Luther and the unity of

the churches: an interview

with Joseph Cardinal
Ratzinger

The interconnection between

church and theology is the issue:
wherever this unity comes to an end,
any other kind of unity will
necessarily lose its roots.

Question: Where does Luther scholarship stand

today? Have there been any attempts to research Luther's the-
ology, beyond existing historical investigations?
Cardinal Ratzinger: Nobody can answer this ques-
tion in a few sentences. Besides, it would require a special kind
of knowledge which I do not possess. It might be helpful,
however, briefly to mention a few names which represent the
various stages and trends of Catholic Luther scholarship. At the
beginning of the century we have the decidedly polemical work
by the Dominican H. Denifle. He was responsible for placing
Luther in the context of the Scholastic tradition, which Denifle
knew better than anybody else because of his intimate knowl-
edge of the manuscript materials. He is followed by the much
more conciliatory Jesuit, Grisar, who, to be sure, encountered
various criticisms because of the psychological patterns in which
he sought to explain the problem of Luther. J. Lortz from Luxem-
bourg became the father of modern Catholic Luther scholarship.
He is still considered the turning-point in the struggle for an
historically truthful and theologically adequate image of Luther.
Against the background of the theological movement between
the two world wars, Lortz could develop new ways of question-
ing which, subsequently, would lead to a new assessment of
 Luther and the unity of the churches 211

Luther. Meanwhile, the liturgical, biblical, and ecumenical

movements on both sides have changed a lot of things. The
Protestant side engaged in a renewed search for sacrament and
church, that is for the Catholic Luther (K. A. .Meissinger).Cathol-
ics strove for a new and more direct relationship with Scripture
and, simultaneously, sought a piety which was shaped against
the background of traditional liturgy. Much criticism was
directed at many a religious form which had developed during
the second millenium, especially during the nineteenth century.
Such criticism discovered its kinship with Luther. It sought to
emphasize the "Evangelical" in the Catholic. It was against this
background that Lortz could describe the great religious
impulses which stimulated the reformer and which generated
theological understanding of Luther's own criticism that had its
roots in the late medieval crises of church and theology. With this
in mind, Lortz proposed the famous thesis for the period of the
great change in the thinking of the reformer: "within himself
Luther wrestled and overthrew a Catholicism that was not Cath-
olic."l Paradoxically, he could have based his thesis on Denifle
who demonstrated that Luther's revolutionary interpretation of
Romans 1:17, which Luther himself later interpreted as the actual
turning-point of the Reformation, in reality corresponded to the
line of arguments presented by the medieval exegetical tradi-
tion. Even concerning the period around 1525 during which,
following Luther's excommunication and his polemics which
were aimed at the center of Catholic doctrine, the contours of a
new evangelical church organization became apparent, Lortz
thought he could safely say that Luther was "not yet aware of the
fact that he was outside the Church."2 Though Lortz did not
minimize the deep rift which really began to take shape in the
controversies of the Reformation, it seemed simple enough,
following his work and by simplifying his statements, to
develop the thesis that the separation of the churches was, really,
the result of a misunderstanding and that it could have been
prevented had the church been more vigilant.
The generation following Lortz stressed various
aspects: scholars such as E. Iserloh, P. Manns, and R. Baumer
illustrate how, in departure from Lortz, rather varied directions
and positions could be assumed and developed. Younger the-
ologians, such as 0. H. Pesch or J. Brosseder, were pupils of H.
Fries and remained essentially within the perimeter of J. Lortz. I
]Joseph Lortz, The Reformation in Germany, trans. Ronald Walls (London:
Darton, Longrnan & Todd, 1968), I, p. 200.
2Lortz, p. 487.
!
I
j
I' 212 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
1 /

