As part of a two week, “2010 Ecumenical Journey”, ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson and his delegation recently met with Cardinal Walter Kasper at the Vatican. Cardinal Kasper is the President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity–the Vatican’s point man for ecumenical relations with other church bodies.
Prior to this Vatican meeting on Feb 12th, Bishop Hanson’s delegation had met with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams on Feb 4th for discussion of Lutheran-Anglican relations, and with Eastern Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I and Orthodox ecumenists in Istanbul on Feb 8th and 9th.
What is the status of Lutheran – Catholic dialogue? A little over a decade ago in 1999, ecumenical discussions led to the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification”. Wikipedia provides a succinct explanation of this agreement:
The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification is a document created by and agreed to by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Lutheran World Federation in 1999, as a result of extensive ecumenical dialogue, ostensibly resolving the conflict over the nature of justification which was at the root of the Protestant Reformation.
The Churches acknowledged that the excommunications relating to the doctrine of justification set forth by the Council of Trent do not apply to the teachings of the Lutheran churches set forth in the text; likewise, the churches acknowledged that the condemnations set forth in the Lutheran Confessions do not apply to the Catholic teachings on justification set forth in the document. Confessional Lutherans, such as the International Lutheran Council and the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference, reject the Declaration.
On July 18, 2006, members of the World Methodist Council, meeting in Seoul, South Korea, voted unanimously to adopt this document as well.
That was then; what’s happening these days?
In an honest appraisal of Lutheran-Catholic relations, former ELCA Presiding Bishop Herb Chilstrom last year acknowledged that ordaining women “was the first nail in the coffin of further ecumenical progress,” and he asked “how long are we going to live with the illusion that Vatican II is alive and well in Roman Catholicism?” Chilstrom’s comments were in the context of CWA09 and the probable dampening effect of ELCA pro-LGBT ministry policies on ecumenical relations with the Vatican.
What did Cardinal Kasper have to say about the consequences of CWA09? Seemingly, his greatest concern was not with the ministry policies themselves but with the schismatic actions of dissenters.
“We are concerned, but the dialogue goes on,” Kasper told the Lutherans. “We want to continue … so we do not interrupt any dialogue. But what we see are new ‘fragmentations’ in the Protestant world in the churches. This has bothered us a lot.”
ELCA Bishop Robert Hofstad of the Southwestern Washington synod, a delegation member, responded:
If our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters can say to us, “do not go away from each other too fast,” then how can we in the ELCA be running away from each other with such speed, at least in some anecdotal instances? How can we be running away from each other so fast when we have a commitment from people like yourselves, and a hope to say “please let us not run away from each other too quickly?”
“That’s a very encouraging word, and that’s a word that I’m going to take back to my colleagues,” Hofstad said.
The report of the meeting from the perspective of the Catholic News Service included both hopeful and troubling aspects of the discussion.
Cardinal Kasper said it is essential “to keep alive the memory of our achievements” in dialogue, educate the faithful about how much has been accomplished and prepare a new generation to carry on the work.
On the other hand, the Cardinal said, “the Vatican needs to better explain to its dialogue partners the Catholic conviction that ‘the Catholic Church is the church of Christ and that the Catholic Church is the true church … [including] the primacy of the bishop of Rome, the pope.’”
Hmmm.
The Feb 22, 2010 issue of the Jesuit weekly, “America” has a short article on page 10, “Vatican Suggests Ecumenical Catechism”. I reproduce it here;
A shared “ecumenical catechism” could be one of the fruits of 40 years of dialogue among Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists and members of the Reformed churches, said Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. “We have affirmed our common foundation in Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity as expressed in our common creed and in the doctrine of the first ecumenical councils,” he told representatives of the churches. Opening a three-day symposium at the Vatican to brainstorm on the future of ecumenism, Cardinal Kasper said it is essential “to keep alive the memory of our achievements” in dialogue, educate the faithful about how much has been accomplished and prepare a new generation to carry on the work. He said the members of his council “proposed an ecumenical catechism that would be written in consultation with our partners,” but “we do not yet have any idea how such a catechism could be structured and written.”
May I add: … It is my humble prayer that the forces of division and discontent within the ELCA and other churches will read this and hang their heads in shame. Even though some would seek to exclude and destroy, thanks be to God that there are even more powerful forces working for the greater good of all as they seek out ways to express our common witness to God’s infinite love for us in Jesus Christ. I have a strong hunch that when the final document is published it will bear the fingerprints of Martin Luther’s “Small Catechism”. Any fellow travelers with me on my hunch?
It is interesting to me that our “new” LCMC pastor has changed the creed back to “the Holy Christian Church” and was considering doing away with the ashes on Ash Wednesday because that was something that came from Rome.
@Lilly
I’ll take a guess that this “new” LCMC pastor might not be old enough to have experienced the Vatican II “breath of fresh air” – or else they are old enough to have slammed their windows shut to keep any such thing out!
If you are feeling a wee bit mischievous you might locate a copy of the creeds in the original Greek and ask the pastor for a direct translation. It’s pretty hard to mess with “… one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church …” Where I come from it’s frowned upon to come up with idiosyncratic translations of key faith statements like the creeds. Yes, it has been done. But, it’s still a bad idea and when it pops up it needs to be challenged and resisted.
I really don’t know exactly where this former ELCA now LCMC pastor is coming from except that now he is trying to turn the calendar back to the old ALC pre ELCA era. I think he is in his mid to late 40s. Just for fun I gave him an old ELC hymn book I had collected ( days of my youth) and he loved it. I wonder what will happen if all the Catholic converts drop out ? I am 72 and have belonged to several Lutheran churches in my lifetime. I welcome the ecumenical movement so we can work together even if we may have different forms of worship. I grew up in a community where the Catholic kids all thought we Lutherans were going to hell. It is nice to have at least some of us working together.
I hate to rain on this particular parade, but may I gently point you back to July 10, 2007?….
Pope Benedict published a document which restates key sections of a 2000 document the pope wrote when he was prefect of the congregation, “Dominus Iesus,” which set off a firestorm of criticism among Protestant and other Christian denominations because it said they were not true churches but merely ecclesial communities and therefore did not have the “means of salvation.”
“Christ ‘established here on earth’ only one church,” the document said. The other communities “cannot be called ‘churches’ in the proper sense” because they do not have apostolic succession — the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ’s original apostles.
So I really don’t know what anybody is talking about when they talk about “Lutheran-Catholic ecumenical dialogue.” That dialogue, so far as Rome is concerned, consists as follows:
Rome: “Rule # 1: We are the one church, and everyone else is not.”
Rest of the world: “Really?…What happened to ecumenical dialogue and the JDDJ?”
Rome: “Yes, really. See rule #1…”
ROTW: “Really?…You’re kidding, right? All this work was for nothing?”
Rome: “Yes, really. See rule #1…”
Individual congregations and members can (and do) work together and respect each other’s faith. But the “Churches”? Not in THIS world. Someone Else, hopefully, may have something to say about the next one…