Pope visits a Lutheran church for the first time

THE VISIT of Pope Paul to Rome's Evangelical Lutheran church in just over a week's time will be the first time that any Pope has visited a Lutheran church. Yet Lutheran and Catholic officials disagree as to its significance.
For Italian Lutheran officials it is only a local event, but a Vatican official says the visit will have international significance.
The Pope is scheduled to visit for one hour, during which he plans to offer a greeting, pray with the community and deliver a homily, according to Mgr Aloys Klein, who oversees Catholic-Lutheran relations for the Vatican Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity.
"It symbolises the growing community between the Catholic and Lutheran churches." said Mgr Klein. "It's a sign of unity for all the world to see."
Noting that there has been dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation since Vatican II, Mgr Klein stressed that the two churches have many things in common.
"We share the scriptures, an early creed and several early councils," he said. "The Catholic Church recognises Lutheran baptism. Catholics and Lutherans are brothers and sisters by baptism."
That the visit occurs during the 500th anniversary celebration of the birth of Martin Luther, who left the Catholic Church and founded the Lutheran Church, is also significant, he said.
But Together, the monthly
publication of Italy's Evangelical Lutheran Churches, views the visit differently. It said that "the Pope's visit is to be
seen as only to the Lutheran community in Rome" and not to the entire Lutheran Church. It said that "if figures from outside the community are invited to attend the visit of the Pope they should respect the limitations of such a visit."
Together also alluded to the controversy which the visit has provoked among Rome's Christian churches.
The visit, the periodical said. "is to be seen as encouragement and confirmation," but should "not contribute to the disturbance of very sensitive ecumenical efforts" in the Protestant world.
Several Christian churches in Rome, especially the Waldensian Church, which was established before the Protestant Reformation, have objected to the Pope's visit.