would like to mention two outsiders who stand apart from

theology as it is taught in the classroom because of the way in
which they approach the phenomenon of Luther: first of all the
Indologist Paul Hacker, a convert, in his book on Luther entitled
Das Ich im Glauben (Faith and the Ego)3 where he perhaps also
documents his own spiritual voyage. He concerned himself with
the structure of Luther's act of faith. He saw the actual turning-
point of the Reformation in the change in the basic structure of
the act of faith. Subsequently, he vehemently opposed the the-
ory of a misunderstanding as well as all ideas advocating con-
vergence and a complementary nature. Theobald Beer, a pastor
in Leipzig, has been tenaciously devoting his life to the reading
of Luther as well as the late medieval theology prior to Luther.
He has studied not only the changes in theological thought in
the difference between Luther and Scholasticism, but also
between Luther and St. Augustine. In doing so, he has verified
important shifts in the design of a Christology which, postulat-
ing the idea of "sacred bargaining," is completely bound up with
anthropology and the teachings on grace. This new construct,
that is, the changed basic configuration of a sacred bargaining
(which Beer insists is found continuously from the early to the
late Luther) expresses, in Beer's opinion, the reformer's com-
pletely different and new attitude toward faith which permits no
harmonization.
Thus it should be clear that there cannot be any
Luther scholarship which does not at the same time involve
research into his theology. One cannot simply approach Luther
with the distant eye of the historian. To be sure, his theology
must be analyzed and interpreted from an historical point of
view, but, for the Christian historian, it emerges inevitably from
the past, affecting him in the present. As far as the directions of
this research are concerned, I believe that today one can discern
two basic tenets with respect to which Harnack already saw the
basic alternatives: with his catechism, his songs and his liturgical
directives Luther created a tradition of ecclesiastical life in the
light of which we can both refer to him as the "father" of such an
ecclesiastical life and interpret his work with evangelical church-
liness in mind. On the other hand, Luther also created a the-
ological and polemical opus of revolutionary radicality which he
by no means retracted in his political dealings with the princes
and in his stand against the leftists within the Reformation. Thus
one can also comprehend Luther on the basis of his revolution-
ary break with tradition-and one will, on such a reading, then
arrive at quite a different overall view. It would be desirable to
keep in mind Luther's piety when reading his polemical works
 - . - - -

Luther and the unity of the churches 213

- - -

and the revolutionary background when dealing with issues

concerning the Church.
Question: Would it be realistic for the Catholic
Church to lift Luther's excommunication on the basis of the
results of more recent scholarship?
Cardinal Ratzinger: In order to do full justice to this
question one must differentiate between excommunication as a
judicial measure on the part of the legal community of the
Church against a certain person, and the factual reasons which
led to such a step. Since the Church's jurisdiction naturally only
extends to the living, the excommunication of a person ends
with his death. Consequently, any questions dealing with the
lifting of Luther's excommunication become moot: Luther's
excommunication terminated with his death because judgment
after death is reserved to God alone. Luther's excommunication
does not have to be lifted; it has long since ceased to exist.
However, it is an entirely different matter when we
ask if Luther's proposed teachings still separate the churches
and thus preclude joint communion. Our ecumenical discus-
sions center on this question. The inter-faith commission
instituted following the Pope's visit to Germany will specifically
direct its attention to the problem of the exclusions in the six-
teenth century and their continued validity, that is, the pos-
sibility of moving beyond them. To be sure, one must keep in
mind that there exist not only Catholic anathemas against
Luther's teachings but also Luther's own definitive rejections of
Catholic articles of faith which culminate in Luther's verdict that
we will remain eternally separate. It is not necessary to borrow
Luther's angry response to the Council of Trent in order to prove
the definiteness of his rejection of anything Catholic: ". . . we
should take him-the pope, the cardinals, and whatever riffraff
belongs to His Idolatrous and Papal Holiness-and (as blas-
phemers) tear out their tongues from the back, and nail them on
the gallows . . . . Then one could allow them to hold a council,
or as many as they wanted, on thc gallows, or in hell among all
the devils."5 After his final break with the Church, Luther not

3Paul Hacker, Das Ich im Glauben (Graz, 1966).

4Theobald Beer, Derfrohliche Wechsel und Streit: Grundzuge der TheologieMartin
Luthers (1st ed., Leipzig, 1974. Second ed., enlarged, Einsiedeln, 1980).
5Wider das Papsttum in Rom, vom Teufel gestiftet, quoted by Cardinal Ratzinger
from A. Lapple, Martin Luther: Leben, Bilder, Dokumente (Munich/Zurich, 1982),
pp. 252f. (The above translation is from Luther's Works, vol. 41 [Church and
Ministry 1111, Helmut T. Lehmann, general ed. [Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
19661, p. 308.)
214 Josqh Cardinal Ratzinger

