Cardinal Kasper on An Invitation to Dialogue

(12 July 07 - RV ) The full text of the President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligous Dialogue, Cardinal Walter Kapser's reflection on the CDF document "An Invitation to Dialogue":
The Declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – an Invitation to Dialogue
 
Cardinal Walter Kasper (11 July 2007)
 

 
A first and quick reaction among Protestant Christians to the declaration of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith “Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church” has been one of irritation. But a second, quiet reading will show that the document does not say anything new. It explains and, in a brief summary, clarifies positions that the Catholic Church has held for a long time. Therefore, no new situation has developed. Nor is there any objective reason for outrage, or the feeling of being offended. Every dialogue presupposes clarity about the different positions. Our Protestant partners are the ones who have recently spoken about an ecumenism of profiles. If this declaration now explains the Catholic profile and expresses what, in a Catholic view, unfortunately still divides us, this does not hinder dialogue, but promotes it.

A thorough reading of the text makes clear that the document does not say that the Protestant churches are not churches, but that they are not churches in the proper sense, i.e. they are not churches in the sense in which the Catholic Church understands itself as church. For anyone even partly informed, this is purely self-evident. The Protestant churches do not want to be a church at all in the sense of the Catholic Church; they speak strongly of having another understanding of church and ministry in the church which, on the other hand, Catholics frankly do not consider to be the original one. Has not the recent Protestant document in Germany about ministry and ordination, done something similar, claiming that the Catholic understandings of the Church and the ministry of the Church are not the original one?

When, following the declaration “Dominus Iesus”, I said that the Protestant churches are churches of another type, this was not – as some reactions on the Protestant side seemed to assume – in contrast to the formulation of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but it was the attempt to interpret it objectively. And I want to do exactly the same thing now, since Catholics speak, now as always, of Protestant regional Churches (Landeskirchen), of the Protestant Church of Germany (Evangelische Kirche Deutschlands, EKD), of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany (Vereinigte Evangelisch Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands, VELKD), of the Church of England etc. The declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith does nothing else than to show that we do not use the one and same word Church completely in the same sense. Such a statement helps to clarify and to promote the dialogue.

The foundation of the dialogue is that there is more that unites us than divides us. Therefore we should not miss reading the positive statements of the declaration about the Protestant churches, namely, that Jesus Christ is effectively present within them for the salvation of their members. In the past this would by no means be an obvious statement; but now it includes – even though significant differences remain – the recognition of baptism, following Vatican II, and a series of positive statements about the Protestant eucharist (Decree on Ecumenism 22). Therefore, the declaration is not taking back anything of the ecumenical progress already reached, but drawing attention to the ecumenical task that still lies ahead. We should be offended by these differences, and not by those who point them out. The declaration is rather an urgent invitation to an objective dialogue that will help us move ahead.