Curia Archbishop Cites Lutheran Confessio Augustana as “Common Basis” for Today
This was announced by Curia Archbishop Flavio Pace, Secretary of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Christian Unity, speaking to VaticanNews.va on January 22.
Monsignor Pace described the Augsburg Confession correctly as an attempt to “find common ground, a common profession of faith, among the countries we now call the Reformation countries”. However, he added that it should be commemorated to “rediscover a common basis” for today.
He even expressed the idea that the path toward unity might one day mean “sitting at the one table of Christ.”
Confessio Augustana Denies Mass as Sacrifice
The Confessio Augustana is a text that denies the sacrificial nature of the Mass.
It was written by the Lutheran theologian Philip Melanchthon to unify the Reformation territories, a movement which, under religious pretexts, constituted a political revolt against the unity of the Habsburg Empire.
It was presented to Emperor Charles V in 1530 to show that Protestants were not heretics, but allegedly faithful to the early Church.
Catholic theologians formally condemned the Confessio Augustana, because it contradicted Catholic doctrine in essential points (Confutatio Augustana):
- Denial of the sacrificial nature of the Mass
- Rejection of sacramental Confession
- Abandonment of priestly celibacy
- Denial of papal doctrinal authority
- Rejection of Communion under one species as valid and complete
- Justification by faith alone
These errors were later definitively condemned by the Council of Trent.
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