only categorically rejected the papacy but he also deemed the

Catholic teachings about the eucharist (mass) as idolatry because
he interpreted the mass as a relapse into the Law and, thus, a
denial of the Gospel. To explain all these contradictions as mis-
understandings seems to me like a form of rationalistic
arrogance which cannot do any justice to the impassioned strug-
gle of those men as well as the importance of the realities in
question. The real issue can only lie in how far we are today able
to go beyond the positions of those days and how we can arrive
at insights which will overcome the past. To put it differently:
unity demands new steps. It cannot be achieved by means of
interpretative tricks. If separation occurred as a result of contrary
religious insights which could locate no space within the tradi-
tional teachings of the Church, it will not be possible to create a
unity by means of doctrine and discussion alone, but only with
the help of religious strength. Indifference appears only on the
surface to be a unifying link.
Question: Can we claim that the present-day plu-
ralism in the theologies of both the Catholic and the Protestant
churches will ease the way toward an approximation among the
churches or merely an approximation among Catholic and Prot-
estant theologians?
Cardinal Ratzinger: Here, as always, we will first
have to explain the term pluralism. Also, we will have to discuss
the relationship between theology and Church. It is an indis-
putable phenomenon that Catholic and Lutheran exegetes have
come closer as a result of the advances of the historico-critical
method and the more recent methods of literary scholarship, so
much so that the church affiliation of the individual exegete is
hardly relevant any longer as far as the results are concerned:
under certain circumstances, a Lutheran exegete may think
more along "Catholic" lines and be more in tune with tradition
than his Catholic counterpart. Thus the latest biblical reference
works feature both Catholic and Lutheran exegetes, depending
on their specialization. The only distinction that remains
appears only to be their respective area of research. The jointly
published Lutheran-Catholic commentary illustrates these
points. It is here interesting to note that Lutheran exegetes have
a more pronounced tendency to rely more heavily on their
"fathers" (Luther, Calvin) and to include them as actual discus-
sants in their endeavors to grasp the meaning of Scripture than
their Catholic counterparts who appear largely to agree that
Augustine, Chrysostom, Bonaventure and Thomas have noth-
ing to contribute to modern exegesis.
Of course, one could ask what kind of a community
 Lufher and fhe u n i f y of the churches 215

such an agreement among exegetes would create. While Har-

nack thought that there was no more of a solid foundation than a
commonly shared historical method, Karl Barth treated this
attempt to establish unity with irony, calling it sheer illusion.
Indeed, a common method will create unity; however, it also is
capable of continually generating contradictions. Particularly,
scholarly agreement on findings designates a different level of
unity from, say, an agreement on ultimate convictions and deci-
sions with which we concern ourselves when we deal with
questions of church unity. The unity of scholarly results is essen-
tially revisable at any time. Faith is a constant. The history of
reformed Christianity very clearly illustrates the limitations of
exegetic unity: Luther had largely abandoned the line separating
the teachings of the church from theology. Doctrine which runs
counter to exegetic evidence is not a doctrine to him. That is why,
throughout his life, his doctorate in theology represented to him
a decisive authority in his opposition to the teachings of Rome.
The evidence of the interpreter supplants the power of the
magsterium. The learned academic (Doctor) now embodies the
magisterium, nobody else. The fact that the teachings of the
Church became thus tied to the evidence of interpretation has
become a constant question mark in church unity itself, ever
since the beginnings of the Reformation. For it is this revisable
evidence which became an inevitably explosive charge against a
unity understood from within. Yet unity without content
remains empty and will wither away. The unifying effect of
theological pluralism is thus only temporary and sectional.
There is inherent in pluralism the inability ultimately to become
a basis for unity.

N evertheless, it is true that agreement among

exegetes is capable of surmounting antiquat<d contradictio~c
and of revealing their secondary character. It can create new
avenues of dialogue for all the great themes of intra-Christian
controversy: Scripture, tradition, magisterium, the papacy, the
eucharist, and so on. It is in this sense that there is, indeed, hope
even for a church which undergoes the afore-mentioned tur-
moil. However, the actual solutions which aim for deeper
assurance and unity than merely that of scholarly hypotheses
cannot proceed from there alone. On the contrary, wherever
there develops a total dissociation of Church and exegesis, both
II ;
! 216 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
I '
become endangered: exegesis turns into mere literary analysis
and the church loses her spiritual underpinnings. That is why
the interconnection between church and theology is the issue:
wherever this unity comes to an end, any other kind of unity will
necessarily lose its roots.
Question: Are there still any serious differences
between the Catholic Church and the Reformed Churches and,
if so, what are they?
Cardinal Ratzinger: The fact that now as ever there
are serious differences is illustrated by the existence of papers of
agreement which have been published in great numbers in
recent years. This is particularly evident in the most progressive
dialogues: in the Anglican-Catholic and the Orthodox-Catholic
dialogue. To be sure, the Anglican-Catholic documents, made
public in 1981, claim to have come up with a basic pattern with
which to solve the controversial issues, but they do not insist, by
any means, to have arrived at any final solutions. Not only the
official reply of the Congregation of Faith but also diverse other
publications have amply emphasized the grave problems inher-
ent to these documents. Similarly, the Catholic-Lutheran docu-
ment concerning the Lord's Supper does not conceal in the old
controversies, in spite of the many important convergences, the
fact that many unsolved issues remain.6 The skillful approach
leading to unity as suggested by H. Fries and K. Rahner in their
theses, remains an artificial exploit of theological acrobatics
which, unfortunately, does not live up to reality.7 It is impossible
to direct denominations toward each other as in a military exer-
cise and then to pronounce: the importance lies in the marching
together; individual thought is of lesser importance. Church
unity feeds on the unity of fundamental decisions and convic-
tions. The operative unity of Christians is something different. It
does, thank God, already exist in parts and it could be much
stronger and more comprehensive, even without solving the
actual questions of unity.
To get back to the original question about what
separates the Churches, entire libraries have been written on the
subject. To answer it succinctly and concisely is rather difficult.
Of course, one can readily focus on a number of questions where
controversies exist: Scripture and tradition, that is, especially,
Scripture and magisterium. Also, in conjunction with this, the
question of the spiritual magisterium per se, apostolic succes-
sion as a sacramental form of tradition and its epitome in the
papal office, the sacrificial character of the eucharist and the
issue of transsubstantiation and, thus, of eucharistic adoration
and prayer outside the mass (while there is fundamental agree-
 Luther and the unity of the churches 217

