“Celebrating” the 500th anniversary of Luther’s Reformation means being “grateful” for 50th years of dialogue between Lutherans and Catholics; having “the hope” that the joint celebration may bear further fruits of dialogue and cooperation, and above all “repenting”, that is, asking to be forgiven for all the evil that has been made over the last 500 years. This is the answer given by cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for the Unity of Christians, to those who, even in the last few year, said that “there’s nothing to celebrate” about the 500th anniversary of Luther’s Reformation, since that reformation caused division within the Church and conflict. Speaking to the press in Rome this morning about the Pope’s journey to Lund, the Swiss cardinal points out that the word “celebrate” has different linguistic connotations: while “in Italian anything can be celebrated”, in German the word “celebrate” needs to be used in a more specific context. In this respect, Koch recalled that the document “From Conflict to Communion”, in which Catholics and Lutherans point out that the celebration of Luther’s Reformation is based on “three strong points”: the first point is “gratitude for all that we have found we have in common again” over the last 50 years of Catholic-Lutheran dialogue, which has been “the first bilateral dialogue started in 1967 just after the Second Vatican Council”. The second strong point is “the hope that this joint celebration may bear good fruits in the future”. As to the third point, the cardinal immediately pointed out that “Luther did not mean to make divisions, to create new churches, he wanted to renew the Catholic Church and that was not possible back then, and that led to divisions and even to terrible wars, like the Thirty Years’ War that has turned Europe into a blood-red sea”. It’s clear then that “this cannot be celebrated but must be repented about”.
The joint celebration was also addressed by rev. Martin Junge, general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation: “We have seen so many signs that have become possible”, he said. “For instance, in the Eighties, nobody would have ever believed that we would find agreement about the justification, and instead we did. If just a few years ago anyone had told us that we would have a joint celebration between Lutherans and Catholics about the Reformation, many would have said: that’s impossible. Personally, such events are encouraging, because they mean that many allegedly impossible things can be possible. In the scenario we live in nowadays, in a fragmented world, wounded by conflicts, I think that communion between Christians and the fact that Lutherans and Catholics express mercy and forgiveness before the world is a powerful testimony of Christ to the world. I think it can help a lot”.