CONGREGATION
FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH
DECLARATION
"DOMINUS IESUS"
ON THE UNICITY AND SALVIFIC UNIVERSALITY
OF JESUS CHRIST AND THE CHURCH
V. THE CHURCH: KINGDOM OF GOD
AND KINGDOM OF CHRIST
18. The mission of the Church is
“to proclaim and establish among all peoples
the kingdom of Christ and of God, and she is on earth,
the seed and the beginning of that kingdom”.
68 On the one hand, the Church
is “a sacrament — that is, sign and instrument
of intimate union with God and of unity of the entire
human race”. 69 She is
therefore the sign and instrument of the kingdom;
she is called to announce and to establish the kingdom.
On the other hand, the Church is the “people
gathered by the unity of the Father, the Son and the
Holy Spirit”; 70 she is
therefore “the kingdom of Christ already present
in mystery” 71 and constitutes
its seed and beginning. The kingdom of God,
in fact, has an eschatological dimension: it is a
reality present in time, but its full realization
will arrive only with the completion or fulfilment
of history. 72
The meaning of the expressions kingdom
of heaven, kingdom of God, and kingdom
of Christ in Sacred Scripture and the Fathers
of the Church, as well as in the documents of the
Magisterium, is not always exactly the same, nor is
their relationship to the Church, which is a mystery
that cannot be totally contained by a human concept.
Therefore, there can be various theological explanations
of these terms. However, none of these possible explanations
can deny or empty in any way the intimate connection
between Christ, the kingdom, and the Church. In fact,
the kingdom of God which we know from revelation,
“cannot be detached either from Christ or from
the Church... If the kingdom is separated from Jesus,
it is no longer the kingdom of God which he revealed.
The result is a distortion of the meaning of the kingdom,
which runs the risk of being transformed into a purely
human or ideological goal and a distortion of the
identity of Christ, who no longer appears as the Lord
to whom everything must one day be subjected (cf.
1 Cor 15:27). Likewise, one may not separate
the kingdom from the Church. It is true that the Church
is not an end unto herself, since she is ordered toward
the kingdom of God, of which she is the seed, sign
and instrument. Yet, while remaining distinct from
Christ and the kingdom, the Church is indissolubly
united to both”. 73
19. To state the inseparable relationship
between Christ and the kingdom is not to overlook
the fact that the kingdom of God — even if considered
in its historical phase — is not identified
with the Church in her visible and social reality.
In fact, “the action of Christ and the Spirit
outside the Church's visible boundaries” must
not be excluded. 74 Therefore,
one must also bear in mind that “the kingdom
is the concern of everyone: individuals, society and
the world. Working for the kingdom means acknowledging
and promoting God's activity, which is present in
human history and transforms it. Building the kingdom
means working for liberation from evil in all its
forms. In a word, the kingdom of God is the manifestation
and the realization of God's plan of salvation in
all its fullness”. 75
In considering the relationship between
the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Christ, and the
Church, it is necessary to avoid one-sided accentuations,
as is the case with those “conceptions which
deliberately emphasize the kingdom and which describe
themselves as ‘kingdom centred.' They stress
the image of a Church which is not concerned about
herself, but which is totally concerned with bearing
witness to and serving the kingdom. It is a ‘Church
for others,' just as Christ is the ‘man for
others'... Together with positive aspects, these conceptions
often reveal negative aspects as well. First, they
are silent about Christ: the kingdom of which they
speak is ‘theocentrically' based, since, according
to them, Christ cannot be understood by those who
lack Christian faith, whereas different peoples, cultures,
and religions are capable of finding common ground
in the one divine reality, by whatever name it is
called. For the same reason, they put great stress
on the mystery of creation, which is reflected in
the diversity of cultures and beliefs, but they keep
silent about the mystery of redemption. Furthermore,
the kingdom, as they understand it, ends up either
leaving very little room for the Church or undervaluing
the Church in reaction to a presumed ‘ecclesiocentrism'
of the past and because they consider the Church herself
only a sign, for that matter a sign not without ambiguity”.76
These theses are contrary to Catholic faith because
they deny the unicity of the relationship which Christ
and the Church have with the kingdom of God.
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