Lutherans & Catholics
O'Gara, Margaret
approach it with something like dread every year. But after the first year the newcomers got involved (they were recruited), I noticed a change: The two communities began mixing more, and have...
...A small additional clarifying statement, called the "Annex" and linked to the signing ceremony, makes even a further point...
...We talk about the most basic aspects of the gospel message, the creed, the meaning of baptism and the Eucharist, and then I baptize them...
...m Margaret O'Gara LUTHERANS & CATHOLICS Ending an old argument ~ ow long does it take to resolve an argument...
...Legislation to affirm these entitlements was left to the Vermont legislature...
...Are these opposed...
...This Declaration has special significance because it is a joint action, not just a theoretical analysis...
...Under the regime of the dictator Enver Hoxha, there was a determined attempt to eradicate all religion...
...They love and relish the freedom, and the diversity, of this country...
...But after the first year the newcomers got involved (they were recruited), I noticed a change: The two communities began mixing more, and have merged into one community...
...The Albanians I know are not uncritical of America, but they love it...
...Christians share the conviction that God's salvation is a gift that makes human beings "justified" or righteous before God...
...In an achievementbased society like ours, the proclamation of God's gracious mercy will be even better news now that Lutherans and Roman Catholics can avoid condemning each other to proclaim it...
...then they declare that those earlier condemnations no longer apply to the partner today...
...But the focus of the Joint Declaration is on the present and the future...
...I believe that the majority opinion, written by the Chief Justice Jeffrey L. Amestoy, is a model of judicial prudence worthy of national attention...
...By the time this column appears I will be in the middle of house blessings, which always follow Theophany...
...It's a clich6, but a good and true one: Only in America...
...It took Lutherans and Roman Catholics more than 450 years to reconcile their differences over justifying grace...
...The Declaration uses an interesting approach to show that affirmations used by one church tradition are not denials of the other church's teaching...
...For example, the Declaration says, because Lutherans wished to show that only God's saving action in Christ and nothing else is the basis of justification, they emphasized the distinction between this justifying action and the renewal of life that follows...
...former doctors look for jobs in labs...
...Dennis O'Brien GAY MARRIAGE...
...It's an interesting congregation...
...The Catholic bishop of Burlington, Kenneth Angell, regretted the ruling but took comfort in the fact that the court had not legalized gay marriage...
...Vermont must decide n December 21, 1999, the eve of the shortest day of the year, the Vermont Supreme Court handed down a ruling on the vexed matter of "gay marriage...
...I am writing this on Sunday...
...And the coffee hour that follows every liturgy is another important nonreligious event, without which we would be less of a community...
...Most of the baptisms I do are for adults and young people who could not be baptized in Albania...
...Common confession on this topic and the other related topics is so basic that the remaining differences "are no longer the occasion for doctrinal condemnations...
...Most of the younger people in this situation are going to night school after their exhausting daytime jobs...
...Whether one would encompass this protection under the label of "marriage"or under some category such as "domestic partnership"was not best decided by judicial fiat...
...Gay advocates were gratified by the recognition of equal benefits but vowed to press for recognition of gay marriage...
...But whatever in the justified precedes or follows the free gift of faith is neither the basis of justification nor merits it...
...So, it explains, when Lutherans call the justified "sinners" and their continuing opposition to God "truly sin," still "they do not deny that, despite this sin, they are not separated from God...
...It isn't easy...
...Now the two churches have reached "a consensus on basic truths of the doctrine of justification...
...The teaching about God's justifying grace was at the heart of the Reformation debates in the sixteenth century, and Luther made it his central emphasis...
...The court rejected that broad construction of "marriage...
...We should not overlook the value of this kind of action for the healing of divisions...
...The court rejected the claim of the gay plaintiffs that denying them a marriage license was a violation of Vermont law...
...But Roman Catholics, more interested in the renewing effects of grace, tended to emphasize the transCommonweal 8 January 14, 2000 forming effects of grace in a Christian life active in faith, hope, and love...
...Both the decrees of the Council of Trent and Lutheran confessional documents included condemnations of the other's position as they understood it, condemnations that have continued to influence how each church sees the other...
...The ruling has been hailed and condemned by both sides of the gay-marriage issue...
...At this morning's liturgy the congregation included a lot of Albanians (of course), some people of Russian background, a couple of Egyptian Copts, a couple of Greeks, and two large Eritrean families...
