How helpful for Pope Benedict XVI to tell us whether we are in a church or not! This actually happened in a statement he released a couple of weeks ago, reasserting the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church.

It turns out, according to the Pope, that Orthodox churches are indeed “churches” because they have apostolic succession and that they enjoyed “many elements of sanctification and of truth.” But, according to the Pope’s statement, since they do not recognize the primacy of the pope, they suffer from a defect, or a “wound” that harms them.

(I’m not making any of this up.)

According to the statement, Protestant and other Christian denominations are not true churches but merely ecclesial communities and therefore do not have the “means of salvation.”

We’re even worse than defective!!

Actually, there is nothing new in this recent statement. It restates key sections of a 2000 document called “Dominus Iesus,” that the pope wrote back when he was Cardinal Ratzinger. The question (even among many Roman Catholic theologians) is why the Pope felt it necessary to reiterate such a harsh statement at this point. My guess is it’s because he just returned from his trip to South America and saw for himself how many Roman Catholics are leaving the church for Pentecostal denominations. He’s decided to respond with retrenchment.

Ironically, as it turns out, the Bible I’ve been using lately for my daily reading is the New American Bible, which is the translation officially-sanctioned by the “true church.” On one of the front pages of my edition, this is printed: "A partial indulgence is granted to the faithful who use Sacred Scripture for spiritual reading with the veneration due the word of God. A plenary indulgence is granted if the reading continues for at least one half hour."

“Hot dog!” I think to myself, “I read the Bible a whole lot! If I earn enough plenary indulgences, maybe it’ll get me back in God’s good graces -- even though I’m not a member of a church, but only an ecclesial community!”

Do you hear Luther turning over in his grave?