ecumenism and dialogue" "
Two years after the ecumenical Kirchentag of the Churches of Berlin, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, president of the German Bishops’ Conference and Evangelical Bishop Wolfgang Huber, chairman of the Council of the German Evangelical Church, have newly emphasized the aspects held in common between their Churches. The occasion for their joint declaration was the Congress of the Evangelical Church in Hanover, which Cardinal Lehmann visited at the end of May. “We are first and foremost Christians, and only secondarily Protestants or Catholics”, declared Huber, expressing the hope that “an ecumenical signal would newly emerge from Hanover” and pointing out in particular the joint commitment of the Churches to “encourage young couples to have more children”, since “the joy of having children is one of the most wonderful forms of happiness that it is possible to have in life”. Commenting on the ecumenical process, Cardinal Lehmann, while underlining that at the level of joint eucharistic celebration “due appreciation must be shown for the patience of maturation”, reaffirmed, in a discussion with Evangelical theologian Eberhard Jüngel, that “no alternative exists to the common ecumenical process”. For his part, Jüngel expressed his opposition to any joint eucharistic celebration purely for “demonstrative purposes”, something he called “religious kitsch”, and stressed the need for “both sides to continue the ecumenical process without cease”, because, he added, “to stop means to go backward”.
