Theology Today - Vol 37, No. 3 - October 1980 - ARTICLE - Augsburg and Catholicism: Healing the Reformation Breach

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"If Lutheran Christians, as the elder brothers and sisters of the sixteenth century Reformation tradition, now discover that, for the sake of the gospel, division from Rome is no longer necessary (and therefore, precisely for the sake of the gospel, no longer permissible), other Protestants would have to ask what fidelity to the Reformation tradition means for them. In this light, Lutheran-Roman Catholic advance does not represent an instance of Lutherans 'going their own way but is an exercise of Lutheran leadership in helping to bring the Reformation to its fulfillment as a renewing movement in and for the whole church of Christ. "

Augsburg and Catholicism:
Healing the Reformation Breach
By Richard John Neuhaus

IN 1974 the idea was first advanced that the Roman Catholic Church should "recognize" the Augsburg Confession. It received wider attention when Joseph Ratzinger, now Cardinal Archbishop of Munich, took up the possibility of a "Catholic recognition of the Augsburg Confession or, more correctly, of recognizing the Augsburg Confession as Catholic.'' Some expressed the hope that formal recognition might be achieved by 1980, the 450th anniversary of the Confession.

That goal may have been reached, depending upon what one means by recognition. In February of this year the Joint Roman Catholic/ Lutheran Commission, representing the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity and the Lutheran World Federation, issued a unanimous statement on the Augsburg Confession. Developing the theme "All Under One Christ" (the phrase is from the preface to the Confession), the Joint Commission affirms "the understanding and convergence between our churches." It notes that "the express purpose of the Augsburg Confession is to bear witness to the faith of the one, holy, Catholic,'' and apostolic church… . Joint studies by Catholic and Lutheran theologians have shown that the contents of the statements of the Augsburg Confession in

Richard John Neuhaus is a Lutheran pastor and author in New York City. His most recent book is Freedom for Ministry (Harper & Row). He serves as the editor of Lutheran Forum which, together with the Graymoor Ecumenical Institute, initiated the current Lutheran-Roman Catholic observances of the 450th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession of 1530.

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large measure fulfill this intention and to this extent can be regarded as an expression of the common faith."

The Commission hopes that "in the light of this consensus" it will be possible "to make a decisive advance from [our] present state of division to that of sister churches." The second part of the Confession (articles 22 to 28) treats "abuses" in the church of that time and reflects what the Commission recognizes as "a sometimes severe polemical position." But now "it must be said that changes have come about in the life and judgment of our churches that essentially remove the grounds for the sharp criticism expressed in the Augsburg Confession."

Such a statement could not have been issued ten years ago or even two years ago. In 1930 Lutherans observed the 400th of the Augsburg Confession as an occasion for chauvinistic confessionalism, accenting the conflict rather than any possible convergence with Rome. The Vatican-Lutheran World Federation statement could perhaps be viewed as satisfying the desire for recognition of the Augsburg Confession, thus permitting attention to be turned toward the larger prospect of reunion, the prospect that produced the statement and is advanced by it. The goal of reunion-the healing of the breach of the sixteenth century-is the context within which all discussion about recognizing Augsburg becomes really significant.

Vatican Council II, the labors of Faith and Order, the increasingly ecumenical nature of theological scholarship, the formal Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogues beginning in this country in 1965-these and other factors forged the agreement reflected in the Vatican-Lutheran World Federation statement on the Augsburg Confession. George Lindbeck of Yale, perhaps the leading Lutheran figure in the U.S. and international dialogues, has noted that parallels between the dialogues and the structure of the Confession were discovered after the fact. ("The Augsburg Confession in Light of Contemporary Catholic-Lutheran Dialogue" in The Role of the Augsburg Confession, edited by Joseph A. Burgess [Fortress, 1980]. Hereafter referred to as Burgess.)

