After ordination, my first ministry was teaching and campus ministry at Dominican College (now Dominican University) in San Rafael. In 1979 I was given permission to study for a doctorate, and I left for the Dominican pontifical university, the Angelicum, in Rome, little suspecting that I would spend most of my life there.On Dec.3,2009 during a lecture at the Angelicum University in Rome Fr.Robert Christian O.P said that on Good Friday when we pray that the Jews “may arrive at the fullness of Redemption”, we do not mean that they must accept the Redeemer.“ "The text does not say enough,” said Fr. Robert Christian, “it is too vague”.
I finished my doctorate in dogmatic theology in 1984 and was sent first to Riverside, and then to Seattle, to work in campus ministry. I was only one year in Seattle when the Master of the Order reassigned me to Rome. From 1985 until 1997, with the exception of a sabbatical, I taught at the Angelicum. Then I returned to the Province as socius and vicar provincial for two years. I went back to Rome in 1999, and indications are that I shall be in Rome for the foreseeable future…’ Western Dominican Province, The Order Of Preachers(Emphasis added)
A pope in the 1960’s, he recalled, said that we are ‘all spiritually Semites’.
‘Jews are sons and daughters of Abraham and the original beneficiaries of the covenant.’said Fr.Chrstian an American from San Francisco who for years has been teaching at the Angelicum, the University of St.Thomas Aquinas in the centre of Rome.
At no time did Fr. Robert Christian say that Jews need to convert for salvation- according to the Bible or the Magisterium.
Instead he suggested otherwise.
He called the Syllabus of Errors a “fun document” and read out the error which said let him be anathema who says that the way of salvation can be found in any religion. This would include Judaism.
He was vague on Catholic Mission. “We want to share our faith with others because it responds to the Gifts placed in them and the longing of the Messiah placed in them”. Not, because Jews will go to Hell.
He rejected the Church teaching on extra ecclesiam nulla salus and said that it was medieval and contrary to Vatican Council II citing Fr. Frank Sullivan S.J’s book.
"Pius IX said non-Catholics are saved though in ignorance", he observed. "This is not to water down the missionary endeavour", he added. "The Church is the Sacrament of salvation."
Though not of explicit, exclusive salvation for all.
Here was Fr. Christian’s error he suggested that those non Catholics in invincible ignorance mentioned by the pope were saved in general and implicitly by the Church. This is false . The Magisterium has always taught that the baptism of water given to those with Catholic Faith is the ordinary way of salvation.
So he had this premise wrong and he would keep on speaking in circles.It was painful to listen to him.A person stuck in ignorance, maybe unintentionally.
He said ‘if you turn your back wilfully on all the gifts that could be terrible and contumacious’ indicating that those non Catholics who know about Jesus and the Church and yet do not convert cannot be saved (Lumen Gentium 14)
He had difficulty clarifying de jure and defacto salvation and ‘lumped it all together’. He was correct de jure Lumen Gentium says those who know about the faith (like the Iranian President for example) and do not convert are oriented to Hell.
De facto we do not personally know who does not really know, we cannot judge. The church says in the dogma everybody with no exception needs to enter the Catholic Church to go to Heaven. De facto, in reality, in personal contacts we do not know who are the exceptions.
So Fr.Christian had to say not ‘that these Jews or Muslims who know’ only are oriented to Hell -but de facto all Jews and Muslims.He could not. Since it is learnt that he was ridiculing Fr.Leonard Feeney in an earlier class.
Fr. Leonard Feeney said every Jew in Boston (and the USA) needs to de facto enter the Catholic Church to save his souls. Period. There were no defacto exceptions.
This is not a heresy and he was not excommunicated for saying it according to the book quoted by Fr. Christian, ‘Salvation Outside the Church’ written by Fr.Francis Sullivan S.J.
Fr. Francis Sullivan at the end of this book had the integrity to say that what Fr. Feeney was teaching on extra ecclesiam nulla salus was not a heresy and that Fr. Feeney was not excommunicated for heresy.
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