Pope Benedict XVI to Visit the Lutheran Church

(March 13, 2010) Pope Benedict XVI will attend the evening worship in the Lutheran Church of Rome on Sunday, March 14. "We are pleased that Pope Benedict XVI, Bishop of our city, has agreed to participate in our worship," said the pastor of the church Jens-Martin Kruse, emphasizing the local nature of the event. Earlier Pope Benedict XVI had visited the Lutheran Church of Rome on October 19, 1998, then as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to take part in a debate on ecumenism with the Lutheran Bishop Wolfgang Huber of Berlin. This time, Pope Benedict XVI will deliver a discourse on John 12:20-26, with the theme of seed, which will bear fruit only by dying. The pastor will preach on hope and consolation of God taking his cue from the first chapter of the Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians. The Lutheran web site referred to the visit of Pope John Paul II who went there on December 11, 1983 at the five hundredth birth anniversary of the Reformer Martin Luther. The worship will begin at 17.30 in the evening and will be attended among others by the cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity; Cardinal Augustine Valin, vicar for the Diocese of Rome .In Rome, the Lutherans are present from the beginning of the nineteenth century, then still the Papal State. Today the church in Via Sicilia is led by Pastor Jens-Martin Kruse and consists of approximately 350 members.