Lutheran Catholic Joint Statement on the Occasion of the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation (2017)

Lutheran-Catholic Joint Statement on the Occasion of the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation at the Joint Meeting of the Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, USCCB and the Committee for Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Relations, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Conference of Bishops, The Lutheran Center, Chicago, Illinois, March 2, 2017

In joyful gratitude to God, we are gathered today to encourage one another in the ministry of reconciliation to which Christ has called us. Recalling the wisdom of the international Lutheran-Catholic dialogue report, "From Conflict to Communion," we affirm that "while the past itself is unalterable, the presence of the past in the present is alterable. In view of 2017, the point is not to tell a different history, but to tell that history differently." So, while the past cannot be changed, we rejoice in the healing of memories we have already seen, and we ask God's guidance toward a transformed future, renewed in our relations to one another and in our witness to the world.

Lutheran-Catholic-Signed-Joint-Statement-500th-Reformation-March-2017.pdf