Vatican City - The Vatican is about to reaffirm its claim to be the only legitimate representative of Jesus Christ on Earth, a bid likely to again draw criticism from other Christian churches, press reports said Friday.
I-Media agency which specializes in reports on the Vatican said a document outlining the Vatican position, drawn up by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, would be published on Tuesday.
Il Giornale newspaper said it would make clear that the Roman Catholic Church was the only and true Church of Christ.
The reaffirmation, seven years after a similar statement issued under then pope John Paul II during the Catholic Holy Year angered other Christian churches, is to fight "ecclesiological relativism" which has been condemned by his successor Benedict XVI.
Under this concept Christian churches all pertain to the same truth or are only in possession of parts of it.
At the time still cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict XVI had headed the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith which published the 2000 "Dominus Iesus" declaration.
"Dominus Iesus" had called the Protestant churches mere "ecclesial communities".
Il Giornale said the new Vatican document would clarify a sentence of the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council which claimed that Christ's only church lives on in the Roman Catholic Church.