ment on the presence of Christ), the sacrament of penanc?,

varying views in the area of Christian morality whereby, of
course, again the magisterium figures very prominently, and so
on. Yet such an enumeration of controversial matters of doctrine
will trigger the question concerning the fundamental decision:
does all this rest on a fundamental difference, and, if so, can it be
pinpointed? When, during the festivities surrounding the anni-
versary of the Confessio Augustana in 1980, Cardinal Willebrands
noted that the roots had remained despite the separations dur-
ing the sixteenth century Cardinal Volk, afterwards, asked both
humorously and seriously: Now I would like to know if the
contraption of which we speak here is, for instance, a potato or
an apple-tree? Or, to put it differently: is everything, with the
exception of the roots, merely leaves, or is it the tree which grew
from the roots that is important? How deep does the difference
really go?
Luther himself was convinced that the separation of
the teachings from the customs of the papal Church-to which
separation he felt obligated-struck at the very foundation of the
act of faith. The act of faith as described by Catholic tradition
appeared to Luther as centered and encapsulated in the Law
while it should have been an expression of the acceptance of the
Gospel. In Luther's opinion, the act of faith was turned into the
very opposite of what it was; for faith, to Luther, is tantamount to
liberation from the Law, but its Catholic version appeared to him
as a subjugation under the Law. Thus Luther was convinced that
he now had to carry on St. Paul's fight against the so-called
Judaizers in the Epistle to the Galatians and turn it into a fight
against Rome and Catholic tradition per se. The identification of
the positions of his time with those of St. Paul (we may see in it a
certain identification of himself and his mission with St. Paul) are
fundamental aspects of his life. It has become fashionable to
insist that there are no longer any controversies concerning the
teachings on justification. The fact is that Luther's questioning is
no longer valid: neither Luther's consciousness of his sinfulness
and his fear of hell, nor the terror he felt vis-a-vis divine Majesty
and his cry for mercy. His views on the freedom of the will which
had already roused the opposition of Erasmus of Rotterdam are
also hard to understand now. Conversely, the justification

6Joint Roman Catholic/Evangelical Lutheran Commission, The Lord's Supper

(Paderborn and Frankfurt, 1979).
7H. Fries and K. Rahner, Einigung der Kirchen-reale Moglichkeit (Freiburg,
1983). First critical remarks on this are found in the review by H.-J. Lauter in
Pastoralblatt 9 (1983): 286f.
218 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

decree of Trent had already emphasized the pre-eminence of

grace so strongly that Hamack believed that, if its text had been
available, the Reformation would have had to take a different
course. However, after Luther's lifelong insistence on the central
differences in the teachings on justification, it seems justifiable
to assume that it is here that we will, most likely, discover the
fundamental difference. I am unable to elaborate on all this
within the context of an interview. Thus, I will try briefly, though
in necessarily biased and fragmentary fashion, to comment and,
in doing so, attempt at least a perspective on the issues at hand.

