Pope, church officials have full schedule of ecumenical events

Published: 2006-01-19

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- By mid-January, Pope Benedict XVI and the Roman Catholic Church already had a full schedule of ecumenical events planned for 2006. The Catholic-Orthodox international commission is scheduled to meet in September for the first time in six years. Commission members plan to return to the theological discussion of church authority and primacy. The Catholic-Lutheran dialogue is nearing completion of a document on "the apostolicity of the church," looking at the continuation of church teaching and tradition from the time of the apostles. The Catholic-Methodist dialogue is scheduled to finish work by July on a statement about how far each community can go in recognizing the church of God present in each other. The World Methodist Council also is scheduled to vote in July on formally adopting the 1999 Catholic-Lutheran agreement on justification. The Catholic Church and a group of Pentecostal churches are working on a document explaining what both mean by "baptism of the Holy Spirit" and its role in the salvation of individual Christians.

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