From the Catholic side, Avery Dulles has similarly emphasized the context for considering the question of recognizing Augsburg: "Thus the time may not be far away when it will be possible for Catholics and Lutherans, without loss of their distinctive identities and without reaching full agreement on all doctrines, to recognize each other as belonging to the same ecclesial fellowship. Such a mutual recognition would be of vastly greater significance than a Catholic recognition of the Augsburg Confession." But, Dulles adds, if such fellowship does come about "there is no doubt that the Confession, thanks to its simultaneously Catholic and Lutheran character, will have prepared the way" (Burgess, p. 138).

This priority of reunion has also been evident in the current and exciting Lutheran-Roman Catholic interactions in major centers around the U.S. When three years ago Lutheran Forum magazine and

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the Graymoor Ecumenical Institute (Roman Catholic) convened a group to explore ways of stimulating grass roots interest in the results of the Lutberan-Roman Catholic dialogues, the question was asked whether there might be some special occasion with which to launch such an educational program. The forthcoming 450tb anniversary of the Augsburg Confession seemed the obvious answer. In sum, the Confession is a very important factor in Lutheran-Roman Catholic relations. Its recognition, in whatever form, by Rome as a Catholic'' confession is a symbolically appropriate response to the anniversary. But that recognition is not an end in itself, nor is further progress toward reunion contingent upon resolving the debate over what is meant by recognition of the Augsburg Confession.

The singular ecumenical importance of Augsburg is not limited to its being the almost universally normative confession among Lutherans, the largest non-Roman group of Christians in the West. In 1541 Calvin accepted Melanchthon's somewhat revised (confessio variata) version of Augsburg, and at the Peace of Westphalia in 1684 Calvinists were recognized as members of the confessional community of Augustana. Thomas Cranmer took many of his Forty-two Articles from the Augsburg Confession, thus making it a major foundation of the Church of England's Thirty-nine Articles. This broader reach of the Confession should be kept in mind in connection with the nervousness expressed by some other Protestants about the increasing rapproachement between Lutherans and Catholics. While some Lutherans, like some Anglicans, have traditionally taken pains to distance themselves from the category of Protestant, it seems the better part of historical fact, theological substance, and ecumenical strategy to emphasize that Lutherans are Protestants, perhaps even the paradigmatic Protestants.

If Lutheran Christians, as the elder brothers and sisters of the sixteenth century Reformation tradition, now discover that, for the sake of the gospel, division from Rome is no longer necessary (and therefore, precisely for the sake of the gospel, no longer permissible), other Protestants would have to ask what fidelity to the Reformation tradition means for them. In this light, Lutheran-Roman Catholic advance does not represent an instance of Lutherans "going their own way" but is an exercise of Lutheran leadership in helping to bring the Reformation to its fulfillment as a renewing movement in and for the whole church of Christ.

Not all Lutherans are enthusiastic about the prospect of Lutheran-Roman Catholic reunion. Especially in Germany and in some Scandinavian circles, the tone is much more cautious, even downbeat. Wolfhart Pannenberg's essay in the Burgess volume ("The Confessio Augustana as a Catholic confession and a Basis for the Unity of the Church") is a powerfully hopeful statement that, it must be admitted, represents a minority view among the Evangelische in Germany today.

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The reasons for this situation are several. The division between Evangelical and Catholic is a long-standing "given" not only of German church life but of political and legal arrangements that permeate German society. After World War 11, it is one of the few factors of continuity in German history. With their state-supported churches, the Germans are more inhibited in embarking upon major changes of vast social and political implications.

It is worth noting, for example, the difference between German and American responses to the censure of Hans Küng and other "conservative" actions of John Paul II. The American Lutheran response has been generally restrained, with comments taking account for the fact that, however flawed the Vatican's procedures, some form of doctrinal discipline is required in any community of serious intent about what it believes and confesses. There was also a tacit admission that, to a very large extent, Küng's deliberate provocations made some kind of official reaction inevitable. In Germany the reaction to the Küng affair has been more virulent. The Vatican action touched directly on established procedures for the churches' role in higher education. In addition to that, the Küng affair provided a useful occasion for opponents of Lutheran-Roman Catholic rapprochement, and there are many, to claim that "Rome has not changed after all." Several European Lutheran figures have gone so far as to declare that the Kung affair has set back ecumenical progress by decades and perhaps destroyed forever the prospects for reunion.

