Last weekend Pope Benedict paid a visit to a Lutheran church in Rome, and with the Lutheran pastor presided over a liturgy of the word. It was another small but significant step along an ecumenical path that seems to be going uphill these days. We’ll look at the pope’s visit and the larger issues in dialogue today on the Vatican Report. I’m Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service Rome correspondent.And I’m John Thavis, CNS Rome bureau chief. The pope’s two-hour visit to the tiny German Lutheran parish in Rome was another one of those ecumenical events that once would have made headlines around the world. But like many of Pope Benedict’s gestures, it’s been done before: Pope John Paul II visited the same church in 1983. And in a certain sense, that’s what makes it more difficult for Pope Benedict XVI to get much ecumenical traction these days: he has inherited a great number of achievements in dialogue, but what remain are some very sensitive problems -- and they are problems this pope says must be looked at honestly.The big achievement with the Lutherans came just over 10 years ago, when Catholic and Lutheran churches reached an agreement on an issue that had divided them for nearly 500 years: how people are made just in the eyes of God and are saved by Jesus Christ -- the classic question of faith or good works. That brought the churches much closer together, but not close enough to share the sacrament of Communion. Which is why Pope Benedict’s liturgy last weekend did not include the Eucharist.The pope has resisted calls for shared Communion, and speaking to the Lutherans he seemed to be saying: Let’s not look at this as the glass half-empty. He said people should be thankful there is enough unity that they pray together, sing hymns together and listen to Scripture together. The big issues that remain to be solved with Lutherans and other Protestant denominations touch on fundamental areas like the nature and function of the church, and ministry. One pretty major concern on the Catholic side is the trend among Protestant churches to ordain women ministers and women bishops. Another issue is openly gay clergy, which the Catholic Church has prohibited. Some Protestant churches seem to be going in the opposite direction. To give one example, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has moved toward acceptance of openly gay and lesbian ministers, and there’s a vote coming up on that next month. These are new problems that were not foreseen when Martin Luther broke with the church in 1517 and set in motion the Reformation. This year marks the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s first visit to Rome. According to some of his biographers, it was this visit that planted the seeds of the Reformation. Luther was said to be shocked at the corruption in Rome, especially the buying and selling of clerical offices and the selling of indulgences. After Luther went public with his criticism and his rejection of church teachings like papal infallibility, he was excommunicated. Two years ago, a British newspaper ran a story saying Pope Benedict was going to rehabilitate Luther, arguing that Luther did not intend to split Christianity but only to purge the church of corrupt practices.That report turned out not to be true -- there was no major papal statement re-evaluating Luther. Maybe because, once again, Pope John Paul II had already done it. In 1983, the late pope spoke sympathetically about Luther’s “deep religious feeling,” and later he said that when it came to the Reformation, both sides shared the blame. I’m Cindy Wooden and I’m John Thavis, Catholic News Service.                       www.catholicnews.com

Last weekend Pope Benedict paid a visit to a Lutheran church in Rome, and with the Lutheran pastor presided over a liturgy of the word. It was another small but significant step along an ecumenical...leggi tutto