Vatican reiterates hardline on primacy of Catholic Church

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2007

VATICAN CITY (AFP) — The Vatican set itself on a collision course with other Christian faiths Tuesday, reaffirming the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church in a corrective document which it said was designed to clear up recent "erroneous" doctrine.

The document's central claim, that only the Catholic Church is "the one true Church of Christ", is likely to revive a debate which has dogged the Vatican's relationship with rival Christian denominations for decades.

Such faiths, namely the Protestant and Orthodox churches, "lack elements considered essential to the Catholic Church," it said.

The document is the second strong reaffirmation of Benedict's traditional conservative line in the space of a few days. On Saturday, he issued a decree bringing back the old...