wfn.org | Cardinal Cassidy tells Lutherans problems do not stop unity work

[David Pomeroy <wfn@igc.apc.org>]

LWF

Problems do not stop work toward unity,
Cardinal Cassidy says at news conference

HONG KONG, July 25, 1997 (lwi) - During a news conference, Cardinal Edward
Idris Cassidy said that issues such as the ordination of women in some
churches will not stop the Roman Catholic Church from seeking unity with
them because God wants unity. "We are seeking to find what is the Lord's
will for his church," and no one can assume that solutions will not be
found, he said.

Cassidy, head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian
Unity, admitted that the issue of the ordained ministry "is one of the most
difficult questions we have to face" along with that of authority in the
church. 

He acknowledged the importance of work at the local level. "There is a
danger that we work at the international level and come to nice statements
and decisions and then nothing happens," he said. What happens depends on
the work being done in many places, he said.

Bishop H. George Anderson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America, said that the agreement on justification by faith, a
doctrine that has divided Lutherans and Roman Catholics for centuries,
"gives us a whole new world and a whole new way to look at things"
concerning unity with the Roman Catholic Church.

Cassidy said that approval of the Joint Agreement on the Doctrine of
Justification in the Roman Catholic Church requires confirmation by the
Congregation on Doctrine and the signature of Pope John Paul II. On the
Lutheran side there needs to be enough time for LWF member churches to take
action on the document, said the Rev. Christoph Stier, former bishop of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Mecklenburg, Germany. LWF member churches
have been asked to act on the document by next May.

On the agreement Cassidy said he was "more optimistic than when I came to
Hong Kong. I am hearing a more positive response that I had been hearing
before I came." The news conference followed addresses on unity at the LWF
Assembly July 11.

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