ANY QUESTION

Why are so many Lutheran pastors becoming Roman Catholics?

A sensitive question for individuals and organisation alike.

And not just in Australia. Why, around the world, are a number of Lutheran pastors, some of them leading theologians, resigning their calls and being received into communion in the Catholic Church?

Not, it seems to me, because they have rejected the things that we hold dear: the Scriptures as the Word of God; the Sacraments as the means of the Holy Spirit; even the teaching that we are justified by God's grace alone on account of Christ through faith. At least in their own understanding, they continue to confess the very things that are of central importance for us, and that have power to bind us together as God's people in this world.

Not, it also seems to me, because they feel frustrated by a church that doesn't suit their taste. Many Lutheran pastors leave congregations in which they feel at home not only spiritually but also culturally. They move into churches where the songs at worship are unfamiliar and often poorly sung; where they have no or few family con­nections; and where their own wishes regarding the style of worship or the structure of church government count for naught.

Why then? Well, let me offer this way forward.

To understand why Lutheran pastors are becoming Roman Catholics, it's a good start to understand what it's like to be a Lutheran pastor in the first place — and especially to be a Lutheran pas­tor who is self-consciously committed to proclaiming the Gospel in line with the Lutheran Confessions. (Lutheran pastors who neglect the Lutheran Confessions — who deny, for example, the inspiration of Scripture, the effi­cacy of the Sacraments, or the divinity of Christ, do not, as a rule, yearn to be reconciled with Rome.)

Here I'll simply offer three aspects of being a Lutheran pastor that may help lay people understand why some Lutheran pastors are becoming Roman Catholics.

Not too far to go

Firstly, it seems to me that to be a Lutheran pastor is to be somewhat Catholic to begin with.

For example, Lutheran pastors, es­peci­ally in our own Australian Lutheran Church, are conscience-bound to teach some outrageously Catholic-sounding doctrines, such as: that the bread and wine of Holy Communion are the true body and blood of Christ; that in bap­tism God really makes people His chil­dren; that Christ really was born of the Virgin Mary — that He was and is true God and a real human being; even that God really forgives sins through the absolution.

Pastors who in good conscience teach these things are very far from the Bapticostal churches on the one side, and from the mainline liberal churches on the other. They are not, how­ever, so far from the Catholic Church, especially as it has been developing since Vatican II under the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, however imperfect, stands as a witness to the way things have been moving.

The church universal

Secondly, to be a Lutheran pastor is to have an awareness of responsibility not simply to an individual congre­ga­tion, but also to the LCA and beyond. It is to be particularly aware of the 'catholicity' of the church.

In the ordination rite, Lutheran pastors promise to accept the doctrinal and pastoral oversight of their president. In other words, pastors understand that, however much they may be fond of their own opinions, they have been called by Christ through the church to proclaim not their own teaching, or the teaching that their particular con­gregation may want to hear, but the teaching of the church.

Now, in the Lutheran Church of Aus­tralia, the presidents evaluate the tea­ching and preaching of the pastors in their care on the basis of the Scriptures and in line with the Lutheran Con­fessions. But the question naturally arises: to whom are the presidents accountable?

On the one hand, the presidents are clearly accountable to the district pastors' conferences and the synod. But how does this state or national accountability fit in with the world­wide unity of the church willed by Christ? A Lutheran pastor who thinks about this sort of question will at least listen respectfully to the Roman Catho­lic Church when its bishops, unified throughout the world with each other, and in communion with the bishop of Rome (the Pope), call others into fellowship with them.

Authoritative teaching

Thirdly, to be a Lutheran pastor is to have the responsibility to give moral guidance in difficult situations.

This can be a lonely job, and the temptation can be to abdicate this responsibility, unless there is some clear and authoritative teaching that brings the light of the Gospel into the murkiness of human life.

Thankfully in the Lutheran Church of Australia we have well thought out, Scripturally-based, and Gospel-centered statements on a number of moral issues that arise in the life of any con­gre­gation. Thankfully we also have a pastorate that is relatively unified in its teaching from the pulpit.

Even so, the Roman Catholic Church does stand out as a church body that, for all its manifold failings in practice, clearly upholds the dignity and worth of all human life, and calls all people to a life well lived. The Catholic Church stands out as a church body that does not in its teaching easily capitulate to cultural fashions or trends. This reality can be attractive to Lutheran pastors who, through serving their people in difficult and tempting times, are aware that clear teaching and guidance can't be taken for granted.

Not one size fits all

Of course, none of these three aspects of what it is like to be a Lutheran pastor can explain why any particular pastor makes the very serious (and no doubt anguish-filled) decision to resign his call and seek fellowship in the Roman Catholic Church. In of­fering my thoughts on the matter, I've aimed at helping to give some under­standing of how this might happen — of how a Lutheran Pastor, exercising his office in good conscience and con­scientiously, may yet take the path to Rome.

Guest answer from 
Pastor Fraser Pearce
Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Bendigo, and formerly of St Paul’s