Congregation is Ultimate Guardian of Catholic Orthodoxy

c. 2005 Religion News Service VATICAN CITY _ The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has a long and, some would say, infamous history. Once known as the Office of the Holy Inquisition and later the Holy Office, it has served for almost five centuries as the ultimate guardian of Catholic orthodoxy. From the […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has a long and, some would say, infamous history. Once known as the Office of the Holy Inquisition and later the Holy Office, it has served for almost five centuries as the ultimate guardian of Catholic orthodoxy.

From the suppression of heresy of seven centuries ago to the publication in 2000 of the controversial “Declaration Dominus Iesus” that reaffirmed the supremacy of the Catholic faith, the congregation and its predecessors have sought to interpret and enforce Catholic doctrine with clarity and precision.


Under its former head, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, the office decreed that Catholic faith and morals are unchanging and not open to evolving standards of modern society.

Speaking at May 7 Mass in which he was installed as bishop of Rome, Benedict reiterated that position, calling for “obedience toward the word of God in the face of all attempts at adapting it and watering it down.”

Because Benedict had led the congregation himself for nearly a quarter century, it was considered highly unlikely that his choice of a successor would differ in any significant way from that position.

In the view of one eminent theologian, theology rather than nationality figured in the pope’s selection on Friday (May 13) of Archbishop William Levada of San Francisco to succeed him as prefect.

“I don’t think that nationality counts so much any more. Americans get this or that job. A German becomes pope. Nationality is a little bit passe, to be honest,” he said.

What is now the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith grew out of Vatican attempts to put down the Albigensian heresy in the 13th century. The sect, which was based in the French town of Albi, believed all matter was evil and preached against food, marriage and conception.

Alarmed by this deviation from the faith, Pope Innocent III commissioned representatives at the start of the 13th century to act as the Holy Office of the Inquisition against the heresy. Gregory IX gave the same job to the Dominican Order in 1231 and Innocent IV to the Friars Minor in 1243.


In 1542, Pope Paul III formally established the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition, which evolved into the oldest and most authoritative of the nine governing congregations in today’s Roman Curia, the church’s centralized administration.

The office began as a tribunal for cases of heresy and schism, and over the centuries took on the added responsibility of adjudicating all questions regarding faith and morals. It underwent reforms by four popes in the 20th century.

Pius X reorganized the office and changed its name to the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office in 1908; Benedict XV gave it authority over the Index of Prohibited Books in 1917; and Paul VI renamed it the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1965.

Until Paul VI’s reforms, the office had no prefect but came directly under papal control. It also was Paul VI who for the first time gave it the task of promoting as well as preserving the Catholic faith.

In his 1998 apostolic constitution Pastor Bonus (The Good Shepherd), John Paul II entrusted the congregation with the “promotion and protection of the doctrine of the faith and morals throughout the Catholic world.”

In its present form, the congregation has three offices to deal with doctrinal, disciplinary and matrimonial cases. It also oversees the Pontifical Biblical Commission and the International Theological Commission.


Its disciplinary office has final authority within the church over Catholics who commit serious crimes, including priests accused of the sexual abuse of minors.

The Index of Prohibited Books no longer exists, but the congregation continues to police views expressed by Catholic theologians. It can demand changes in written texts and bar such renegade thinkers as Hans Kung from teaching at Catholic institutions.

The congregation was linked to the resignation last Friday (May 6) of the Rev. Tom Reese, the respected editor of the Jesuit magazine America. Supporters of Reese said he was ousted because some U.S. bishops and Vatican officials disagreed with his policy of allowing open debate on controversial topics.

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Ratzinger, himself a noted theologian, expressed his views forcefully. At a Mass preceding the conclave that would elect him pope, the then-Cardinal Ratzinger denounced “a dictatorship of relativism” and praised Catholics who are labeled fundamentalists for “having a clear faith based on the creed of the Church.”

In the “Declaration Dominus Iesus,” which he issued in September 2000 to the dismay of other religions involved in ecumenical and interfaith dialogue with the Catholic Church, Ratzinger attacked “religious relativism which leads to the belief that one religion is as good as another.”

“If it is true that the followers of other religions can receive divine grace, it is also certain that objectively speaking they are in a gravely deficient situation in comparison with those who, in the church, have the fullness of the means of salvation,” the document said. It called non-Catholic Christian bodies “defective.”


Editors: See main story, RNS-LEVADA-VATICAN.

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