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PRAYER SERVICE — Bishop
Richard J. Sklba, left, is joined by Bishop Mark
S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America, and Bishop Emeritus
Charles Maahs of the Central States Synod of
the ELCA at a prayer service April 23 at the
Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Milwaukee.
The prayer service was held as part of the 10th
round of U.S. Lutheran-Roman Catholic Dialogue,
which is co-chaired by Bishops Sklba and Maahs.
(Catholic Herald photo by Sam Lucero)
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WAUWATOSA — Results of the 10th round of dialogue
between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and
the Roman Catholic Church were announced at Redemption
Lutheran Church on Thursday, April 22. Auxiliary Bishop
Richard J. Sklba is the dialogue’s co-chair.
The 10th round, “The Church as Koinonia of Salvation:
Its Structures and Ministries,” began in 1998.
Previous rounds included discussions of Mary and the
saints, Eucharist, papal primacy, baptism, teaching authority,
Scripture and tradition, justification by faith, and
the Nicene Creed.
“
Koinonia” is an anglicized Greek word variously
translated as “fellowship, partnership, a close
mutual relationship, sharing in, contribution, or gift.”
According to John Reumann, a Lutheran member of the dialogue,
the ecumenical movement as it now stands began in the
early 20th century. Before reaching out to other faith
traditions, the various Lutheran churches talked among
themselves.
But when it came time to start talking to Catholics, “what
do you talk about when you’ve been estranged for
centuries?” Reumann asked. His answer was, “Things
you can agree on.” He said recently the dialogues
have been geared toward items which are “church-dividing,” such
as the roles of the presbyterate and episcopacy in each
tradition.
Susan Wood, professor at St. John’s University
in Collegeville, Minn., said people tend to believe “ecumenical
dialogue (involves) ‘lowest common denominator’ Lutheranism
or Roman Catholicism. ... (but) in working toward church
unity, the challenge is to find a common lens that bypasses
old differences. In the past, things have been seen through
juridical eyes — that didn’t get us very
far.”
Wood offered a pyramid of church as communion, starting
from the bottom, with the local congregation. The role
of the pastor, she said, is to keep the congregation
in unity.
The congregation, in turn, belongs to a regional structure,
such as a synod (for Lutherans) or a diocese (for Catholics).
While Lutherans have no equivalent to the Catholics’ national
structure, such as the United States Conference of Catholic
Bishops, both have worldwide structures — the Lutheran
World Federation, defined as a communion of churches,
and the Catholic “universal church.” According
to Wood, there is a level of communion at each of these
levels.
The traditions part ways on the importance of the local
church. For Lutherans, Wood said, “the congregation
is considered to have the fullness of church.” In
Catholicism, the diocese is the basic unit of church.
“
Lutherans don’t have a well-developed theology
of the episcopacy, and Catholics don’t have one
of the parish,” she said. Yet while “every
congregation must be in relationship with other congregations,” Wood
said, “a diocese can’t be church by itself.” She
quoted a 1982 World Council of Churches document which
stated “all authority must be communal, personal,
and collegial.”
Wood summed up one of the dialogue’s recommendations
by saying that “ever since Vatican II, task forces
have acknowledged that the Lord’s Supper has the
power to engender light and grace. The idea that it is
not valid without (the benefit of) orders is not true.
Our ecclesial communions are in real but imperfect communion.
We share baptism, Scripture, the early church, pre-division.
“
What this dialogue has done is say, ‘if the churches
are in imperfect union, then so are the ministers. Let’s
do what we can together.’”
Michael Root, a Lutheran seminary professor, said while
some might say that the 10th round of dialogue “deals
with internal structures rather than the needs of the
real world,” it was changed by the Joint Declaration
on the Doctrine of Justification that was signed by the
Lutheran World Federation and the Vatican on Reformation
Sunday, Oct. 31, 1999. Reformation Sunday, for Lutherans,
is celebrated on the Sunday closest to Oct. 31, the date
in 1517 that Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses, or differences
with Catholicism, to the door of the Catholic church
in Wittenberg, Germany.
“
How does a Christian stand before a righteous God? That
was the issue of the Reformation,” Root said. “Now
this need no longer divide Lutherans and Catholics.” Root
added “the remaining problems deal with church
ministry and authority. Lutherans and Roman Catholics
can’t share Eucharist because of differences over
appropriate eucharistic ministers. The ministry issue
is at the heart of what divides Lutherans and Roman Catholics
nationally and internationally.”
“
These questions seem trivial,” Root said, “lower
in the hierarchy of truths, not essential to the faith
yet in some ways more difficult. Not being able to solve
it is more of a rub. Ecumenism is about relationships
between churches — concrete communities, real people.
Structural questions about persons and the actions they
undertake — it requires a certain minimum agreement
about structure. It’s where the ecumenical rubber
meets the institutional road.” According to Root,
past dialogues have tried to deal with ministry questions
in terms of church structures, “which doesn’t
contradict the teachings of either church, but does challenge
them.”
Root echoed Wood in saying that both sides have “tended
to be one-sided. Roman Catholic dialogue tends to have
unreality when talking about the local church. Lutheranism
has the opposite problem - a thin theology of ministry
beyond the local parish. Instead of either/or, we should
see complementarity between local and regional (structures).
... The new goal is don’t ask each other to say
something positive about the other, but recognize ways
each has wounded each other and set ourselves about recognizing
woundedness this division has brought to both of us.”
Bishop emeritus Charles Maahs of the Central States Synod
of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the dialogue’s
co-chair, said at a joint celebration and worship service
on Friday, April 23, that the adoption of the document
on Friday morning “really is kind of a culmination.
In many ways, (it is) building on the foundation of the
work that has been done in the past by theologians and
scholars of both of our communions. Bishop (Mark Hanson,
presiding bishop of the ELCA) mentioned the friendships
that have developed. Those who work so closely together
are kind of a model of the way in which the two faiths
can celebrate our oneness in Christ and our understanding
of the Gospel which is so similar.”
Bishop emeritus Maahs said the next step in the dialogue
is to recommend a topic for the 11th round to both traditions’ advisory
boards, but “we’re still in the process of
working on that right now. I can’t tell you what
that might be.”
Sam Lucero contributed to this report. 
