WORLD : Nordic Lutheran Bishops Snub Pope

Only four of Norway’s 11 Lutheran bishops attended a service today at which Pope John Paul II told the Nordic countries that despite the impressive achievements of their rich and high-technology societies, modern man still yearns for an explanation of life.

The Pope is on a five-nation tour of Scandinavia, a region that is overwhelmingly Lutheran and that has been opposed to both the style and content of Roman Catholicism since the Reformation. The Lutheran bishop of Trondheim, Kyrre Bremer, told the Pope in reference to the prelates who stayed away: “Not all the wounds are healed; some people are missed here today. There is still a long way to go.”