LWF General Secretary Pays Tribute to Dutch Cardinal Johannes Willebrands
Emeritus President of Vatican’s Ecumenical Office Dies
GENEVA, 4 August 2006 (LWI) – The General Secretary of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Rev. Dr Ishmael Noko, has paid tribute to the great contribution of Dutch Cardinal Johannes Willebrands to the cause of unity among the churches and with the Jewish people.
Cardinal Willebrands, emeritus-president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU) died on 2 August in the Netherlands, aged 96.
In a letter of condolence to PCPCU President Walter Cardinal Kasper today, Noko expresses his appreciation and respect for “the special quality of spiritual warmth and personal commitment to the cause of unity for which Cardinal Willebrands was so well known also in the Lutheran world.”
The general secretary particularly notes “the strong mutual confidence” that has been established over the years between the PCPCU, and its predecessor bodies, and the LWF. “It is clear that our current ecumenical work stands in a tradition of more than forty years to which our predecessors have all contributed their parts,” he adds.
Johannes Willebrands was born on 4 September 1909 in the Netherlands. He was ordained into priesthood in 1934, and was named bishop in 1964. He was created a Roman Catholic Cardinal in 1969, the same year he was appointed president of the then Vatican’s Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. He led the secretariat until his retirement in 1989, a year after Pope John Paul II renamed it the PCPCU.
The international bilateral dialogue between Lutherans and Roman Catholics led to the October 1999 landmark signing of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification by representatives of the LWF and the PCPCU.
It is Noko’s prayer that the memory of Willebrands would serve “as an inspiration for present and future ecumenists and leaders in the Church of Jesus Christ.” (311 words)
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