Posted on 12/22/2014 6:17:46 AM PST by marshmallow
(LWI) Rev. Martin Junge, General Secretary of The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) says relations between the Lutheran and Catholic churches have reached an epoch-making turning-point.
Speaking during a panel discussion, held 18 December, in the Lutheran church in Rome, Junge emphasized that the relationship between Lutherans and Catholics was being transformed from conflict to communion. Precisely in a world in which religion and faith are regularly portrayed and perceived as trouble makers, he said it was a phenomenal testimony that the Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches continued to move towards a profound communion that frees us to serve God and the world.
Alongside Junge on the panel were, the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU) Kurt Cardinal Koch, the Catholic representative of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany Bishop Karl-Hinrich Manzke, and the chairperson of the Ecumenism Commission of the German Episcopal Conference Bishop Gerhard Feige.
Junge and Koch took the opportunity to announce plans for a common liturgical guide in connection with the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017, of which publication is scheduled for 2015. Looking towards 2017, the Lutheran - Roman Catholic material is intended to enable churches all over the world to review the 500 years of Reformation. The guide will follow on from the dialogue document From Conflict to Communion published by both partners in 2013, and transpose it into liturgical acts. The material will reflect the structure of this document with its triple form of penitence for the wounds mutually inflicted; joy at the insights and dimensions of the Reformation; and hope for unity.
The panel also discussed the question of what exactly was to be commemorated in 2017. Not church division, nor the 500th anniversary of a church and certainly not any heroic actions, Feige was.......
(Excerpt) Read more at lutheranworld.org ...
Another illustration of the problem.
The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ who is its head. It traces itself back to Jesus through the Apostles by the process of Apostolic succession.
With Catholicism's approach for sure. For Christendom no problem at all.
So even then, there was the 'church' in Rome. Sure.
If you mean the RCC is that same "Church" then be prepared to strip away all that which did not originate from Christ and the Apostles.
Claims to apostolic succession, are just that. Claims, and often as the case may be, have been proven false, for to be a faithful successor one must faithfully transmit what was received.
Each and every failure to do so, and each and every addition and creation of custom and even doctrines and dogmas -- make the end result be something else -- and not in truth valid succession.
So to save us all these types of statements which you make which are chock-a-block full of specious claims --- in the future when you are thinking "Catholic" Church, otherwise more precisely known as the Roman Catholic Church, then SAY THAT instead of all this other misleading descriptive information, which is simply not true to the degree or extent that it would need to be, to make your own definition validly apply to the "ecclesiastical body" which I do think you had in mind.
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