These extreme sentiments reflect another, and largely unspoken, resentment. It is no secret that over the last fifteen years it is the American and not the European theological dialogues that have made the most notable and substantial progress. European Lutherans, and Germans in particular, are not accustomed to taking their theological lead from America. Some Europeans will continue to grumble about American immaturity and impetuosity; but, if they are to maintain the fellowship represented in, for example, the Lutheran World Federation, they will reluctantly go along with, and maybe even join in advancing, the near irreversible changes in Lutheran-Roman Catholic understandings pioneered by the Americans.

Nor should it be thought that there is unanimity among American Lutherans on the possibility or desirability of reunion. Just this year the relatively small Wisconsin Synod (500,000 members) reaffirmed its position that the pope is the anti-Christ. The Missouri Synod, which is still trying to batten the doctrinal hatches to preserve its peculiar version of Lutheran orthodoxy, is making a point of observing this year as the 400th anniversary of the whole Book of Concord. Missouri is clearly more comfortable with the encrustations of schism than with the Augsburg Confession's irenic tone and ecumenical imperative. Even in the Lutheran Church in America, the American Lutheran Church, and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (the "interim" body that came out of Missouri's recent travail), there are some whose

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ecumenical focus is on some kind of merger among those three groups. They tend to view Lutheran-Roman Catholic reunion as a possible distraction from the goal.

But all the major jurisdictions, except Wisconsin, have been involved in the official dialogues and find it hard to resist the ecumenical momentum inherent in them. In addition, in all these groups there has been intense participation in the grass roots interactions between Lutherans and Roman Catholics. The exuberant gathering of more than four thousand this June in St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York, mutually confessing their church-dividing sins of the past and pledging themselves to unity, was only a more publicized instance of what is happening in Milwaukee, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, and a host of other places. All this creates a climate of opportunity and even pressure for Lutheran and Catholic officialdoms to act formally on the recommendations that have emerged from the dialogues.

Twenty years ago Lutheran pastor Max Lackmann published The Augsburg Confession and Catholic Unity (Sheed and Ward, 1959). Then the view that he and a few others espoused was considered, if it was considered at all, a marginal curiosity. Today some Lutheran leaders are asking, not always with pleased surprise, "You mean you're really serious about reunion with Rome?" The answer for the theological community and from church people is an emphatic Yes. The question asked by what now may be a majority of American Lutherans is not why, but why not?

III

Writing in Una Sancta in the early sixties, Carl Braaten of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago posed today's question in terms of exile and return ("Rome, Reformation, and Reunion"). Lutheranism, he wrote, had been forced unjustly into exile for the sake of the gospel; now, in light of Vatican Council II, the reasons for the exile had been removed, and it was time to return. The article evoked considerable interest but also drew flak from Lutherans and other Protestants who claimed Braaten's metaphor of "return" was tantamount to a sell-out of the Reformation and pandered to the residual triumphalism of Rome. Others made the less polemical point that no matter bow desirable, it simply is not possible to "return" to a situation more than four centuries prior. Too much had happened to pretend that the status quo ante could be restored.

Another metaphor of Lutheran identity in relation to Rome proved more serviceable. Ironically, it first gained currency in the "mission affirmations" adopted by the Missouri Synod in 1965 (four years prior to the coup by Jacob Preus). There it was declared that the destiny of Lutheransim is not to be another denomination, but to be a reforming evangelical movement in and for the one, holy, Catholic' and apostolic church. In this view, the ecumenical possibilities of today are viewed not as an abandonment of Lutheranism but as its fulfillment by continuing