I t seems to me that the decisive cause of the breach

cannot be found solely in changes in the constellation of ideas
and in the concomitant shifts in theological theory, no matter
how important these elements are. For there is no denying the
truth that a new religious movement can be generated only by a
new religous experience which is, perhaps, aided by the total
configuration of an epoch and which incorporates its resources
but is itself not consumed by them. It seems to me that the basic
feature is the fear of God by which Luther's very existence was
struck down, torn between God's calling and the realization of
his own sinfulness, so much so that God appears to him sub
contrario, as the opposite of Himself, i.e., as the Devil who wants
to destroy man. To break free of this fear of God becomes the real
issue of redemption. Redemption is realized the moment faith
appears as the rescue from the demands of self-justification, that
is, as a personal certainty of salvation. This "axis" of the concept
of faith is explained very clearly in Luther's Little Catechism: "I
believe that God created me. . . . I believe that Jesus Christ . . . is
my Lord who saved me . . . in order that I may be His . . . and
serve Him forever in justice and innocence forever." Faith
assures, above all, the certainty of one's own salvation. The
personal certainty of redemption becomes the center of Luther's
ideas. Without it, there would be no salvation. Thus, the impor-
tance of the three divine virtues, faith, hope, and love, to a
Christian formula of existence undergoes a significant change:
the certainties of hope and faith, though hitherto essentially
different, become identical. To the Catholic, the certainty of faith
refers to that which God worked and which the church wit-
nesses. The certainty of hope refers to the salvation of indi-
viduals and, among them, of one self. Yet, to Luther, the latter
represented the crux without which nothing else really mat-
 - - .- - - -- - .- - -*

Luther and the unity of the churches 219

tered. That is why love, which lies at the center of the Catholic
faith, is dropped from the concept of faith, all the way to the
polemic formulations of the large commentary on St. Paul's
Epistle to the Galatians: maledicta sit caritas, down with love!
Luther's insistence on "by faith alone" clearly and exactly
excludes love from the question of salvation. Love belongs to the
realm of "works" and, thus, becomes "profane."
If one wishes, one may call this a radical person-
alization of the act of faith which consists in an exciting and, in
some sense, exclusive "eye for an eye" relationship between God
and man. At the same time, man has to depend time and again
on the forgiving God against a demanding and judgmental God,
that is, Christ, who appears sub contrario (as Devil). This dialectic
view of God corresponds to a dialectic of existence which Luther
himself once formulated as follows: ". . . it is necessary for a
Christian to know that these are his own sins, whatever they are,
and that they have been borne by Christ, by whom we have been
redeemed and saved."s This "personalism" and this "dialectic,"
together to a lesser or greater degree with an anthropology, have
also altered the remaining structure of his teachings. For this
basic assessment signifies that, according to Luther, faith is no
longer, as to the Catholic, essentially the commununal belief of
the entire church. In any case, according to Luther, the church
can neither assume the certain guarantee for personal salvation
nor decide definitely and compellingly on matters (that is, the
content) of faith. On the other hand, to the Catholic, the church
is central to the act of faith itself: only by communal belief do I
partake of the certainty on which I can base my life. This corre-
sponds to the Catholic view that church and Scripture are insep-
arable while, in Luther, Scripture becomes an independent
measure of church and tradition. This in turn raises the question
of the canonicity and the unity of Scripture.
In some respects this incorporates the point of
departure for the entire movement; for it was exactly the unity of
Scripture-the Old and the New Testament, the gospels, the
epistles of St. Paul, and the Catholic letters-on the basis of
which Luther felt confronted with a Devil-God whom he felt
compelled to resist and whom he resisted with the assistance of
the divine God which he discovered in St. Paul. The unity of
Scripture which had hitherto been interpreted as a unity of steps
toward salvation, as a unity of analogy, is now replaced with the

SLuther's Works, ed. Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 17 (Lectures on Isaiah, Chap-

