The Vatican has issued a new document that aims to clarify what it calls a "growing confusion" among Catholics over the relationship between the Church's longstanding "mission" to convert people to Christ, on the one hand, and teachings elaborated at the Second Vatican Council on respecting individual conscience and religious freedom, on the other.

The new "Doctrinal Note on Some Aspects of Evangelisation" - issued on 14 December by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) - points to several "problems" that have led "many to leave the missionary command of the Lord unheard and ineffective".  But, ultimately, the document says that they are all due to a "relativism and irenicism [seeking after unity] prevalent today in the area of religion".

Paramount among the document's concerns is the notion that efforts to "convince others on religious matters" mean infringing  their freedom. "From this perspective, it would only be legitimate to present one's own ideas and to invite people to act according to their consciences, without aiming at their conversion to Christ and the Catholic faith," the document states. However, it calls this a relativistic notion of freedom because it is "separated from its integral reference to truth". And since the Catholic Church has "the fullness of the gift of truth", the document says that attempts to "lead a person's intelligence and freedom in honesty to the encounter with Christ and his Gospel is not an inappropriate encroachment".  On the contrary, it is a "legitimate endeavour and a service" that aims at "making human relationships more fruitful".

According to the CDF secretary, Archbishop Angelo Amato SDB, the new "doctrinal note" is a follow-up to Dominus Iesus, the controversial CDF "instruction" from 2000 that reaffirmed that salvation comes through Jesus Christ alone. The archbishop told Vatican Radio that the new text was deemed necessary because there "still exists a coolness towards missionary activity" in parts of the Church. He did not elaborate.

But another Vatican official who spoke to The Tablet on the background to the document pointed out that CDF clarifications are almost always concerned with theological writings. And although the document does not specifically mention any particular theologians or theological currents, the official said that the growing popularity and acceptance of theories on religious pluralism, as authored by some influential Asian theologians, are "certainly a main focus" of this new CDF text. He added that it was "definitely related" to the recent investigations into a work on religious pluralism by Georgetown University professor, Fr Peter Phan (The Tablet, 8 December).

A foreign missionary told The Tablet that it would take time for Asian theologians and bishops to "digest" the new text and reflect on it, before offering reactions. But other Catholic leaders, like the president of the German bishops' conference, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, immediately welcomed the new "doctrinal note". "The document attempts to emphasise the idea of mission in an age of relativism which Pope Benedict has so often criticised. Particularly the Western world has often been crippled by disapproval and weariness as far as evangelisation is concerned," he said.

Not all Protestants were pleased with a section dealing with ecumenism. "Here the CDF concentrates solely on the right and responsibility to proclaim the fullness of the Catholic faith to other Christians," said Bishop Wolfgang Huber, Germany's top Lutheran churchman. "The impression is given that the CDF does not yet fully acknowledge the ecumenical dimension of missionary activity," Bishop Huber said.

Lord [Leslie] Griffiths, former president of the Methodist Conference, said he welcomed the tone of the new document, calling it "altogether less harsh on the ears of ecumenical partners". However, he disagreed that the fullness of salvific truth could be found in a Church because "it is only ever a human construct and never the embodiment of God's (or Christ's) whole self".