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a reforming work that had been tragically interrupted in the sixteenth century. This self-understanding assumes that Lutheranism is not just for Lutherans ("You don't have to be Lutheran to like Lutheranism"), and certainly not to be contained within a separate Lutheran church. Obviously, the movement metaphor, unlike that of exile and return, has a dynamic feel that underscores a Lutheran sense of purpose and achievement. Although it is not nice to say so, it may also contain an element of Lutheran triumphalism: "Rome has finally come around to recognizing that the Reformers were right!" Roman Catholics, on the other hand, can afford to look humble for a time, confident that, whatever form reunion takes, Rome will be the symbolic center and more than equal party. To be sure, people genuinely concerned for unity do not keep such win-loss scorecards, but neither can these less edifying considerations be ignored if reunion is to be popularly accepted.

Ecclesiology is at the heart of the ecumenical task. Lutherans are frequently accused of lacking a full-orbed theology of the church, one that addresses itself also to questions of order and polity. There may be some truth in that. Article 7 of Augsburg hardly suggests the bare bones: "The church is the assembly of saints in which the Gospel is taught purely and the sacraments are administered rightly." Yet it may turn out that Lutherans, as ecclesiological easy riders, so to speak, are ecumenically better positioned for their task. Lutherans incline toward a laissez-faire attitude, simply putting into the bag of oddities called "adiaphora" what some others consider critically important. None of the potpourri of polities in Lutheranism-ranging from complete episcopacy to extreme congregationalism-has been endowed with a heavy theological investment. Lutherans have little difficulty in acknowledging that their ecclesial forms are emergency orders which were made necessary, they quickly add, by the obstinancy of Rome in forcing the sixteenth century schism. They have no problem with "regularizing" orders, if it is understood that, after all, the whole point of reunion is a kind of regularizing, putting the life of the church into better order. What Lutheran theology cannot accommodate and what Lutherans almost certainly would never accept is the slightest suggestion that their ministry of Word and sacrament, past and present, is being legitimated by reunion in the sense of supplying a grace previously lacking. The full grace of God and all the graces of God are present beyond question in the gospel, although, no doubt, grace can be given better expression.

Some critics have termed this approach "gospel reductionism," but it seems unlikely that Lutherans will be budged from it. As is noted in the introduction to Burgess, Roman Catholics in the dialogue have come to terms with this crucial Lutheran beginning point for ecclesiology: "Catholics in a certain sense end up adopting the Lutheran frame of reference by accepting the specific Lutheran conviction that the unity of the Church is based primarily not on the office of the Ministry or

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church order but on the consensus de doctrina and that it shows itself principally in common confession" (xiv).

This understanding of the church, which for the sake of its mission in the world should be more visibly one, is the context of the discussion about "recognizing" the Augsburg Confession. The Burgess volume is an admirable summary of the debate as of 1977, when most of the essays were published in German. As I have suggested, the momentum toward reunion has outstripped some of the arguments made only a few years ago. Some essays in Burgess are weakened by their treatment of the recognition question in isolation from that momentum.

Harding Meyer of the Strasbourg Institute for Ecumenical Research gives considerable attention to the various ways in which "recognition" might be defined, theologically and canonically. It may be that some of his prickly questions do not lend themselves to precise answers. In the making of ecumenical progress, there is a necessary diplomacy that some rigorists inevitably condemn as indifferentism. However recognition may be more stringently defined, if it needs to be stringently defined, it would seem that agreement has been reached that those who confess the Augsburg Confession need not be engaged in a church-dividing act. The importance of this point cannot be stressed too much. After all, as is manifestly clear especially from the Preface and Conclusion of Augsburg, it was precisely that point that Melanchthon and the other confessors were trying to establish in 15 30. The reformers did not insist that fellowship required that the whole of the western church be conformed to Reformation teaching and practice. They did demand (and at Augsburg it was more like a request) the freedom to proclaim the gospel as they understood it and to advance practical reform in accord with that understanding. The freedom of the gospel might be viewed as the minimalist demand made at Augsburg, but a Lutheran understanding of the gospel is that in that minimum is the maximum. If the gospel is allowed free course, everything else can be negotiated or even left hanging.

