Abstract
This article presents an overview and an assessment of the international Catholic–Lutheran dialogue through fifty years. During the process, a theological rapprochement that few had dreamt of when the work began has been manifested. In the text Facing Unity (1984), even a detailed plan for a processual realization of Catholic–Lutheran church fellowship is sketched. However, this plan has not been implemented, and the achieved doctrinal convergence has not been transformed into concrete forms of unity. The author also seeks to uncover some of the main causes of this impasse, largely reflecting challenges in contemporary ecumenism.
Highlights
Ecumenical dialogues are not construed as merely theoretical ventures
The Ministry in the Church (MIC) outlines consensus and convergence, but this is done in a more restricted manner than in EUC—implicitly affirming that the theology of the ministry remains a complex topic between Catholics and Lutherans
This brings me to the conclusions that can be drawn from my effort to account for aspects of the Catholic–Lutheran dialogue
Summary
The point of departure for Catholic–Lutheran ecumenism was far from ideal. For several centuries neither of the two principal actors in the church divisions of the 16th. At the end of the first series of the dialogue, The Gospel and the Church (1972), often referred to as the Malta Report (MR), was published.[13] The work took place from 1967 to 1971 It was chaired by the Norwegian theologian Einar Molland and Walter Kasper, future President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU). MR clearly reflects the Catholic renewal at Vatican II and an ensuing ecumenical optimism This marks the fundamental theological approach of the text, grounded in a dialectical perception of the relationship between the gospel, the church, and the world: 9. The US conversations first started in 1964 and provided numerous important impulses for the international dialogue through a wide range of statements See, for example, such innovative texts as Eucharist and Ministry (1970), Scripture and Tradition (1995), and The Church as Koinonia of Salvation: Its Structures and Ministries (2004).
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