A. LETTER TO THE PRESIDENTS OF THE CONFERENCES OF BISHOPS

Rome, June 30, 2000

Your Eminence (Your Excellency):

In recent years, the attention of this Congregation has been directed to problems arising from the use of the phrase «sister Churches,» an expression which appears in important documents of the Magisterium, but which has also been employed in other writings, and in the discussions connected with the dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches.  It is an expression that has become part of the common vocabulary to indicate the objective bond between the Church of Rome and Orthodox Churches.

Unfortunately, in certain publications and in the writings of some theologians involved in ecumenical dialogue, it has recently become common to use this expression to indicate the Catholic Church on the one hand and the Orthodox Church on the other, leading people to think that in fact the one Church of Christ does not exist, but may be re-established through the reconciliation of the two sister Churches.  In addition, the same expression has been applied improperly by some to the relationship between the Catholic Church on the one hand, and the Anglican Communion and non-catholic ecclesial communities on the other.  In this sense, a «theology of sister Churches» or an «ecclesiology of sister Churches» is spoken of, characterized by ambiguity and discontinuity with respect to the correct original meaning of the expression as found in the documents of the Magisterium.

In order to overcome these equivocations and ambiguities in the use and application of the expression «sister Churches,» the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has judged it necessary to prepare the enclosed Note on the Expression «Sister Churches» which was approved by Pope John Paul II in the Audience of June 9, 2000.  The indications contained in this Note are, therefore, to be held as authoritative and binding, although the Note will not be published in official form in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, given its limited purpose of specifying the correct theological terminology on this subject.

In providing you with a copy of this document, the Congregation asks you to kindly communicate the concerns and specific indications expressed therein to your Conference of Bishops and especially to the Commission or Office entrusted with ecumenical dialogue, so that the publications and other texts of the Episcopal Conference and its various offices will carefully abide by what is established in the Note.

With gratitude for your assistance and with prayerful best wishes, I remain

Sincerely yours in Christ,

+ Joseph Card. Ratzinger

Prefect