It might be objected, as Avery Dulles does in Burgess, that Augsburg contains some charges which it would be hard, if not impossible, for Rome to recognize as legitimate. He cites the example of Augsburg's claim that communion under one kind is contrary to the will of Christ. So it would also be difficult for some Lutherans to accept the at least equally warranted charge by Roman Catholics that the absence (among many Lutherans) of the mass as the normal Sunday service is contrary to the will of Christ. Neither group claims to possess a perfect understanding of or obedience to the will of Christ. This does not mean that reunion can be based upon a facile agreement to disagree. It can be based upon agreement that current disagreements are not churchdividing, and upon the freedom to advocate alternative convictions about the Spirit's leading of the church into all truth.

Recognition of Augsburg cannot mean the capitulation by one side to the other. It is unavoidably true that there are, implicitly and explicitly,

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strong judgments in the Augsburg Confession regarding some aspects of Catholicism then and now. Compared to the polemics that came before and after it, the Augsburg Confession is an irenic statement, but the confessors could hardly be expected to give up their business of reforming the church. Reform necessarily involves criticism and change. But it is misleading in the extreme to depict Augsburg as the statement of "the prosecution" and therefore conclude that recognition would be tantamount to Rome's pleading guilty (Jared Wicks, S.J., "Abuses under Indictment at Augsburg," Theological Studies [June 1980]).

Of course, recognition does mean a change in Rome's judgment; not a change in that they admit that the papal party was guilty as accused, but a change in acknowledging that the Augsburg Confession represents a position that can be tolerated and debated within one ecclesial fellowship. In fact, that is not so great a change as it may seem. Harry McSorley notes that some of the Roman party at Augsburg "were inches away from recognizing the Augsburg Confession as Catholic, not just on the doctrine of justification but also on virtually every other doctrinal article of the Confession." McSorley adds, "Surely that remarkable precedent of an 'almost' Catholic recognition of Augsburg 450 years ago should both encourage and challenge Catholics to complete the task in this time of ecumenical grace" (p. 147). This seems the more possible because, as the Vatican-Lutheran World Federation statement of this year suggests, the practical abuses criticized by Augsburg either have been changed or the advocates of their change are tolerated, even encouraged, in contemporary Catholicism.

Meyer outlines the significance of recognizing the Augsburg Confession in three steps. First, recognition would mean a changed "historicaltheological evaluation" of the meaning of the Reformation. Second, it would be recognized that "a church in which this confession occupies a central place and possesses binding authority is the church of Jesus Christ. This would then be a theological-ecclesiological judgment." Third, and necessarily following, would be the step of "ecumenical-ecclesial decision" deriving from the acknowledgment of Augsburg as a legitimate confession of the common faith. Several years later, it would seem that the first two steps have been taken, at least de facto, and official action from both sides is awaited regarding "ecumenical-ecclesial decision."

Walter Kasper of Tübingen proposes an understanding of recognition that perhaps includes all three of Meyer's steps. He suggests that "Catholic recognition of Augsburg would be more than merely a theological reception; it would be an official act.... on the basis of such an act, the Confession would be allowed as one legitimate expression of the common Catholic faith so that the ecclesiastical community which appeals to it would be given room within the unity of the Catholic Church. Nothing more, but also nothing less than this was intended by its presentation to Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530"

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(p. 124), In light of the dialogues and the Vatican-Lutheran World Federation statement, one is tempted to say that the healing of the breach of the sixteenth century has, in historical and theological judgment, already been effected. All that is needed now is hierarchical ratification of that judgment by both sides and the working out of the practical means for implementing the full fellowship it implies. But in fact there are a number of objections to this sanguine interpretation of our present moment.

The key objections and misgivings are alluded to in the Burgess volume. Three years later some of the authors might modify or temper their concerns. At the same time, it is reasonable to expect a backlash that would harden some objections, now that talk about reunion has moved from the ethereal realm of "ecumenical dialogue" to the decision-making life of the churches.

