Koch says joint ‘admission of guilt’ for Reformation needed

 — Sept. 3, 20113 sept. 2011

by Christa Pongratz-Lippitt for The Tablet

The joint commemoration of the Reformation by Catholics and Lutherans could begin with an admission of guilt by both sides, the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch, said in an interview last week. The Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation are planning a joint declaration on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017. “Without joint recollection, joint purification and without an admission of guilt on both sides, an honest commemoration will not be possible,” Cardinal Koch told the Austrian Catholic Press Agency.

Cardinal Koch said it was Pope Benedict’s personal wish to place special emphasis on ecumenism on his visit to Germany later this month. The Pope would “certainly once again call to mind that for the Catholic Church ecumenism is a challenge and a duty behind which there is no going back”, he said, while when he met representatives of Judaism in Berlin, he would underline that “on account of their common roots, there is an inalienable relatedness between the Church and Israel, between Christianity and Judaism”.

The German bishops’ conference has meanwhile cautioned against too high expectations of an ecumenical breakthrough when the Pope visits. The secretary of the German bishops’ conference, Fr Hans Langendörfer SJ, told the German Focus magazine that the fact that the Pope was visiting the Augustinerkloster in Erfurt where Martin Luther was a monk was “in itself something quite extraordinary, indeed something really big – in fact, huge. But those who hoped the Pope would award the Protestant Church a new status or would say, ‘All right, we’ll now alter the rules for the Lord’s Supper’ would be disappointed,” Fr Langendörfer said.

Posted: Sept. 3, 2011 • Permanent link: ecumenism.net/?p=6737
Categories: TabletIn this article: 2017, Catholic, Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, ecumenism, Kurt Koch, Lutheran World Federation, Reformation
Transmis : 3 sept. 2011 • Lien permanente : ecumenism.net/?p=6737
Catégorie : TabletDans cet article : 2017, Catholic, Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, ecumenism, Kurt Koch, Lutheran World Federation, Reformation


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