Pope Benedict will honour the 16th century Protestant reformer Martin
Luther on his state visit to Germany later this month, but Roman Catholic
officials are warning Lutherans not to expect breakthroughs on issues
dividing them.
During the Sept 22-25 visit, the German-born
pontiff plans to stress ecumenical cooperation, meet Protestant leaders
and tour a monastery in Erfurt where Luther once worked and prayed.
He
will also address the German parliament in Berlin.
The visit
has prompted calls from Protestants for him to allow joint communion
services and grant their churches full recognition.
The tone is mostly
positive -- one theologian even suggested making him "honorary
spokesman" for all Christianity.
But senior Catholic clerics have begun warning Protestants not to get their hopes up too much.
"Hopes about this visit have gone wild," Rev. Hans Langendoerfer,
secretary of the German Bishops Conference, said in Monday's edition of
the weekly magazine Focus.
"There's talk Pope Benedict could
grant the Protestants a new status or could just say 'OK, let's
completely change those rules about communion services. It doesn't work
that way."
Catholic Bishop Joachim Wanke of Erfurt said last
week that Benedict's meeting there with Protestant leaders in the St
Augustine Monastery could foster closer ties, but also ruled out any
breakthroughs on basic differences.
VATICAN OPPOSES JOINT COMMUNION
Luther was a Catholic monk who sparked the Reformation in 1517 by challenging several doctrines and Vatican corruption.
After he was excommunicated, he established his own church, allowed
clergy to marry and translated the Bible into German.
Other dissenting
Christians elsewhere followed his example, launching a wide range of
Protestant denominations.
Catholics make up just over half the world's 2.2 billion Christians and Protestants about one-third.
Relations have improved markedly in the past 50 years, with growing
Christian cooperation as Western societies become more secular and Islam
spreads beyond its traditional regions.
But the Vatican
rejects calls for joint communion services, saying theological
differences about the eucharist are still too great, and Benedict annoys
Protestants by saying they don't have proper churches but only
"ecclesiastical communities."
"I'd be very happy if the pope
... recognised Protestant churches as proper churches," said Ilse
Junkermann, the female Protestant bishop of Erfurt who will host
Benedict's meeting with Protestant leaders at Luther's old monastery.
She told the Evangelical Press Service (epd) that Christians had to
work together in eastern Germany because so many people there were
atheists after four decades of communism.
FOCUS ON THE POSITIVE
Langendoerfer said Benedict would honour Luther's contributions to
Christianity such as his emphasis on the Bible and promotion of popular
piety.
"In Erfurt, Benedict will aim to get further away from
the idea that Protestants are first of all dissenters," he said.
"This
broad view of Christian history could be very fruitful as we approach
the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017."
Catholics
and Lutherans, who reached a conciliatory new view of their original
disputes in 1999 and lifted the mutual condemnations issued during the
Reformation, hope to come closer with a joint statement on the 500th
anniversary of the split.
Lutheran theologian Reinhard Frieling
got a bit ahead of the game this month when he wrote: "The dream of the
unity of all Christians can be realised if Protestants grant the pope
the role of the honorary head of Christianity."
After other
Lutheran theologians protested that that went too far, he said he wanted
unity "with but not under the pope" and the pontiff could speak for all
Christians only after consulting the non-Catholic churches.