On the Roman Catholic side, a widespread uneasiness is expressed about who speaks authoritatively for the Lutheran church. It seems that some Catholics cannot restrain themselves from looking for a Lutheran counterpart to the juridical and magisterial authority structures of Rome. It is obvious that the Lutheran World Federation is not and is not likely to become that counterpart. Ecclesial action upon the consensus now reached will depend in part upon Rome's ability to work with Lutheran churches rather than "the" Lutheran Church. In this connection, it might be observed that Rome has a similar problem in working with the confused and sometimes conflicting jurisdictions within Eastern Orthodoxy.

On the Lutheran side, talk about reunion is still shadowed by the memory of "Melanchthonianism." That is a term of opprobrium that has almost the status of heresy in rigorist Lutheran circles. Philipp Melanchthon is accused of having betrayed the polemical macho of Martin Luther, of being willing to compromise the truth with both Rome and Calvinism in order to maintain or restore unity. Proponents of reunion must face the charge of Melanchthonianism head on. This perhaps requires a rehabilitation of Philipp Melanchthon. Certainly it means that Lutherans must insist more firmly and clearly that Lutheran confessional identity involves subscription to the confessions, notably Augsburg, and not to everything said or done by Martin Luther. This point seems to be lost even upon some Roman Catholics (for example, Jared Wicks) who play Luther's polemic against the irenic intent of the Augsburg Confession.

Another objection is more difficult, even embarrassing, to deal with. Despite what Lutherans say about the "tragic necessity" (Jaroslav Pelikan) of the sixteenth century division, and despite their claims to be theological easy riders with respect to structures and order, from a sociological and managerial viewpoint Lutheranism has produced enormous organizational interests that are fully comparable to those of

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traditions that do have a theological imperative to be a "church" rather than a "movement." Lutheranism may be a "movement" in seminary classrooms, but it is a "church" in denominational boardrooms and in the local yellow pages.

There is no doubt that institutional interests are threatened by the prospect of reunion. Herrmann Dietzfelbinger, retired bishop of Bavaria, puts the question with innocent poignancy: "Who would we be if the Roman Catholic Church were to recognize the Augsburg Confession?" The implication is that we need our enemies in order to justify our separate existence, and that may not be far from the truth. Bishop Dietzfelbinger touches on another factor, as mentioned earlier, what distinguishes the German from the American situation is the existence of "union churches" of mixed Lutheran and Calvinist confession. Lutheran-Roman Catholic rapprochement poses painful administrative and psychological problems in perhaps leaving out one of the Siamese twins of German spirituality.

Robert Jenson of Gettysburg raises a problem from a different angle. Although Augsburg is irenic, "it is vital to remember with equal rigor how radical a document Augsburg is." Cutting against both Roman Catholic and Lutheran patterns of faith and life, the Confession "is a proposal to subject all churchly teaching and practice to the critique formulated by the proposition that we are justified by faith alone" (p. 156). Thus, Augsburg is not so much the basis of negotiation between parties as it is a disturbing challenge to all parties. Avery Dulles makes a similar point. He wonders whether formal recognition might not be "counterproductive," whether it might not "domesticate" Augsburg and thus prematurely foreclose the reforming task that the Reformation impulse must continue in the whole church. Although he does not draw the analogy, his suggestion is like the argument in some circles that living Judaism must continue as a corrective to Christianity's propensity to absolutize itself. In this view it is implied that the Roman Catholic Church is the norm, the standard model, so to speak, and Lutheranism, with all its inadequacies, is the necessary error to keep Roman Catholicism on its toes.

Such a view hardly provides a rationale for Lutheranism acceptable to most Lutherans. With Jenson, one must wonder if it does not greatly overestimate the reforming vitality within Lutheranism. Jenson writes, "The Lutheran ferment is alive in Roman Catholicism itself; indeed, it probably is now livelier there than in the Lutheran denomination" (p. 163). In short, Augsburg hardly needs Roman Catholic recognition in order for the Lutheran witness to be domesticated. It is far from evident that Lutheranism's separate ecclesial existence sharpens the challenge of the Confession. In fact, the continued use of Augsburg as a kind of constitution for an established Lutheran church going about its business as usual would seem to blunt that challenge most grievously.

