Will Pope Benedict XVI establish a "personal ordinariate" for Lutherans seeking to enroll in the Roman Catholic Church? It was never impossible, and a Vatican bigwig just dropped a hint that it may be coming.
Archbishop Gerhard Muller is Prefect for the Congregation of the Faith. He is also, among other things, the author of a new book on the the Pope's thought. And, speaking at a Rome bookstore recently, he suggested that there might be room for a such an institution.
That's about all there is to the story. Is this a trial balloon, or just an off-the-cuff remark by a guy trying to sell some books? We don't know, but time will probably tell.
[UPDATE: A couple of months back, Archbishop Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, made similar remarks.]
On 30 October 2012, Cardinal Kurt Koch,
ReplyDeletePresident of the Pontifical Council for
Promoting Christian Unity, stated in an
interview that if Lutherans express a wish
for an arrangement similar to the personal
ordinariates for former Anglicans, the Catholic
Church will have to reflect on it, but that the
initiative must come from Lutherans.
Taken together, these two remarks suggest that these guys are talking about it pretty freely amongst themselves.
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