Rome, Italy, Oct 27, 2011 / 23:23 pm
After the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace made headlines this week by issuing a document advocating the creation of a global financial body, one expert in Vatican documents downplayed its authority and said that it is only meant to spur reflection.
“I’d say if it calls itself ‘a note,’” Father Robert Christian, O.P., told CNA Oct. 26, “it is simply a meant to prompt the consciences of people as they ponder issues that seem to be of importance to the Universal Church.”
“So you’d say this is not something that is meant to bind consciences but is meant to stimulate consciences to reflection.”
Fr. Christian is Vice Dean of Theology at the Dominican Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome, also known as the Angelicum. He is a long-standing expert in interpreting “Vatican documents,” not all of which, he said, carry the same weight.
“There is a ranking of papal and Vatican documents that you can figure out if you look at the index of the ‘Acta Apostolicae Sedis,’ as it lists the documents in a rank from the most important to the least important.”
The “Acta Apostolicae Sedis” (Acts of the Apostolic See) is an annual publication dating back over 150 years. It contains the main public documents of the Pope and the Roman Curia. Fr. Christian describes it as “the Vatican’s own ranking of the relative solemnity of different teachings,” and he kindly took CNA down to the vast library vaults of the Angelicum University to explain his point.