ters 40-66) (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972), p. 223.
220 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
dialectic of Law and Gospel. This dialectic is particularly sharpened
by the two complementary concepts of the New Testament-that
of the "gospels" and that of the epistles of St. Paul-of which only
the latter were adopted and even radicalized by the earlier-
described "by faith alone." I would say that the dialectic of Law and
Gospel expresses most poignantly Luther's new experience and
that it illustrates most concisely the contradiction with the Catholic
concepts of faith, salvation, Scripture, and church.
To sum up, Luther did indeed realize what he meant
when he saw the actual point of separation in the teachings on
justification which, to him, were identical with the "gospel" in
contra-distinction to the "law." To be sure, one has to view
justification as radical and as deep as he did, that is, as a reduc-
tion of the entire anthropology-and thus also of all other mat-
ters of doctrine-to the dialectic of Law and Gospel. Since then
there have been many revelations based on all his individual
pronouncements so that one should hope to have arrived at the
point where the basic decision can be thought over and inte-
grated into a more expansive vision. However, this has, unfortu-
nately, not yet happened. To follow Fries' and Rahner's
suggestions, and thus apparently to skip over with a few politi-
cal maneuvers the quest for truth, when it presents itself in
terms of clear alternatives would be entirely irresponsible. All
the more reason to hope that the commission which was estab-
lished following the Pope's visit to Germany and the purpose of
which it is to shed light on the central issues and the accompany-
ing mutual exclusions will draw us closer to the goal, even
though that commission will presumably remain unable to
achieve the goal with its own accord.
Question: Considering the relationship of the Cath-
olic Church to the churches of the Reformation, would it be
possible to borrow St. Paul's formula and speak of the "Church of
Corinth," "the Church of Rome," and "the Church of Witten-
berg"?
Cardinal Ratzinger: The answer is a clear "no." This
already applies in a church-sociological sense in the case of the
"Church of Wittenberg," as there is no such church. Luther had
no designs to establish a Lutheran Church. To him, the concept
of the church centered in the congregation. Anything that went
beyond that was organized and patterned after the existing
political structure, i.e., the princes, considering the logic of
contemporary thought and development. Thus regional
churches were established at the same time that the political
structure also replaced the non-existent individual structure of
the church. Much has changed since 1918, although the
 Luther and the unity of the churches 221
-
Lutheran Church has retained its regional structures which, in
turn, form church associations. It is obvious that the application
of the term "church" to churches which took shape as a result of
historical accidents will assume a different signification when
compared to the intentions of the term "Catholic Church."
Regional churches are not the "church" in a theological sense but
are, rather, ways in which Christian congregations organize
themselves; they are empirically useful, indeed necessary, but
they are also interchangeable under different circumstances.
Luther was able to transfer the church structure to the prin-
cipalities only because he did not consider them integral to the
concept of the church. On the other hand, to the Catholic, the
Catholic Church, i.e., the community of bishops among them-
selves and together with the Pope, was instituted as such by the
Lord. It cannot be interchanged or replaced. It is exactly this
visible sacramental nature which is central to the concept of the
Catholic Church that at the same time elevates the visible to a
symbol of something greater. The transtemporal unity is as
much a feature of this function as it is a symbol of the transcen-
dence of the various political and cultural realms in the commu-
nion with the Body of Christ-which turns out to be the
communion of his body in the very reality of the community of
bishops everywhere and at all times. Thus it becomes clear that
the plurality of local churches which together form the Catholic
Church signifies something quite different from the pluralism of
the denominational churches which are not integrated in a con-
crete single church and behind which are found hidden diverse
institutional forms of Christian existence as well as different
theological ideas about the spiritual reality of the church.
Question: Is an ecumenism of the Basis (infrastruc-
ture) a way toward ecumenism?
Cardinal Ratzinger: In my opinion, the term Basis
cannot be applied to the concept "church" in this fashion.
Sociological and philosophical notions underlie talk about the
Basis according to which society is characterized by an "above"
opposite a "below," whereby "above" signifies the established
and exploitative power, while "below," the Basis, means the
actual sustaining powers, the economic forces, which alone can
bring about progress when they are exercised or actuated. Wher-
ever there is talk of Basis ecumenism, we can sense the emotions
associated with such ideologies. The fact is that it is generally a
matter of modifying the idea of community which only consid-
ers the congregation as church in the actual sense. The larger,
major churches appear as the organizational umbrella which can
be fashioned any way one desires. To be sure, the local congrega-
1;
!
222 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
I '

tions are naturally the concrete units that make up the life of faith
in the church and, thus, also become sources of inspiration for
their way. The Second Vatican Council stated in regard to the
development of faith in the church:
There is a growth in insight into the realities and words that are being passed
on. This comes about . . . through the contemplation and study of believers
who ponder these things in their hearts (cf. Luke 239 and 51). It comes from the
intimate sense of spiritual realities which they experience. And it comes from
the preaching of those who have received, along with their right of succession
in the episcopate, the sure charism of truth.9
Thus there are three principal factors to be consid-
ered in the determination of progress in the church: reflection on
and study of the holy words (Holy Scripture), insight based on
experience in spiritual matters, and the teachings by the
bishops. Hence the frequently criticized monopoly of the episco-
pal office in matters of teaching and life does not exist in the
tradition of the Church. "Insight resulting from experience in
spiritual matters" incorporates the entire contribution of the
Christian life and thus also the special contribution by the
"base," i.e., the community of believers as a so-called "the-
ological locus." On the other hand, it becomes clear that the
three factors belong together: experience without reflection is
bound to remain blind, study without experience becomes
empty, and proclamations by a bishop lack effectiveness without
roots in the former two. All three jointly shape the life of the
church, whereby one or the other element may, at times, man-
ifest itself more strongly, but none must be absent entirely. All in
all, even sociologists would deem as phantasy the notion that
granting autonomy to the congregations would engender a
united church. The opposite is the case: such an autonomy is
bound to lead to atomization. Experience has shown that a
unification of hitherto separate groups will, at the same time,
lead to further separations. Much less will it automatically grow
into a united church.
Question: Does St. John's concept of unified Chris-
tianity also signify unity among the churches?
Cardinal Ratzinger: First of all, we will have to be
careful to avoid simply superimposing our situation and our
questions onto St. John. To begin with, it is important to under-
stand the passages in question with their own perspective in
mind. Only then can we venture to understand how to stretch
the lines leading to us. Now it is exactly the proper interpretation
of St. John's request for unity which is hotly disputed-though
of course there do exist several common basic elements within
the variety of the interpretations. First, unity among the faithful
 Luther and the unity of the churches 223

