church. He spoke of the true religious heritage shared by Christians, which was preserved and in part well developed among the separated Christians. Paul VI also promoted the word “dialogue” in the council. Observers from a number of churches played an influ-
ential and active role in the ongoing work of the council through its sessions.
Happily most Lutherans and their churches accepted this change and the overture. On behalf of its member churches, the Lutheran World Federation designated official observers to the council. Two American Lutherans in this category were War- ren Quanbeck of the former American Lutheran Church and a faculty member of Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minn., and George Lindbeck of the former Lutheran Church in America and a faculty member of Yale Divin- ity School, New Haven, Conn. They became members of the Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue after the council. They both viewed their experience at the Second Vatican Council as an unparallel event that shaped their theology.
Positive Lutheran response Lutherans and their churches in the LWF responded positively to this invitation because they recognized that the Second Vatican Council offered the potential for several critical developments within the Roman Catholic Church. These consequences can be seen now promi- nently, but not only, in a document issued by the council titled “The Decree on Ecumenism.” The Second Vatican Council meant for Roman Catholics the end of caricature of their separated sisters and brothers in Christ. It taught that the manner and expression of Roman Catholic belief should not become an obstacle to dialogue among the divided churches. The council acknowledged that although divine truth is unchanging, the forms of its expression will necessarily change from age to age. It showed that Roman Catholi- cism was not monolithic. Some interpreters at the conclusion of the sessions described the Second Vatican Council as a revolt without abandonment. By this they intended to convey that with- out giving up traditional Roman Catholic theology, the council represented a radical break in the way theology was done and taught in the past.
For Lutherans one of the most momentous features of this departure was the proposal for an ongoing dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church after more than four centuries of division. Yet such an offer presented provoc- ative questions to Lutherans as well as Roman Catholics. Lutherans had received an invitation. Invitations require a response. Were Lutherans willing to surrender
the polemics of the past and to look with new apprecia- tion at a church they had never fully understood because they perceived it with the eyes of hostility? Were they ready to probe deeply beneath the external forms of faith and practice to discover whether they were not at some deeper level closer to Roman Catholics than they had supposed for centuries? Were they sincere enough in their Christian belief in a continuing reformation under God’s word to submit to a more ruthless self-appraisal. Fortunately the Lutheran response to all those inqui- ries was positive. Before the Second Vatican Council was formally concluded, plans were being put in place for international and American Lutheran-Roman Catho- lic dialogues. With few interruptions, these official exchanges have continued to meet up to the present time. After two years of planning, the international Joint Lutheran-Roman Catholic Study Commission began to meet in 1967. Over the years it took up such topics as “The Gospel and the Church”; “Martin Luther –Witness to Jesus Christ”; ministry in the church; models of unity; justification; and most recently the church. At the same time the U.S. Lutheran-Roman Catholic
dialogue began to function, addressing among others such topics as the Nicene Creed, baptism, the Lord’s Supper and ministry, the role of the pope, justification,
Paul C. Empie (third from right) describes the first talks of the Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue as “fruitful” at a press conference in Balti- more following the July 6-7 meeting.
ELCA ARCHIVES
Those taking part in the press conference at the time this picture was taken included Joseph A. Sittler (left), professor of systematic theology at the Uni- versity of Chicago Divinity School and a minister of the former Lutheran Church in America; Walter J. Burghardt, a Roman Catholic theologan and professor of patristics and patrology at Woodstock [Md.] College; John Court- ney Murray, a Roman Catholic theologian and professor of theology at Woodstock College; Empie of New York City, executive director of the National Lutheran Council; Auxiliary Roman Catholic Bishop T. Austin Murphy of Bal- timore; and Warren A. Quanbeck, professor of systematic theolgoy at Luther Theological Seminary, St. Paul, Minn., and a minister of the former American Lutheran Church.
October 2012 15
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