0
0
Pope Francis addressed a delegation of the Lutheran World Federation (WLWF),
on 20 June 2024, in the Private Library of the Vatican Apostolic Palace
“on the path of reconciliation”
Dear sisters, dear brothers!
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe, so that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13).
I extend my welcome to all of you, regional delegates of the Lutheran World Federation. In particular, I thank the new President, Bishop Henrik Stubkjær, for his kind words and for the gift he has offered me. I also greet the Reverend Anne Burghardt, who has served as General Secretary for several years.
I thank you for this visit, which I see as an important gesture of ecumenical brotherhood.
For this reason, I have chosen for my opening greeting, the words of the Apostle Paul, from the Letter to the Romans, words which have accompanied your recent consultations.
May the “God of hope” now also be the name of our meeting. Indeed, we are all pilgrims of hope, as the motto of the Holy Year 2025 also says.
Three years ago, when another delegation from the Lutheran World Federation came to Rome, we reflected together on the upcoming anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea as an ecumenical event. And last year, on the occasion of the General Assembly of your Federation in Krakow, you, Reverend Burghardt, together with my dear brother Cardinal Koch, emphasised in a Joint Declaration that “the ancient Christian creed of Nicaea, the 1700th anniversary of which we will celebrate in 2025, creates an ecumenical bond that has its centre in Christ” (19 September 2023).
In this context, you rightly recalled a beautiful sign of hope, which has a special place in the history of reconciliation between Catholics and Lutherans. In fact, even before the end of the Second Vatican Council, Catholic and Lutheran Christians in the United States of America together bore this witness in Baltimore: “The belief that our Lord Jesus Christ is the Son, God from God, continues to assure us that we are truly redeemed; for only he who is God can redeem us” (The Status of the Nicene Creed as Dogma of the Church, July 7, 1965).
Jesus Christ is at the heart of ecumenism.
He is divine mercy incarnate, and our ecumenical mission is to bear witness to him.
In the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification,” Lutherans and Catholics formulated as a common goal “to confess Christ in all things, the only one in whom all trust can be placed, since he is the only mediator ( 1 Tim 2:5-6 – For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all,[a] the testimony to which was borne at the proper time.) through whom God in the Holy Spirit gives himself and pours out his all-renewing gifts” (n. 18).
Dear brothers and sisters, 25 years have passed since the signing of that Joint Official Declaration. What happened on 31 October 1999 in Augsburg is another sign of hope in our history of reconciliation. Let us s keep it in mind as something that is always alive.
May the 25th anniversary be celebrated in our communities as a feast of hope. Let us remember that our common spiritual origin is “one baptism for the forgiveness of sins” (Nicene Creed-Constantinople) and let us continue with confidence as “pilgrims of hope”. May the God of hope be with us and continue to bless our dialogue of truth and charity.
On this journey of ecumenism, I am reminded of something beautiful about dear Bishop Zizioulas. This Orthodox Bishop Zizioulas, a pioneer of ecumenism, used to say that he knew the date of Christian unity: the day of the Last Judgment!
But in the meantime, he said, we must walk together: walk together, pray together and love together, on the way to that “herecumenical” day which will be the final judgment. That’s what he said. Zizioulas had a good sense of humor!
I thank you once again from the bottom of my heart for your visit; and noow I would now like to invite you to pray the Lord’s Prayer together, each in his or her own language. Thank you very much!.
