022874 Catholic Lutheran. Dialogue Discusses Papal Infallibility

Lutheran and Catholic theologians have prepared the groundwork for a continuing dialogue on papal infallibility during a three-day Maryland meeting, but both sides agree that a final consensus on the thorny issue will be most difficult.

According to reports, the three-day session at the Marriottsville cNid.) Spiritual Center spurred a second meeting on infallibility next September when eight position papers on Various aspects of the question will be presented by Lutheran and Catholic scholars.

The February meeting, which brought together 12 Lutheran and 1) Catholic scholars, was the 18th session since the dialogue was initiated in 1965 by the U.S.A. National Committee for the Lutheran World Federation and the U.S. Catholic bishops' Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.

Co-chairmen for the threeday meeting were Dr. Paul Empie, retired general secretary of LWF U.S.A. National Committee and Auxiliary Bishop T. Austin Murphy of Baltimore, who is also chairman of the U.S. bishops' subcommittee for Lutheran dialogue.

Father John P. Sheehan, associate director of the bishops' ecumenical committee, Washington, D.C., and a participant in the recent dialogue, said the Marriottsville meeting was "exploratory" and consisted mainly of "heavy" discussions of two papers which presented 11 underlying concepts" of infallibility and the roots of disagreement on the issue.

The papers were presented by Father Avery Dulles, S.J., professor of systematic theology at Woodstock College, and by Dr. George Lindbeck, professor of historical theology at Yale's Divinity School.

The first dealt with the "terminology of infallibility," said Father Sheehan, including such basics as "truth, Falsity, error," doctrinal aspects of "indefectibility, teaching authority in the Church" and ''who are the official teachers."

The second paper encompassed the Reformation and the ensuing infallibility debate. In his paper, Dr. Lindbeck pointed out that unlike previous Catholic-Lutheran discussions on the doctrines of Christology, baptism, Eucharist and ministry, the doctrine of  infallibility is exclusively associated with the Roman Catholic Church.

Father Sheehan said that during the upcoming September meeting, for which a time and place has not been announced, four Lutheran scholars and four Catholic scholars will present further refinements of the dialogue. The subjects and authors of forthcoming papers will be:

"Infallibility Language in the Early Lutheran Church," by Dr. Gerharde 0. Forde, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minn.' "In search of Lutheran Counterparts to Infallibility," by Dr. Warren Quanbeck, also the Luther Seminary, St. Paul; "The Teaching Office of Lutheran Theology," by Dr. Eric Gritsch, Gettysburg, (Pa.) Lutheran Seminary; and "History of Exegesis," by Dr. Karlfried Froehlich, Princeton (N.J.) Seminary.

Also, "The Case for Moderate Infallibilism" (two papers) by Father Dulles and by Father Carl Peter, of the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.; "Teaching Offifice in the New Testament," by Father Joseph Fitzmyer, S.J., Fordham University, New York, and "The Biblical Loci on the Infallibility of Peter and the Church," by Msgr. Jerome Quinn, St. Paul (Minn.) Seminary.

Father Sheehan, who said that the next dialogue will delve much more deeply into the question of infallibility, described the Maryland meeting "very scholarly, cordial and interesting ... really fine dialogue.

Besides participants already mentioned, those taking part in the dialogue were:

From the Lutheran side, Dr. Joseph Burgess, Regent, N.D.; Dr. Carl H. Mau, Jr., General Secretary of the LWF U.S.A. National Committee; Dr. John H.P. Reumann, Lutheran Seminary, Philadelphia; Dr. Virgil Westlund of the LWF's U.S.A. National Committee; Dr. Fred Kramer, Concordia Seminary, Springfield, 111; an' Dr. Paul Opsahl, Lutheran Council in the U.S.A.

The Catholic participants were: Father Walter Burghbardt, S.J.. Woodstock