is, according to St. John, nothing which could be accomplished

by human effort: it remains a request expressed through prayer
which itself also implies a commandment directed at Chris-
tianity. It is expressed through prayer because the unity of Chris-
tianity comes from "above," from the unity of the Father with the
Son. It constitutes a participation in the divine unity. I believe
that Kasemann is essentially correct when he states that
for John, unity is a mark and a quality of the heavenly realm in the same way in
which truth, light and life are the quality and mark of the heavenly reality. . . .
Unity in our Gospel exists only as heavenly reality and therefore in antithesis to
the earthly, which bears the mark of isolations, differences and antagonisms. If
unity exists on earth, then it can only exist as a projection from heaven, that is,
as the mark and object of revelation.10
However, the completely theological form of unity
does not indicate a pressing of the question of unity into the
Beyond or a postponement into the future: it is precisely the
special characteristic of the church that heavenly affairs extend
into the temporal realm. The church is the event of incorporation
of human history into the realm of the divine. That is why things
happen in the world which cannot come from this world: e.g.,
unity. That is exactly why unity-as a characteristic which is
typical only of heavenly affairs-is also the sign of the divine
origin of the church. If we narrow it to the "Word," then one can
also come to an agreement with one of Kasemann's formula-
tions:
The accepted Word of God produces an extension of heavenly reality on earth,
for the Word participates in the communion of Father and Son. This unity
between Father and Son is the quality and mark of the heavenly world. It
projects itself to the earth in the Word in order to create the community there
which, through rebirth from above, becomes integrated into the unity of Father
and Son.11
It becomes immediately clear that all this cannot be
purely spiritual, but indeed that it envisions a concrete unity of
the church. Otherwise, the significance of the sign which is the
object of John 17:20 would be rendered entirely meaningless.
Schnackenburg assembled a number of ideas which illustrate the
universal orientation ("catholic") of the church in the fourth
gospel: the passages concerning the acceptance of the
Samaritans and Greeks into the Christian community, the word

9Consfitufionon Xevelafion 11, 8.

lOErnst Kasemann, The Testament of Jesus: A Study of the Gospel of John in the
Light of Chapferl7, trans. Gerhard Krodel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968), p.
68.
224 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
about the gathering of the dispersed children of God (11:52), the
word about a shepherd and his flock (10:16), and the acceptance
of the tradition of St. Peter, the narrative about the 153 large fish
(John 21).12 Moreover, Kasemann called attention to certain anal-
ogies between the Gospel according to St. John and the unitarian
vision in the Epistle to the Ephesians which he characterizes as
follows:
In Ephesians 4:5, a formative orthodoxy asserts itself which considers.itself to
be constitutively bound to heaven and in this respect to be the institution of
salvation and not merely the instrument of grace. The unity of this orthodoxy
now becomes identical with the truth of the right doctrine which it must
administer as the mystery of divine revelation. Earthly reality may show its
nature as dispersion and division. The heavenly reality is of necessity one and
indivisible.13
Even though one cannot help but notice the epi-
grammatic, almost caricature-like formulation, an important
message remains. Kasemann describes the position of the Gos-
pel according to St. John vis-A-vis early Catholicism in somewhat
ambiguous fashion: on the one hand, he speaks of the "closeness
to the rising early Catholicism,"l4 and, on the other, he states
that John
is at least spatially "remote from the beginnings of early Catholicism and
theologically he does not share its trends even though he shares a number of its
premises."15
One thing remains clear: St. John wrote his gospel
for the universal church, and the notion of a unity of Christians
in separate churches is totally alien to him.
Question: Will there be a unity of all Christians in
the future, in the sense implied by your last statement? Also,
concerning the churches, will they have to wait until the Day of
Judgment?
Cardinal Ratzinger: I should think that the answer
is quite clear in view of what was said above: the unity of the
church is the unity of all, Christians. The separation or even
juxtaposition of both types of unity is a modern fiction whose
content is rather vague. Even though St. John appears to show
little interest in the individual institutional aspects of the church,
his gospel nevertheless presupposes quite obviously the con-
crete connection between the story of salvation and the people of
God through which God's act of redemption occurs. For exam-
ple, the parable of the vine (John 15:l-10) reiterates the image of
the vine of Israel attested to by Hosea, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, as
well as the psalms. "Vine" is also a traditional way of referring to
the "people of God" to whom is given here, in the person of Jesus
Christ, a new center. The simultaneous sounding of the refer-
 Luther and the unity of the churches 225

