Nokså overraskende leste jeg hos Sandro Magister at det kjente dokumentet Dominus Jesus fra år 2000 (LES DET HER), om Jesus som eneste vei til frelse, og et tillegg om hva som kreves for å virkelig kunne kalles en Kirke. Jesuitten Jacques Dupuis kritiserer dokumentet i en bok som kom ute etter hans død, skriver Magister, og:
The Bolognese historian (Professor Alberto Melloni) dismisses “Dominus Iesus” as “the most fragile document of the Wojtylian pontificate,” portrays it as “not accepted by Catholic theologians” and attributes its composition – on a par with the notification that Dupuis was made to sign at that time – to the “incompetence” of unspecified “collaborators of the congregation,” which Ratzinger “in direct conversations demonstrated he did not value and did not know,” and to which John Paul II “did not react,” in spite of the fact that the “maneuver” had as its “target” – again in Melloni’s view – precisely “the papacy of Wojtyla and his peculiar fidelity to Vatican II, the prayer of Assisi on the on hand and the ‘mea culpa’ of the Jubilee, his ecumenical attitude, his ideas about the God of the Quran and about the permanence of Israel’s covenant.”
Men kardinal Ratzinger skriver selv om hvordan pave Johannes Paul tydelig støttet utgivelsen av dette dokumentet, og forstod hva det handlet om:
In refutation of the timidity and indolence of Ratzinger and John Paul II, who according to Melloni permitted rather than intended the composition and publication of “Dominus Iesus,” letting it be done by anyone whatsoever, there is no mistaking what the pope emeritus wrote a year ago in a book on pope Wojtyla:
“Among the documents on various aspects of ecumenism, the one that prompted the greatest reaction was the declaration ‘Dominus Iesus’ of 2000, which summarizes the indispensable elements of the Catholic faith. […]
“In the face of the firestorm that had developed around ‘Dominus Iesus,’ John Paul II told me that he intended to defend the document unequivocally at the Angelus. He invited me to write a text for the Angelus that would be, so to speak, airtight and not subject to any different interpretation whatsoever. It had to be completely unmistakable that he approved the document unconditionally.
“So I prepared a brief address: I did not intend, however, to be too brusque, and so I tried to express myself clearly but without harshness. After reading it, the pope asked me once again: ‘Is it really clear enough?’ I replied that it was.
“Those who know theologians will not be surprised that in spite of this there were afterward some who maintained that the pope had prudently distanced himself from that text.”