ONLINE – The final report on conversations between the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU) and the International Lutheran Council (ILC) has now been released.
The five-year informal dialogue began in 2014 when a working group was organized by the PCPCU and the ILC. In this final report, the results of the dialogue are presented to Cardinal Kurt Koch, President of the PCPCU and Bishop Hans-Jörg Voigt, Chairman of the ILC.
The report contains a preamble, which treats the “normative structure” for church doctrine and life. The second part discusses “The Mass as Eucharistic Sacrificial Banquet” and the third part treats “Justification by Faith.” The report concludes by formulating “Ecumenical Tasks” that apply to both sides of the discussion.
The ILC will discuss the results of the informal dialogue at its 2022 World Conference, after which next steps will be considered in coordination with the PCPCU.
In the discussions, the Roman Catholic Church was represented by Prof. Dr. Josef Freitag (Lantershofen, Germany), Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Thönissen and PD Dr. Burkhard Neumann (Paderborn, Germany), and Dom. Dr. Augustinus Sander OSB (Rome, Italy). The churches of the ILC were represented by Prof. Dr. Werner Klän (Lübeck, Germany), Prof. Dr. Gerson Linden (São Leopoldo, Brazil), Prof. Dr. John Stephenson (St. Catharines, Canada), and Prof. Dr. Roland Ziegler (Ft. Wayne, USA). Prof. Dr. Thomas Winger (St. Catharines), Dr. Albert Collver (St. Louis, USA), Prof. Dr. Grant Kaplan (St. Louis), as well as the ILC chairman, Bishop Voigt, all served as part-time participants in the discussions.
The final report appears in Volume 33 (2021) of Lutheran Theological Review, a journal produced by the seminaries of Lutheran Church–Canada. German, Spanish, and Portuguese translations will be released at a later date.
Download the final report here.
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