Vatican City, Jan 8, 2021 / 00:00 am
The Vatican’s ecumenical office is preparing a “joint message” on Martin Luther with the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), a cardinal said Friday.
Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, told Vatican News on Jan. 8 that, 500 years on, the Vatican and the LWF had “faced the challenge of clarifying, from the ecumenical point of view, the historical, theological, and canonical questions relating to the excommunication of Martin Luther.”
“This task has been entrusted for some time to an ecumenical group of experts,” Koch said, adding that he believed that “in the near future it will be possible to issue a ‘Joint Message.’”
Jan. 3 marked the 500th anniversary of the excommunication of Martin Luther by Pope Leo X. According to Koch, “this event continues to represent a painful wound in the history of Catholic-Lutheran division.”