Imperfect Communion
Imperfect Communion is the real but incomplete ecclesial bond uniting validly baptized non-Catholic Christians to Christ and to the Catholic Church.[1]
The baptismal bond and its degrees
Real communion through baptism
Valid baptism incorporates a person into the crucified and risen Christ and establishes Baptismal Communion. Non-Catholic Christians who believe in Christ and are validly baptized are rightly called Christians, brothers and sisters in the Lord, and members of his body in a real though incomplete relation to the Catholic Church.[2]
Imperfect does not mean fictitious, merely sociological, or spiritually worthless. It also does not mean that Christian division is a legitimate permanent arrangement. The communion is incomplete because all the visible bonds of Full Communion—Catholic faith, sacraments, and ecclesiastical governance—are not intact.[3][4]
Different forms and degrees
The form of Imperfect Communion differs according to the Elements of Sanctification and Truth retained. Separated Eastern Particular Churches preserve Apostolic Succession, priesthood, and Eucharist and are joined by very close sacramental bonds. Ecclesial Communities of the Reformation ordinarily retain valid baptism and many Christian gifts but lack a valid episcopate and Eucharist.[5]
This is a gradient of objective ecclesial communion, not a set of crude bins and not a numerical score. Different communities can retain different confessions, sacraments, ministries, and disciplines. Precise classification therefore requires evidence about the actual body rather than assumptions from the words Eastern, Protestant, independent, or ancient.
Personal responsibility and doctrinal boundaries
Persons and inherited separation
Those born and formed in separated Christian communities are not personally charged with the original historical sin of separation. They can receive grace, grow in holiness, suffer for Christ, and serve as instruments through the ecclesial gifts their communities retain.
This principle does not declare every doctrinal rejection innocent in every person. Formal heresy and schism require their own conditions of baptism, knowledge, obstinacy, and culpability. A community's objective ecclesial classification does not judge those interior conditions for all adherents.[6]
The boundary of the term
Imperfect Communion in this ecumenical sense presupposes valid Christian baptism. A Non-Christian Religion is not corporately within baptismal communion merely because it uses Christian vocabulary. Its adherents can be related to the people of God, seek truth under grace, and receive God's providential help without thereby becoming Christians.
The CDF's judgment that Latter-day Saint baptism is invalid places that movement outside this baptismal category, as does the invalid non-Trinitarian initiation of Jehovah's Witnesses. Neither body is an Ecclesial Community or a body of Separated Brethren. An individual who received valid Christian baptism before later joining either movement retains the baptismal character, so corporate classification cannot replace examination of personal sacramental history.[7]
References
- Back to citation Lumen gentium — The Second Vatican Council's dogmatic constitution on the Church, especially nos. 8, 14–15, and 18–26.
- Back to citation Dominus Iesus — The CDF declaration on Christ and the Church, especially nos. 16–17 and 20–22.
- Back to citation Unitatis redintegratio — The Second Vatican Council's decree on Christian unity, especially nos. 3, 14–15, and 19–22.
- Back to citation Code of Canon Law, canons 204–207 — The Christian faithful and the three visible bonds of full Catholic communion.
- Back to citation Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church — The CDF's 2007 clarification of subsistit in, particular Churches, and ecclesial communities.
- Back to citation CDF response on Latter-day Saint baptism — The formal negative response concerning baptism in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
- Back to citation Archdiocese of Los Angeles baptism guide — An official diocesan guide applying Catholic sacramental norms and listing Jehovah's Witness baptism as invalid.