wfn.org | Lutherans, Catholics Set to Sign Historic Accord on Justification

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

1-November-1999 
99371 
 
    Lutherans, Catholics Set to Sign 
    Historic Accord on Justification 
 
    Statement is first-ever formal doctrinal agreement 
    between Rome and a Reformed church 
 
    by David E. Anderson 
    Religion News Service 
 
WASHINGTON-On Oct. 30-31, Lutheran and Roman Catholic leaders gathered in 
Augsburg, Germany - for many the historic home of the Protestant 
Reformation - to sign a joint statement declaring one of the key doctrines 
separating the two faith families is no longer a cause for separation. 
 
    The action brought the Roman Catholic Church and the world Lutheran 
movement at least a small step closer to potential reunion although both 
sides note that many perhaps even more intransigent differences remain. 
 
    Still, it is the first time the Roman Catholic Church has reached a 
formal doctrinal agreement with a Reformation church. 
 
    The Rev. H. George Anderson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical 
Lutheran Church in America, called the agreement - The Joint Declaration on 
the Doctrine of Justification - "a significant milestone in the 
reconciliation of our two church traditions," while Roman Catholic 
Archbishop Alexander Brunett of Seattle described the agreement as "a 
powerful gift from God." 
 
    "By acknowledging that there is agreement on this crucial article of 
the Christian faith," Anderson said, "our two churches have bridged a 
theological divide that has separated us for nearly 500 years." 
 
    The doctrine of justification describes how people are saved.  In 
simple terms, historically Lutherans have stressed that salvation comes 
from God's grace alone while Catholics have seen an important role for the 
acts, or works, people perform during their lives. 
 
    The 16th century Reformation-era debate over the issue was prompted in 
part by what some believed was widespread abuse of the practice of selling 
indulgences - the pardon of punishments, or remission, for sin.  The 
practice of selling indulgences was banned by the Council of Trent, a 
reform council of Catholicism.  In September, the Vatican published a new 
manual on indulgences stressing the role of prayer, reception of the 
sacraments, works of charity and acts of penance. 
 
    The Joint Declaration signed in Augsburg is an effort to go beyond the 
hardened positions that developed as a result of the Reformation. 
 
    It says both churches agree on a fundamental reading of the doctrine 
that it summarizes as: "By grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work, 
and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and 
receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling 
us to good works." 
 
    Roman Catholic and Lutheran theologians have been examining the issue 
for the better part of a decade, both in an effort to reach a "consensus in 
basic truths" about the doctrine and to find grounds on which to lift the 
mutual condemnations and excommunications the two sides hurled at each 
other during the early years of the dispute. 
 
    "The deepest significance of our common understanding of the grace of 
Christ as central in our lives, in a culture dominated by competition, by 
status, by merit and self-reliance, is that what we receive as a gift we 
must recognize also comes to us as a common task and challenge," Brunett 
told U.S. Lutherans earlier this summer. 
 
    "What we understand anew we must teach anew and live out together 
anew," he said. "There are many aspects of our life together in the church 
which, over time, I am confident will be touched and reshaped as a result 
of the accord expressed in the Joint Declaration." 
 
    At an ecumenical prayer service Oct. 30, Vatican and Lutheran officials 
prayed at the sepulchral church of the patrons of the diocese of Augsburg. 
On Oct. 31, the ceremony continued with a liturgy of repentance in the 
Roman Catholic cathedral after which the congregation walked to the 
Lutheran Church of St. Anna, where the actual signing took place. 
 
    Oct. 31 is historically celebrated by Lutherans and many other 
Protestants as Reformation Day, marking reformer Martin Luther's nailing of 
95 theses challenging Catholic teaching on the castle church door at 
Wittenberg, Germany. 
 
    Leading the Roman Catholic signers were Cardinal Edward Cassidy, 
president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian 
Unity, and Bishop Walter Kasper, secretary of the council.  On the Lutheran 
side, the Rev. Ishmael Noko of Zimbabwe, secretary general of the Lutheran 
World Federation, and Bishop Christian Krause of the Evangelical Lutheran 
Church in Brunswick, Germany, and president of the LWF, led a delegation 
including Anderson and a number of other Lutheran leaders from around the 
world. 
 
    The LWF, the Geneva-based international organization of Lutheran 
churches, has 128 members in 70 countries. 
 
    The joint declaration was warmly welcomed by other ecumenical bodies, 
including the World Council of Churches, but a number of Lutheran 
denominations and theologians remain adamantly opposed. 
 
    The Rev. Dagmar Heller of the World Council of Churches called the 
accord "a small but significant step" toward healing a major division that 
has marked Christian history, especially in Europe. 
 
    "In a sense, this declaration simply sets the seal on a development 
that has long since become a reality in the parishes," she added. 
 
    But the agreement is criticized by the Rev. A.L. Barry, president of 
the 2.6 million-member Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the second largest 
Lutheran body in the United States. 
 
    Barry called the agreement "an ambiguous statement whose careful 
wording makes it possible for the pope's representatives to sign without 
changing, retracting or correcting anything that has been taught by the 
Roman Catholic Church since the time of the Council of Trent in the 16th 
century." 
 
    He said the agreement was "a surrender (by Lutherans) of the most 
important truth taught in God's word." 
 
    In Europe, 240 Protestant theologians have signed a petition objecting 
to the declaration, saying they believed it explains only the Catholic 
interpretation of the doctrine. 

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