HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The ''Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification'' (JDDJ) is a document created and agreed to by the
Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...
's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU) and the
Lutheran World Federation The Lutheran World Federation (LWF; german: Lutherischer Weltbund) is a global communion of national and regional Lutheran denominations headquartered in the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Switzerland. The federation was founded in the Swedish ...
in 1999 as a result of extensive ecumenical dialogue. It states that the churches now share "a common understanding of our justification by
God's In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
grace through
faith Faith, derived from Latin ''fides'' and Old French ''feid'', is confidence or trust in a person, thing, or In the context of religion, one can define faith as "belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion". Religious people ofte ...
in
Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...
." To the parties involved, this essentially resolves the 500-year-old conflict over the nature of justification which was at the root of the
Protestant Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and i ...
. The
World Methodist Council The World Methodist Council (WMC), founded in 1881, is a consultative body and association of churches in the Methodist tradition. It comprises 80 member denominations in 138 countries which together represent an estimated 80 million people; this ...
adopted the ''Declaration'' on 18 July 2006. The
World Communion of Reformed Churches The World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) is the largest association of Calvinist churches in the world. It has 230 member denominations in 108 countries, together claiming an estimated 80 million people, thus being the fourth-largest Chris ...
(representing the "80 million members of Congregational, Presbyterian, Reformed, United, Uniting, and Waldensian churches"), adopted the ''Declaration'' in 2017. In substance, the PCPCU and the Lutheran World Federation acknowledge in the declaration that the
excommunication Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to end or at least regulate the communion of a member of a congregation with other members of the religious institution who are in normal communion with each other. The purpose ...
s relating to the doctrine of justification set forth by the
Council of Trent The Council of Trent ( la, Concilium Tridentinum), held between 1545 and 1563 in Trent (or Trento), now in northern Italy, was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation, it has been described a ...
do not apply to the teachings of the Lutheran churches set forth in the text; likewise, the churches acknowledged that the condemnations set forth in the
Lutheran Confessions ''The Book of Concord'' (1580) or ''Concordia'' (often referred to as the ''Lutheran Confessions'') is the historic doctrinal standard of the Lutheran Church, consisting of ten credal documents recognized as authoritative in Lutheranism since ...
do not apply to the Catholic teachings on justification set forth in the document.


Reception

Support for the joint declaration was not universal among Lutherans. Of the 124 members of the Lutheran World Federation, 35 cast votes against JDDJ; these included many churches who are also members of the International Lutheran Council. Member churches of the
Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference The Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference (CELC) is an international fellowship of 34 Confessional Lutheran church bodies. The CELC was founded in 1993 in Oberwesel, Germany with an initial thirteen church bodies. Plenary sessions are hel ...
even stated that "JDDJ...should be repudiated by all Lutherans." Some Catholics have raised other objections. Some contend that the Lutheran signers do not have the required authority to represent their communities (since, from a Catholic perspective, they are not full churches) and, therefore, that no Lutheran can make the agreement binding on the constituents of the Lutheran World Federation. The final paragraph of the ''Annex to the Official Common Statement, ''however, settles this matter. Other Catholics object to the statement itself, arguing that it is out of line with the Council of Trent, but the document is clear that it is not negating or contradicting any statements from Trent; rather, it is arguing for the non-applicability of its canons to concrete Christian bodies in the modern world. The document was approved by the Vatican under the auspices of the PCPCU, which was established by
Pope John XXIII Pope John XXIII ( la, Ioannes XXIII; it, Giovanni XXIII; born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, ; 25 November 18813 June 1963) was head of the Roman Catholic Church, Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City, Vatican City State from 28 Oc ...
at the
Second Vatican Council The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the , or , was the 21st ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church. The council met in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome for four periods (or sessions), each lasting between 8 and ...
and is headed by a
Catholic bishop In the Catholic Church, a bishop is an Holy Orders, ordained Minister (Catholic Church), minister who holds the fullness of the Sacraments of the Catholic Church, sacrament of Holy orders in the Catholic Church, holy orders and is responsible ...
; thus, the declaration is (at least) an exercise of the ordinary
magisterium The magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church is the church's authority or office to give authentic interpretation of the Word of God, "whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition." According to the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Chu ...
of the episcopally consecrated individuals who authorized the statement. A clarification was issued jointly by the PCPCU and the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) is the oldest among the departments of the Roman Curia. Its seat is the Palace of the Holy Office in Rome. It was founded to defend the Catholic Church from heresy and is the body responsib ...
, which is also an exercise of the ordinary magisterium. On 18 July 2006, the
World Methodist Council The World Methodist Council (WMC), founded in 1881, is a consultative body and association of churches in the Methodist tradition. It comprises 80 member denominations in 138 countries which together represent an estimated 80 million people; this ...
, meeting in
Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the Capital city, capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the North Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea ...
,
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
, voted unanimously to adopt the document. The leadership of the
World Communion of Reformed Churches The World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) is the largest association of Calvinist churches in the world. It has 230 member denominations in 108 countries, together claiming an estimated 80 million people, thus being the fourth-largest Chris ...
—representing 80 million members of Congregational, Presbyterian, Reformed, United, Uniting and Waldensian churches—also signed the document and formally associated with it at an ecumenical prayer service on 5 July 2017. In 1986 the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) produced a statement called "Salvation and the Church", which observed that the two Communions are agreed on the essential aspects of the doctrine of salvation and on the Church’s role within it. Consequently,
Anglican Consultative Council The Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) is one of the four "Instruments of Communion" of the Anglican Communion. It was created by a resolution of the 1968 Lambeth Conference. The council, which includes Anglican bishops, other clergy, and lait ...
Resolution 16.17 "welcomes and affirms the substance of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ), signed by Lutherans and Roman Catholics in 1999", in the St. Anne's Church in
Augsburg Augsburg (; bar , Augschburg , links=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabian_German , label=Swabian German, , ) is a city in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany, around west of Bavarian capital Munich. It is a university town and regional seat of the ' ...
,
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...
.


References


External links


Text of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20060910215004/https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_31101999_cath-luth-official-statement_en.html Official Common Statement by the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church]
LCMS - The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in Confessional Lutheran PerspectiveMethodist Statement on Adoption of the Declaration
{{Intermediates between Catholicism and Protestantism 20th-century Christian texts Catholic–Protestant ecumenism 20th-century Lutheranism Lutheran texts 20th-century Catholicism 1999 in Christianity