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The Lutheran World Federation
Lutheran World Information |
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| 20.10.1999 |
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| “Joint Declaration”: New possibilities for ecumenical dialogue |
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The hard road towards church unity
GENEVA, 20 October 1999 (lwi) – The dialogue between the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and the Roman Catholic Church began soon after the end of the Second Vatican Council in 1965. The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification is so far the high point of the more than 30-year process.
The two dialogue partners confirm that they have reached “a consensus on basic truths of the doctrine of justification” and “that the mutual condemnations of former times do not apply to the Catholic and Lutheran doctrines of justification as they are presented in the Joint Declaration”.
Thus, by a theologically well-founded joint action, a new interpretation has been made with regard to the doctrinal condemnations and tensions of the past concerning the doctrine of justification. With the confirmation of the Declaration in a worship setting by the LWF and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU), both churches have begun expressing their relationship to one another in a new way. For the LWF, the decision of its Assembly in Curitiba in 1990, in which the Federation is described as a communio of Lutheran churches, is obviously, albeit with many reservations, being recognised by its dialogue partner. The common goal is “to reach full church communion, a unity in diversity, in which remaining differences would be ‘reconciled’ and no longer have a divisive force”.
Anyone who knows the meaning for church history of this intended confirmation of the Joint Declaration will not really be surprised that the text of the Declaration, as well as the announced signing of the Official Common Statement, have led to conflicting reactions. This is true to the same degree for both partners.
In opposition to those who have greeted the agreement with enthusiasm stood the sceptics, who on the Lutheran side scented an unsound compromise which did not do justice to the centrality of the doctrine of justification as criterion for the teaching, order and practice of the church. While a large majority of the LWF member churches affirmed the text in their synods following its publication in February 1997, in Germany a heated discussion arose. In January 1998 this was intensified by a public statement from teachers of theology, in which they called for the rejection of the Joint Declaration and 160 professors of theology eventually signed the statement.
Impressed by this controversy, a majority of synods of the Lutheran churches in Germany decided in favour of a differentiated approval of the Joint Declaration. While the goal of full agreement in the doctrine of justification has not yet been reached, they said, nevertheless the Declaration is an important step in the right direction, and must be followed by further clarifications. On the basis of the fundamentally positive decisions, with a few exceptions, of the member churches, the LWF Council adopted the text of the Joint Declaration unanimously on 16 June 1998, emphasising that agreement had been reached on crucial issues, although some points needed to be clarified further.
But the statement of the PCPCU provoked renewed discussion. The statement declared that there were still points in which the teaching of the Lutheran churches did not agree with that of the Council of Trent, for example in the interpretation of Martin Luther’s observation that a person stands before God as “being justified and sinner at the same time” (simul iustus et peccator). There was also doubt as to whether the synods of the Lutheran churches, represented by the LWF, actually had authority to decide in questions of doctrine. This reaction seemed to sustain the arguments of the Joint Declaration’s critics, but could also be seen as a reason and impetus to do further work on the questions, which had been raised, before the signing should take place. To give only a half-hearted approval to the Joint Declaration would not do justice to its concerns and its meaning, and future work together would be made more difficult.
The months which followed provided the opportunity to work on some of the problems which had been raised. A new situation was created through the initiative of the Lutheran Bishop of Munich, the late Johannes Hanselmann, and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. They met with two professors of theology, Heinz Schütte from the Catholic side and Joachim Track from the Protestant side, and worked out a five-page text, which was received and revised by the LWF and the PCPCU. The results were an Official Common Statement with an Annex, which were introduced during a press conference by the PCPCU President Edward Idris Cardinal Cassidy and the LWF General secretary Dr. Ishmael Noko on 11 June 1999 in Geneva.
These texts respond to some of the questions, which have arisen in the controversy over the Joint Declaration. These clarifications, which were expressly supported by Pope John Paul II, have cleared away the remaining reservations against signing in confirmation of the Declaration. According to Hans-Georg Link, ecumenicist in Cologne, Germany, they have “set to rights those Protestant voices which want to nail down the Catholic Church to its 16th century positions, of the time of the Council of Trent, and not to grant it any steps forward or progress in its writings in the ecumenical dialogue since then”. And Eberhard Jüngel, who had been so critical, evidently saw justice done to his reservations and welcomed the two documents in a commentary in the “Deutsche Allgemeine Sonntagsblatt” newspaper. But the controversy could not be expected to end there.
For the LWF and the PCPCU, the way was now open for the signing. At the press conference last June when the two documents were made public, Noko and Cassidy pointed out again the meaning of the Joint Declaration for church history. Obviously this cannot be underlined often enough, because many people take for granted that which has already been accomplished in the ecumenical movement, and can hardly grasp what it means to have overcome a 400-year history of mutual denunciations and condemning silence within 30 years of ecumenical dialogue. Noko and Cassidy emphasised further that the Joint Declaration opens up new possibilities for ecumenical dialogue and for the churches to walk a common path.
“A decisive breakthrough” was what it was called by Konrad Raiser, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC). He said it was the first time that the Vatican had accepted the results of a bilateral dialogue in an authoritative form, and was prepared to express its acceptance in a shared signing ceremony. “By closing this chapter of church history, which has been occupied with the condemnations of the past, the Joint Declaration frees us to turn to the problem areas of a contemporary witness for the ecumenical movement,” Raiser said in an interview with "ENI", the ecumenical news service. And he added: “When we can express a consensus on the basic truths of the doctrine of justification, this hopefully will speed up the process in other areas.”
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