NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

    VALENCIA, SPAIN, DEC 16 (ZENIT).- On October 31, Australian Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, signed the Joint Catholic-Lutheran Declaration on Justification. However, this new-found agreement is not so new, according to statements made December 5 in Valencia: "There is nothing in this agreement tat is not in the Council of Trent or the Catholic tradition."

    In statements to the Archdiocese of Valencia's agency AVAN, the Cardinal emphasized that the documnet makes no judgment of the past, but that it affirms that that which Catholics and Lutherans hold today is the same as regards the doctrine of justification of salvation through faith.

    Cardinal Cassidy presided over the placing of the cornerstone of a future ecumenical temple in Oliva, Valencia. Our work, he said, "is based on the dialogue of truth." From this vantage point, "what happened in Luther's time is that some put the accent on good works, not so much in doctrine as in devotional practice, while others emphasized the divine aspect, justification which comes from the Lord."

    These different positions, "are not contradictory, but two ways of expressing the same truth, because the axis was then and is now found in the faith itself," according to Cardinal Cassidy, who believes that "the problem arises when one or another element is stressed, and one is removed from what is true."

    The Joint Declaration on Justification was signed on October 31 in the German city of Augsburg by Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy and Lutheran Bishop Christian Krause, president of the World Lutheran Federation. ZE99121505

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