ence to the eucharist in the parable of the vine adds a very

realistic ecclesial framework to this seemingly entirely
"mystical" way of thinking.16
It is quite a different question, however, to ask to
which concrete goals the ecumenical movement can aspire. This
problem ought to be discussed anew now that it has been twenty
years since the Council. It might be profitable to remember on
this occasion how the Second Vatican Council formulated it, how
it was not determined by the notion that all existing "church-
domsl' were only pieces of a true church that existed nowhere
and which one would have to try to create by assembling these
pieces: such an idea would render the church purely into a work
of man. Also, the Second Vatican Council specifically stated that
the only church of Christ is realized (subsistit) "in the Catholic
Church which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the
bishops in communion with him."17 As we know, this "realized
through replaces the earlier "is" (the only church "is" the Catho-
lic Church) because there are also many true Christians and
many truly Christian ideas outside the Church. However, the
latter insight and recognition which lies at the very foundation of
Catholic ecumenism does not mean that, from now on, one
would have to view the "true church only as a Utopian idea
which may ensue in the end of days: the true church is reality,
existing reality, even now, without having to deny others their
Christian existence or to dispute the ecclesial character of their
communities.
Let us return now to the question of concrete
ecumenical goals. The actual goal of all ecumenical endeavors
must naturally be to convert the plurality of the separate
denominational churches into the plurality of local churches
which, in reality, form one church despite their many and varied
characteristics. However, it seems to me that in a given situation
it will be necessary to establish realistic intermediate goals; for,
otherwise, ecumenical enthusiasm could turn to resignation or,
worse, revert to a new embitterment which would place the
blame for the breakdown of the great goal on the others. Thus
the final days would be worse than the first. These intermediate
goals will be different depending on how far individual

12R. Schnackenburg, Das Johannesevangelium I11 (Freiburg, 1975), pp. 241-245.

13Kasemann, p. 57.
14Kasemann, p. 73.
15Kasemann, pp. 66-67.
IsSchnackenburg, pp. 118-123.
17Constitution on the Church, I, 8.
226 Toseph Cardinal Ratzinger
dialogues will have progressed. The testimony of love (charita-
ble, social works) always ought to be given together, or at least in
tune with each other whenever separate organizations appear to
be more effective for technical reasons. One should equally try
to witness together to the great moral questions of our time.
And, finally, a joint fundamental testimony of faith ought to be
given before a world which is torn by doubts and shaken by
fears. The broader the testimony the better. However, if this can
only be done on a relatively small scale, one ought to state the
possible jointly. All this would have to lead to a point where the
common features of Christian living are recognized and loved
despite the separations, where separation serves no longer as a
reason for contradiction, but rather as a challenge to an inner
understanding and an acceptance of the other which will
amount to more than mere tolerance: a belonging together in the
loyalty and faithfulness we show for Jesus Christ. Perhaps it will
be possible for such an attitude to develop which does not lose
sight of final things but, meanwhile, does the closest thing by
undergoing a deeper maturity toward total unity, rather than
making a frantic scramble for unity which will remain superficial
and at times rather fictitious.

I am convinced that the question of the final union

of all Christians remains, indeed, unanswerable. One must not
forget that this question also includes the question of the union
between Israel and the church. At any rate, to me the notion that
one could achieve unity through a "really general (ecumenical)
council" is a hybrid idea. That would be tantamount to building
another tower of Babel which would necessarily result in even
greater confusion. Complete union of all Christians will hardly
be possible in our time. However, that unity of the church which
already exists indestructibly is a guarantee for us that this greater
unity will happen in the future. The more one strives for this
unity with all one's might the more Christian one will be.-
Translated by Albert K. Wimmer

Author's address: 11 Piazza del S. Uffizio, Roma, Italy