O.C. Bishop to Be Catholic Liaison With Other Faiths

Orange County’s Roman Catholic Bishop Tod Brown on Monday will become the church’s national leader of interfaith affairs, a day after a pact is to be signed mending a centuries-old rift with the Lutheran church.

The appointment, announced Wednesday, places Brown at the crux of a historic shift in relations between Catholics and other Christian denominations.

The Lutheran agreement to be signed in Germany on Sunday settles a theological disagreement dating to the 16th century split between Catholics and Protestants. But leaders of both churches say it will bring practical benefits to 60 million Catholic parishioners in America and millions more who belong to denominations of the World Lutheran Federation.

Brown was elected by fellow American bishops to become chairman of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs Committee. He will mark the pact with an unusual joint service Sunday night with Murray Finck, bishop of the Pacifica Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination.

“My priority here is to be the best shepherd of our church community that I can be,” Brown said. “It’s an exciting time to be in the area of ecumenism.”

Though progress is slow, the promise of closer relations with other Christian denominations raises the real possibility of an eventual unification in the third millennium, Brown said.

“I would hope that the distant goal of dialogue between our church and the Lutherans would be some kind of organic union at the end of the trail,” said Brown. “We both understand that it’s the will of Jesus that all his disciples become one.”

Finck was more cautious.

“I feel very positive and delighted that we’ve begun to take these very positive steps,” he said. “In time, it would be wonderful to have us all united, but realistically I don’t believe that’s in the near future . . . We’re just at the threshold of something new. The timing is perfect as we move into a new millennium.”

Historically, Catholics have agreed with Lutherans on the importance of faith, but have also emphasized good works on Earth to earn salvation, said Daniel F. Martensen, director of the department for ecumenical affairs at the Chicago headquarters of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification to be signed Sunday in Augsburg, Germany, sets out a consensus on the question of good works, stressing that faith is most important to earn God’s grace and a place in heaven. It also reverses long-standing condemnations by the Vatican and Lutheran church of each others’ positions.

Experts say the agreement has more than theological significance--that it will resonate on a personal and political level.

Martensen said one benefit will be for interfaith couples, who will find it easier to stay with their faiths.

But the agreement doesn’t attempt to merge the churches.