A Point of No Return?

Ecumenical Review, The, April, 2000 by Peder Norgaard-Hojen

Perhaps some Lutheran commentators overlooked the allegedly essential distinction between the two parts of the Vatican document. Nevertheless, the debate on the controversial questions and the repudiation of the Tridentine condemnations as no longer applicable are found in the second part, which Cassidy described as being of lesser weight. Not even the pope's enthusiastic rejoicing about "an important ecumenical achievement" before praying the Angelus on 28 June 1998 changed anything.(8) As the situation developed, additional confidential documents were apparently circulated to and shared with a limited number of theologians and church people to whom the LWF and the Vatican had obviously turned in order to create a third text before the final signing of the Joint Declaration. In so doing, the responsible ecclesiastical bodies turned theological reflection into church politics and secret diplomacy, making theology the humble servant of ecclesiastical interests whose intentions are not immediately transparent.

A so-called Annex was formulated, supposedly to indicate the hermeneutics for reading both the Joint Declaration and the Catholic response. On the basis of the apparent willingness of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to relativize the Tridentine anathemas and declare the condemnations inapplicable to present Lutheran understanding of justification, the main message of the new document was to underscore strongly the consensus in basic truths and the lifting of the damnationes (para. 1). In addition, the Annex elucidated in detail and tried to give a common interpretation of the most controversial issues: simul iustus et peccator, concupiscentia, cooperatio, and the relationship between gratia and meritum.

Last but not least, on the criteriological function of the doctrine of justification paragraph 3 phrased a formula intended to be acceptable to both parties. On the one hand, it is acknowledged that "the doctrine of justification is measure or touchstone for the Christian faith. No teaching may contradict this criterion. In this sense, the doctrine of justification is an `indispensable criterion which constantly serves to orient all the teaching and practice of our churches to Christ'". At the same time, the text goes on to relativize the criteriological function of the doctrine of justification, saying that it "has its truth and specific meaning within the overall context of the church's fundamental Trinitarian confession of faith". The successful result of these deliberations would prove if the Joint Declaration was really the consensus document it claimed to be.

Thus in the end there was a collection of texts, mutually interpreting and clarifying each other, making it finally difficult to discern which should be signed by the churches involved. This problem threatened to make the entire project of a Joint Declaration not merely peculiar, but vacuous. The original text had proved unsuitable as basis of any interchurch agreement, and for a critical mind the addenda in fact disqualified it as a useful instrument for establishing any kind of church unity. The Catholic response and the Annex showed the Joint Declaration to be in desperate need of amendment and thus in its original shape useless for the intended purpose. Despite the misgivings and hesitations, however, the document was signed -- with considerable public attention -- on 31 October 1999.