2 - 2001

Protestans and Catholics in Germany

The Position of Pope

A Protestant debate

by Martin Schuck

A Lutheran-Catholic working group in Germany has been concerned during recent years with the theological differences between the two confessions and the issues they hold in common, and with the search for more common ground in the understanding of the office of Pope. The working group’s study has led to discussions in the German churches.

The agreement between the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church on the doctrine of justification has confirmed Lutheran theologians especially in their opinion that steps toward the visible unity of the church are possible through formulations of doctrinal consensus.

This far-reaching sense of trust in the formulation of consensus has recently been severely dampened by Dominus Iesus. However, a lively exchange is now taking place between Lutheran and Roman Catholic theologians on the question of the extent to which the Pope can exercise a "Petrine ministry”, which Protestants too can recognise, as a ministry to the unity of the church.

In the study "Communio Sanctorum – The Church as Communion of Saints”, which was made public by a bilateral working group of the German Bishops’ Conference and the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany precisely the day before Dominus Iesus was published, the Lutheran members of the working group affirmed that there were "no objections in principle” to a church-wide "Petrine ministry” as a pastoral ministry to the world-wide community of churches and their common witness to the truth.

However, this ministry must be "committed to being integrated into structures of collegial and synodal overall responsibility” and must respect the independence and confessional character of the particular regional churches. A further condition must be that the supremacy of the Holy Scriptures and the overall responsibility of all the baptised are preserved.

It is somewhat remarkable that now, after half a millennium, the Lutheran side is suddenly acting as though it were a theological necessity to talk with the Pope about the way in which he exercises his primacy. The fact that the Roman Catholic Church is currently being ruled and controlled from the Vatican with an intensity previously unknown in its history shows that the invitation to dialogue certainly does not mean that its primacy in either doctrine or jurisdiction are at disposal. Most likely there are other reasons for the sudden pleasure in the papal office. One of these reasons could be that the public media perceive the Pope more and more as representing all of Christendom.

One must admit that the media drive to personalise the Roman Catholic Church, because of the Pope’s charisma, gives him a decided advantage which poses a challenge to representatives of Protestant churches. The Protestant desire for a similarly symbolic personality which would give them as much presence in the media as he enjoys is only too understandable.

However, Protestants should take note that the media’s fixation on the Pope is determined not least of all by his legal position in the church. His primacy in doctrine and jurisdiction give him the possibility of making statements on the church’s behalf which are not within the province of any Protestant authority. At least here the non-theological factors in the longing for a papacy are confronted with theological reality.

It must be admitted that the recent Protestant concern with the papacy is motivated by both the longing for visible unity and the desire to share in the Roman Catholic Church’s success in the media. But caution is advised in assuming that the institution of the papacy can be reformed to the degree that it would become an honorary primacy which would serve as a visible symbol of unity, but would give up its position at the summit of the church legal structure.

Martin Schuck is Secretary for Scholarly Research at the Institute for Confessional Studies of the Evangelical Church in Germany. This article appeared in the December 2000 issue of the Protestant monthly "Zeitzeichen”. It is published here in abridged form.