Why the Pope likes Luther

Why the Pope likes Luther November 2, 2016

At the joint Catholic/Lutheran service in Sweden, commemorating Reformation Day, Pope Francis was said to have “issued some of the most positive language ever used by a pope to describe Martin Luther and his beliefs.”

The Pope said that the doctrine of justification “expresses the essence of human existence before God.”  The Reformation “helped give greater centrality to sacred scripture in the Church’s life.”  And in his teaching that salvation is “by grace alone, ” Luther “reminds us that God always takes the initiative, prior to any human response, even as he seeks to awaken that response.”

The Pope also signed a commitment with the head of the Lutheran World Federation to work towards full intercommunion between the two theological traditions.

After the jump, a news story about the developments from a Catholic publication.  For the full text of the Pope’s remarks, go here.  For the Communion agreement, go here.  See also my thoughts on the matter.

From Austen Ivereigh, Pope in Sweden heaps praise on Luther, but no breakthrough on Communion, Crux:

Although he made no reference to the issue of the Eucharist, Francis in Sweden has issued some of the most positive language ever used by a pope to describe Martin Luther and his beliefs.

The question that haunted Martin Luther about God’s mercy is “the decisive question of our lives,” while the doctrine of justification “expresses the essence of human existence before God,” Pope Francis told a joint Catholic-Lutheran gathering in Lund, Sweden today.

Francis’s words at a joint prayer service at the city’s eleventh-century cathedral to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Luther’s protest at Wittenberg in 1517 are the most positive yet.

He also spoke in unprecedented terms of both sides in the Reformation divide professing and upholding “the true faith.” . . .

While he made no mention of persisting divisions over the Eucharist, the issue is raised in a joint statement signed at the end of the prayer ceremony pledging both churches to continue to work together towards a common Communion.

In 1999 the two Churches reached a groundbreaking agreement over the major theological issue behind the sixteenth-century rift. . . .

Speaking in Spanish, the pope pointed to two positive consequences of the Reformation. While separation has led to suffering and misunderstanding, “it has also led us to recognize honestly that without [Jesus] we can do nothing,” he said, and therefore “has enabled us to better understand some aspects of our faith.”

The Reformation also “helped give greater centrality to sacred scripture in the Church’s life,” he added.

Luther’s own spiritual experience, in which he was haunted by the question of how to obtain God’s mercy, “is the decisive question for our lives,” Francis said, adding that in the concept of “by grace alone” Luther “reminds us that God always takes the initiative, prior to any human response, even as he seeks to awaken that response.”

The declaration on justification says that both Catholics and Lutherans confess that “by grace alone, in faith and in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit.”

[Keep reading. . .]

We confessional Lutherans are very skeptical of all this.  Common worship services?  Altar fellowship?  There are so many theological differences, as well as different meanings of the same language, that such ecumenical talk is beyond the pale.

Still, these are remarkable words to be hearing from a Pope.  (Some might wish the liberal Lutherans of the LWF would make the same doctrinal affirmations!  In fact, the big question is why the Pope is making nice with these particular Lutherans who ordain women, have a lesbian bishop, support gay marriage, and hold to other things contrary to Catholic teaching.)

Luther said that he could accept a Pope as the earthly presiding officer of the church–think, denominational president–as long as he renounced his claim to be Vicar of Christ and other offenses against the Gospel.  Whereupon he would no longer be antiChrist (which means something different than what today’s Dispensationalists mean).  The Smalcald Articles and the Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope set forth the terms the Lutherans would agree to.

Could this happen?  Might confessional Lutherans ever come to a point where we could declare that the Reformation of the Church has succeeded, so we can now go back with Rome?

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