Pope Francis believes that the Reformation is over, that the breach with Luther and later Protestants has been healed. This is thanks to the Joint Declaration on Justification worked out between the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation. (Conservative, confessional Lutherans reject that document.) Moreover, Pope Francis has deep ties to Latin American evangelicals and charismatics.
As reported in the Catholic Herald, he has written a document declaring an end to the hostilities between Catholics and evangelicals, which he plans on issuing on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017.
From CatholicHerald.co.uk » The Pope’s great Evangelical gamble:
Somewhere in Pope Francis’s office is a document that could alter the course of Christian history. It declares an end to hostilities between Catholics and Evangelicals and says the two traditions are now “united in mission because we are declaring the same Gospel”. The Holy Father is thinking of signing the text in 2017, the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, alongside Evangelical leaders representing roughly one in four Christians in the world today.
Francis is convinced that the Reformation is already over. He believes it ended in 1999, the year the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation issued a joint declaration on justification, the doctrine at the heart of Luther’s protest.
The German firebrand had accused the Catholic Church of teaching that man was saved by faith and good works, rather than “by faith alone”.
In 1999, after extensive talks, Catholic and Lutheran theologians concluded that the two communions now shared “a common understanding of our justification by God’s grace through faith in Christ”.
In 2006, the World Methodist Council also adopted the declaration. But not one major leader of “born-again” Christians has publicly endorsed the text. So most of the world’s 600 million Evangelicals don’t realise that the protest is over. From the shantytowns of São Paulo to the high-rises of Seoul, Evangelicals and Catholics still eye each other warily.
Many of the former are reluctant even to describe Catholics as Christians, while the latter often dismiss Evangelical groups as “sects”.
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