Christ. And this suffices. Further observances are no longer necessary. For this reason, Luther’s phrase: ‘faith alone’ is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity in love.” A week later on November 26 in the Paul VI Audience Hall the pontiff continued this emphasis: “Following Saint Paul, we have seen that man is unable to ‘justify’ himself with his own actions, but can only truly become ‘just’ before God because God confers his ‘justice’ upon him, uniting him to Christ his Son. And man obtains this union through faith. In this sense, Saint Paul tells us: not our deeds, but rather faith renders us ‘just.’” Lest you think the pope’s statements were an out of turn, momentary flash in the pan, you can also read them in his book Saint Paul.5
One may ask, “How can the Roman Catholic Church draw this new conclusion?” Tony Lane offers insight when he writes, “The canons [of Trent] were deliberately not addressed against specific people and the statements condemned were derived from second- or third-hand compilations of the statements of the Reformers, taken especially from the earlier years of the Reformation and not seen in their original context.”6
Thus, unlike Alexander V’s papal bull against Wycliffism in 1409 or Leo X’s Exsurge Domine against Luther in 1520, Trent’s Canons were aiming into a mist of hearsay. Moving forward in history, even to the present, Catholic theologians have said, in effect, that because the bishops of Trent didn’t accurately understand Reformation teaching, the object of their canons was different from what truly was or is Reformation theology. Accordingly, the preamble of the JDDJ asserts, “…this declaration is shaped by the conviction that in their respective histories our churches have come to new insights.”
The “new insights” include the realization of Trent’s misguided critique of the Protestant Reformers’ doctrine. Once again, this is not to say that there’s now consensus. But Roman Catholics can at least endorse a version of justification by faith alone.
Do all Catholics choose to speak this way? No. But, in truth, Catholicism has never been a strict monolith, and it’s even more diverse today. The 1.3 billion Roman Catholics around the globe, planted in virtually every culture, exist in a variety of forms, an ecclesial montage that comprises ultra-traditionalists (so-called “Rad Trads”), moderate traditionalists, liberals, charismatics, the nominal, and popular folk. “What you find in Spain and Latin America,” says Tom Howard, “differs greatly from what you find in The Netherlands or Norway. Sicilians do not order their worship as do the Watutsi; nor does Irish Catholicism yield just the look given things by the Filipinos.”7
Furthermore, in some places, it’s simply harder to maintain a collegial relationship with the Roman Catholic Church. I think of evangelicals in the city of Rome who are actively persecuted and harassed. It’s understandable why the Protestant outlook in those settings may look more strained and even adversarial.
As a rule, however, I find the nuanced position of the Reformers and their heirs, which recognizes the underlying orthodoxy of the Roman Catholic Church (albeit one that is covered by extraneous and at times false doctrines) to be the most honest and theologically precise way of responding to our question.
In obedience to Paul’s admonition to love in a manner that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:7), I think this approach avoids the extremes of Protestant pugnacity and pride on the one hand, and sloppy doctrinal compromise on the other. Instead, it brings us closer to the grace and truth ethic of Jesus Christ. And isn’t that what we all desire?
See Part 1 in last week’s blog.
Chris Castaldo, Ph.D. is lead pastor of New Covenant Church in Naperville, Illinois. He is author of The Upside Down Kingdom: Wisdom for Life from the Beatitudes (Crossway, 2023), and coauthor, with Brad Littlejohn, of Why Do Protestants Convert? (Davenant Press, 2023). Chris blogs at www.chriscastaldo.com. This article originally appeared in Mere Orhodoxy.
Photo by Adrian Dascal on Unsplash.
1 Henri A. Blocher, “The Lutheran-Catholic Doctrine of Justification” Justification in Perspective: Historical Developments and Contemporary Challenges. Ed. Bruce L. McCormack (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), 201.
2 The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification was signed at Augsburg on Reformation Day, October 31, 1999, by the Lutheran World Federation and the chairman of Rome’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Edward Cardinal Cassidy, with support from the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith and with the pope’s blessing. In other words, the declaration wasn’t merely the product of some progressive scholars but was officially accepted at the highest level.
3 Anthony Lane. Justification by Faith in Catholic-Protestant Dialogue: An Evangelical Assessment, London: T & T Clark, 2002), 122. The Annex was signed along with the Official Common Statement on October 31, 1999. The stated purpose of the Annex is to elucidate and underline the consensus reached in the JDDJ.
4 The Annex is accessible at: http://www.christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/en/dialoghi/sezione-occidentale/luterani/dialogo/documenti-di-dialogo/1999-dichiarazione-congiunta-sulla-dottrina-della-
giustificazion/en4.html
5 Pope Benedict XVI. Saint Paul. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009), 82-85.
6 Anthony Lane. Justification by Faith in Catholic, 104-105.
7 Thomas Howard, On Being Catholic (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997). 34.
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