...Fundamentally, it teaches that the two traditions on justification are actually complementary, not contradictory...
...The Declaration is respectful of the condemnations from the past...
...It recalls the common biblical and liturgical heritage that allows Roman Catholics as well as Lutherans "together" to "understand the Christian as simul iustus et peccator (at the same time righteous and sinner...
...Contrary to some of the anti-immigrant rhetoric, they haven't come here simply to make it materially, though they are happy to be in a country where this can be done...
...The "Annex" allowed the churches to reach back into shared ancient faith foundations that precede the more recent divisions of the last five centuries...
...This official "Annex" was issued in response to complaints about the Declaration from some German Lutheran theologians and from an earlier Vatican "Clarifications...
...I keep remembering family stories about my immigrant ancestors and how hard they had to work...
...Because the partners have experienced the "necessary purification of past memories" called for by Pope John Paul II in Ut unum sint, they now see each other in a new light...
...What basis does the Declaration give to explain its dramatic conclusions...
...It is especially moving to receive so much generosity from people, many of whom are poor and struggling...
...Where does the Vermont ruling leave the national debate on gay marriage...
...The Joint Declaration thus functions as a kind of reception of fifty years of scholarly work that has prepared the theoretical ground for this breakthrough...
...When Vermont law specifies that the town clerk may issue a license to either Margaret O'Gara is a Roman Catholic professor of theology at the Faculty of Theology in the University of Saint Michael's College, Toronto, a member of the Lutheran-Roman Catholic International Commission on Unity, and the author of The Ecumenical Gift Exchange (Liturgical Press, 1998...
...Many are highly educated but have to clean buildings and hotel rooms for a living...
...Once thought to be contradictory, these different emphases are presented in the Declaration as two valuable approaches to the same basic faith consensus, each offering a helpful and complementary insight about grace...
...But Lutherans and Roman Catholics use different emphases to explain this justifying grace from God and its effects...
...Former engineers work construction...
...Nothing is taken away from their "seriousness," it says, and they remain for both churches today "salutary warnings...
...At the same time, it is a joyous, celebratory event where Christians recognize in each other a common teaching on this central issue for the first time in 450 years...
...The chief justice began his opinion by noting that by common definition (Webster's Dictionary) "marriage" is the union of one man and one woman as man and wife...
...In short, making one point does not necessarily mean denying another, says the Declaration again and again as it considers issues that have historically been sources of division...
...No, says the Declaration, since "we confess together that sinners are justified by faith in the saving action of God in Christ....Such a faith is active in love and thus the Christian cannot and should not remain without works...
...Commonweal 9 January 14, 2000...
...It is also interesting to hear their reactions to America, and to the church in America...
...The plaintiffs argued that the purpose of marriage was to "protect and encourage the union of committed couples...
...Among Albanians, hospitality is the essential virtue...
...In this joint action involving the two churches at the level of worldwide ministries, they teach in common where they once condemned...
...The ecumenical movement has reached many theological agreements, but here the agreement is also received and acted on by the two churches in an official way...
...But they enter the new millennium with a breakthrough agreement that gives a common teaching on justification and ends mutual condemnations...
...Whether that ruling will cast as short a light on this issue as the winter solstice remains to be seen...
...But Roman Catholics, while naming the inclination toward sin in justified people "concupiscence," not sin, still "do not thereby deny that this inclination does not correspond to God's original design for humanity and that it is objectively in contradiction to God and remains one's enemy in lifelong struggle...
...Their attitude is something like, "I want to be an Orthodox Christian and you can tell me what it means later...
...On the other hand, it granted that same-sex couples were entitled to all the civil benefits extended to married households...
...In the light of this consensus, they conclude, "the corresponding doctrinal condemnations of the sixteenth century do not apply to today's partner...
...Developments have taken place which not only make possible, but also require the churches to examine the divisive questions and condemnations and see them in a new light," Lutherans and Roman Catholics said in a historic Joint Declaration of the Doctrine of Justification, signed by representatives of the pope and the Lutheran World Federation in Augsburg, Germany on October 31, 1999...
...They are delighted to be in a place where they can worship freely...
...Make no mistake about it: This is an important ecumenical breakthrough...
...The agreement clears the air and the deck for joint evangelization about God's graciousness...
...Our church custodian was the principal of a high school and taught mathematics in Albania...
Vol. 127 • January 2000 • No. 1
