In June and July of 2003, I took my bride of one year to Rome as our belated honeymoon to take the course "Ecumenical Theology from a Roman Catholic Perspective". I highly recommend the course to my brother and sister Pastors. The course is sponsored by the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, based in New York with the Centro Pro Unione in Rome. There are so many compelling reasons for a Lutheran Pastor to take this class, and it is obscenely inexpensive!
Throughout the course, I kept hearing the same refrain: Roman Ecumenically emphatically states that it is NOT about "coming home". I challenged the faculty and presenters with their seeming contradiction: 100% agreement is not necessary for a variety of ecumenical possibilities, but the non-negotiable are the Papacy and the necessity of fellowship with him to be necessary for a licit Eucharist.
The examples given to us of reunion without merger are the early monophysite Churches that have issues with Christology but are reconciled or overlooked for the sake of unity.
In spite of my best efforts, we could not come up with a model for Lutheran reunion while remaining Lutheran. My participation in the Course was prior to the Personal Prelature, which is an ingenious approach which has great potential for individual Lutheran priests who wish to become Roman for whatever reason. This approach is not practical for a "group fellowship" model that makes it more than just the personal.
My discussions in Lutheranism sounds to me like what I hear from the Orthodox, who are more of a diverse group than Lutherans could ever hope to be.
I have officially withdrawn myself from conscious attempts at prompting reunion with Rome. I came from Rome, became Lutheran at age 21 and long ago celebrated the anniversary of becoming Lutheran longer than I was Roman Catholic. I have a deep and lasting love and honor for the Roman Catholic Church for my formation and for the safety they provided me in a very, very difficult childhood and adolescence. The Roman Church nurtured me well, including the foreknowledge at age 7 that God was calling me to become a priest. The pastoral ministry I am privileged to serve in the LCMS allows me to be the reformed Catholic priest I am and enough "cover" to live the piety of a traditional Lutheran Pastor, nurtured and nurturing in the amazing Word of God and the life-sustaining Sacraments.
If there was a grand gesture by Rome to reconcile the Reformation of the 16th Century, I would certainly pay attention and find ways of presenting it as a positive thing to my parishioners, but would not necessarily be the first in line, or maybe even be in the line towards reunification and reconciliation.
This is a huge change in me in the past 20 years, and is a great shock to those who know my heart, even and especially my wife. What has changed in me is that the only interest I have is that which God initiates and brings about in spite of me and the LCMS!