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Harding Meyer puts the objection that is perhaps most frequently encountered and is exemplified, as we have seen, in Missouri Synod's observing this year as the 400th anniversary of the Book of Concord. We cannot deal with the ecumenical intention of the Augsburg Confession, says Meyer, without taking into account "the accumulated burden of the history of separation." The Confession, he contends, has in fact been "changed" by the subsequent history of its interpretation and use. At first this appears as a dismal proposition. It would seem to invoke the necessity of digging through the mulch pile of mutual anathemas between later Lutheranism and Rome, of untangling the theological framework of countless battles barely remembered. But, toward the end of his essay, and in contrast to all the cautions he accumulates along the way, Meyer makes clear that he is not interested in justifying all the details of the burden of the history of separation. He acknowledges that all the other confessional writings in the Book of Concord, plus subsequent Lutheran statements, are more susceptible to the irenic intent of Augsburg than may at first seem to be the case. It is noted too that a confessional hermeneutic gives a normative status to the Confession. The Confession itself is not irreformable but is to be held to the norm of and renewed by reference to Scripture.

Meyer's initial proposition seems to suggest that the ecumenical intent of Augsburg has been changed by that intent's subsequent frustration. However, his essay ends on a much more hopeful note. Because of advances made in scriptural study and in our common understanding of the relationship between Scripture and tradition, and because of the imperatives and possibilities in the actual ecumenical situation of the living church, Meyer seems to share the confidence that the chief change in Augsburg is that now, at long last, its intent might be consummated.

If the intent of the Augsburg Confession must be given priority in all the dialogues and other interactions, Roman Catholics are also urging a more benign interpretation of the intent of the Confutatio, the papal response to the confessors at Augsburg. The element of tragic necessity is that on both sides key actors thought it necessary then and later to respond in ways that inevitably aborted their intent to maintain Christian unity. If the situation on both sides has now changed so that it is no longer necessary to respond in the same ways, can the intent be rescued from the accumulated burden of the tragedy? For Lutherans and Roman Catholics most immediately, but also for all who claim the Reformation heritage, the dividing point of the Augsburg Confession is in providing to be the meeting point at which that question can be answered positively.

Dulles is surely correct. The question of recognizing the Augsburg Confession is subordinate and instrumental to the restoration of full fellowship. Although it is necessary to be discussing it now, no one can say what form such fellowship will take. Conciliar fellowship, reconciled diversity, the uniat model, a parallel rite, dual membership-various

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phrases and concepts are proliferating. Some suggest that a council, convened by the pope but genuinely ecumenical in makeup and process, will be required to determine the form of reunion. However it happens, difficult, problems are posed by the two marian dogmas (immaculate conception and bodily assumption), promulgated since the division, and by papal infallibility. An irony may be that, while at Augsburg the question was whether the Lutherans could be tolerated, Lutherans may now face the question of whether they can tolerate some subsequent Catholic developments.

VIII

One hopes that in the next years Rome will, in close collaboration with concerned parties, submit for consideration specific terms for reunion. It is conceivable that-without undue delay and probably under the auspices of the Lutheran World Federation a majority of Lutherans could make a united response to such a proposal. But possibly the jurisdictional diversity-some would say confusion-of Lutheranism might then turn out to be a providential advantage. There will be no one act of reunion between the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church; there will at some point be a favorable response from a Lutheran church or churches. With that initiating reunion, the situation of all of Lutheranism will have changed. Lutherans who then care to maintain fellowship with other Lutherans will be inclined, if not compelled, to act out the logic that is inherent in the already prevailing consensus that the interim church called Lutheran must pursue its destiny as a movement for all the church in the healing of the breach of the sixteenth century.