Lutheran/Catholic Joint Declaration on Justification (1999) : Ecumenism Getting in the Way of Doctrine

In 1999 the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church signed a Joint Declaration on Justification, and many hailed it as a breakthrough. Robert Sungenis, who had already written on the Declaration for Our Sunday Visitor's The Catholic Answer, offers here a fair and honest assessment of what the document is and what it is not, weighing its good points and its not-so-good ones, and asks whether ecumenical goodwill was allowed to get in the way of doctrine.

He accounts for the significant developments, including the later “Annex” that changed some of the wording, and the signing of the Declaration and its Annex on October 31, 1999. As he notes, the signer for the Catholic Church was Cardinal Edward Cassidy; neither Pope John Paul II nor the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was present at the signing or sought to sign afterward.