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Lutheran leader seeks Communion agreement with pope
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12 responses to “Lutheran leader seeks Communion agreement with pope”
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While I have to give Bishop Younan credit for boldness, nothing in the Vatican’s current approach to ecumenism leads me to believe that such a request would even be considered. Just watching how the rules for the Anglican Ordinariate are being established shows that the Vatican is prepared to give very little in the way of concession on issues of women clergy, apostolic succession, or the issues surrounding homosexuality. On the grassroots level Lutherans and Roman Catholics will continue to build relationships and look for ways to co-operate. Oddly enough, the Vatican’s position is more akin to the position of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. They both view intercommunion as the end, not the means, of unity.
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Hope: not simply wishing and praying for something/anything to happen, but preparing for what is good, true, and beautiful.
Good for Advent, good for the Week for Christian Unity.
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Yes, the Vatican should produce an ecumenical document that outlines the common eucharistic beliefs between the two churches. The joint statement on justification was well written. This document also dispelled many of the often unfounded barriers between Lutheranism and Catholicism.
Even so, “eucharistic hospitality” is not wise on many levels. The Catholic belief that the Victim of the Mass is ontologically identical to Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary is absolutely irreconcilable with Luther’s theology of the verba and doctrine of sacramental union. Unfortunately, few priests today preach that the Mass differs from Calvary only in the unbloody nature of liturgical sacrifice. In fact, very few priests ever preach on any aspect of the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist! This regrettable neglect of solid catechesis on the Mass must be addressed before any ecumenical efforts can proceed.
For this reason, intercommunion without doctrinal concord will only obscure the fundamental differences between the two traditions. Rather, each tradition should boldly proclaim their respective doctrines on the Eucharist. Intercommunion without true doctrinal concord creates a false unity that can only dilute the theological integrity of both communions.
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The Catholic belief that the Victim of the Mass is ontologically identical to Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary is absolutely irreconcilable with Luther’s theology of the verba and doctrine of sacramental union.
While I tend to agree that it is difficult for me to imagine a way to reconcile Catholic claims about the Eucharistic sacrifice with some of Luther’s more polemical statements, I also would not want to make this claim too strongly until the hard theological work of ecumenical dialog had been fully engaged.
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Agreed. “Absolutely irreconcilable” is a strong phrase. Perhaps “very difficult” is more appropriate.
There are some commonalities between the Lutheran and Catholic understandings of the Eucharist. Both agree that the sacrament is a means of grace. Both also agree that the Eucharist is a “banquet” — i.e. that there is a horizontal aspect to the Eucharist. It’s important to keep these similarities in mind rather than dwell on the differences.
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Perhaps we Catholics can use the intervening six years to refine better what we are saying.
I’m not convinced that sacrifice and banquet are so easily pigeonholed into vertical and horizontal. The heavenly banquet, presumably, will be enjoyed under the authority of God. And even earthly banquets, especially the more ritualized ones, have a certain social hierarchy involved.
Let’s also consider the renewed post-conciliar emphasis in the Eucharist on the Paschal Mystery as a whole. Jesus suffered and died, yes. But he also rose, appeared to his disciples, and ascended into heaven. I’m nervous about giving Easter second chair to Good Friday.
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Agreed regarding a too sharp conceptual division between vertical and horizontal dimension of liturgical with respect to sacrifice and banquet. To complement what you said regarding the verticality of a banquet, there is also a horizontality of sacrifice. In a ‘peak’ liturgical experience, I had a profound sense of unity with my follow worshipers, an almost tangible sense of the entire assembly – clergy and lay – as the Totus Christus, head (clergy) and body (lay). When the priest chanted the narrative of institution, I simultaneously heard the “this” of “this is my Body” as referring to the Eucharistic species and the assembly itself. It was akin to a quantum mechanical superposition of two states, prior to any measurement-induced collapse. Likewise, the “you” of given up for you was simultaneously heard as the assembly and the Father. The sense was that the assembly, as Totus Christus, was being offered / offering itself through the Holy Spirit, to the Father in Christ. At the time, all I could think was “truly, this is that which nothing greater can be conceived”. It felt like heaven on earth, totally at one with God, mysteriously caught up in the perichoresis of the Trinity, and totally at one with my fellow worshipers with a sense of overflowing love and charity. And all this horizontality together with verticality through the sacrificial dimension and way before communion :).
Hopefully, I haven’t outed myself as some variety of heretic :).
N.B. I do apologize for using a personal experience in a discussion like this. 🙂
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As one who lives in a divided family Lutheran / Catholic, I wait in joyful hope.
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Keep in mind that another sacrament, matrimony, unites you as a domestic Church. There is something to be said for the practical accord that provides, or at the very least points toward unity. A better case could be made for intercommunion in your situation, assuming the parties involved were properly disposed. You might consider asking for it.
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It is interesting to note, however, that Luther did not consider marriage a sacrament. A friend of mine from graduate school, who was a Lutheran, once told me that one thing that gave him pause about Luther’s theology and that inclined him toward Catholicism was Luther’s denial of the sacramentality of marriage. He said that it was so clear to him that his marriage had been for him a means of grace that he thought Luther must be wrong about this (about a decade later he was received into full communion with the Catholic Church).
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This would be great! Wow. Come, Holy Spirit!
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One point that is important to remember and which the JDDJ makes very well is that we are NOT reconciling Luther with the Catholic Church of today, we are in dialogue about the way a particular doctrine is understood in the present day by Lutherans and Roman Catholics. That approach has enabled both sides to gain new ground in the past 40 years. Still, formidable obstacles remain IMO.
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