Ecumenical Potentials of Vatican Ii-40 Years After: 40 Years After (Pere Marquette Lecture Series)

67 Pages·2006·0.33 MB·English

by  Otto Hermann Pesch

The Père Marquette
Lecture in Theology
2006
The Ecumenical Potential of
the Second Vatican Council

Otto Hermann Pesch
 Otto Hermann Pesch
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pesch, Otto Hermann.
The ecumenical potential of the Second Vatican Council
/ Otto Hermann Pesch.— 1st ed.
p. cm. — (The Père Marquette lecture in theology ;
006)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8746-586-8 (hardcover : alk.
paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8746-586-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Vatican Council (nd : 196-1965) . Christian
union—Catholic Church. 3. Catholic Church—Doc-
trines. 4. Vatican Council (nd : 196-1965). Decretum
de oecumenismo. I. Title. II. Series.
BX830196 .P47 006
6’.5—dc
006005194
© 006
Marquette University Press
Milwaukee WI 5301-3141
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Ecumenical Potential of the Second Vatican Council 3
Foreword
The Joseph A. Auchter Family Endowment Fund gen-
erously supports the Père Marquette Lecture in The-
ology. The Fund was established as a memorial to their
father by the children of Milwaukee-native Joseph
A. Auchter (1894-1986), a banker, paper-industry
executive, and long-time supporter of education.
The lecture presented here is the thirty-sixth in the
series, inaugurated in 1969, that commemorates the
missions and explorations of Père Jacques Marquette,
S.J. (1637-1675). The lecture is offered annually
under the auspices of Marquette University’s Depart-
ment of Theology.
Otto Hermann Pesch
4 Pesch Ecumenical Potential of Second Vatican Council
Among Catholic contributors to ecumenical the-
ology in the period following Vatican II, perhaps
none has done more work, and work of more lasting
significance, than this year’s Père Marquette Lecturer,
Otto Hermann Pesch. Pesch was born in Cologne,
Germany in 1931 and finished his “Abitur” degree
there in 195. The same year, he became a member
of the Dominican Order, and in 1953 he began work
at the Dominican House of Studies in Wahlberberg,
where he earned the “Lector” degree. In 1958, he
was ordained a Catholic priest. In 1960 he became a
student at the University of Munich, where he earned
the Dr. Theol. degree in 1965.
From 1965-1971, Pesch served as Professor of Sys-
tematic and Ecumenical Theology in Wahlberberg.
He spent the 1971-7 academic year in residence
at the Harvard Divinity School, where he served as
Stillman Professor of Roman Catholic Studies. In
197, Pesch was laicized and married. In 1974 he
took the position of Visiting Professor of Systematic
Theology in the Faculty of Protestant Theology at the
University of Hamburg. In 1975 he was tenured in
the same position and thus became the first Catholic
theologian to serve as “ordinarius” professor in the
Protestant faculty of a German university.
During 1988-89, Pesch served as Visiting Associate
Professor of Religious Studies at Temple University,
and as Visiting Professor of Church History and
Systematic Theology in the Candler School of The-
ology at Emory University. In 199, Pesch received
the Doctor’s degree, honoris causa, from the Faculty
Foreword 5
of Catholic Theology of the University of Mainz. In
1993, he returned for a second stay as Visiting Associ-
ate Professor at Temple University. For the academic
year 00-003, he served as Professeur extraordi-
naire de théologie systematique in the University of
Fribourg, Switzerland. Pesch retired from his faculty
position in Hamburg in 1997, but in the years since
has been anything but resting.
Among his numerous books (not to mention the
countless articles), surely the best known is Theologie
der Rechtfertigung bei Martin Luther und Thomas von
Aquin (1967, nd ed. 1985). Examining comparatively
the doctrine of justification in these two theolo-
gians—whose works in so many ways epitomize the
Lutheran and Catholic traditions—Pesch drew those
traditions back from an armed standoff into a frater-
nal, persistent and theologically sensitive dialogue.
Although this was a work easily sufficient to establish
and maintain a scholarly reputation, Pesch has contin-
ued to publish at an astonishing pace throughout his
career. His subsequent books include: Twenty Years
of Catholic Luther Research (LWF, 1966); The God
Question in Thomas Aquinas and Luther (197); Das
Gesetz. Kommentar zu Thomas von Aquin: Summa
Theologiae I-II 90-105 (1977); Einführung in die
Lehre von Gnade und Rechtfertigung [with Albrecht
Peters] (1981, 3rd ed. 1994); Hinführung zu Luther
(198, 3rd rev. ed. 004); Gerechtfertigt aus Glauben.
Luthers Frage an die Kirche (198); Frei sein aus Gnade.
Theologische Anthropologie (1983); Streiten für die eine
Kirche [with Heinrich Fries] (1987); Dogmatik im
Fragment. Gesammelte Studien (1987); Thomas von
6 Pesch Ecumenical Potential of Second Vatican Council
Aquin. Grenze und Größe mittelalterlicher Theologie.
Eine Einführung (1988, 3rd ed. 1995); Rechtfertigung
im Disput. Eine freundliche Antwort an Jörg Baur [with
Ulrich Kühn] (1991); Das Zweite Vatikanische Konzil.
Vorgeschichte, Verlauf, Ergebnisse, Nachgeschichte
(1993, 5th ed. 001); Martin Luther, Thomas von
Aquin und die reformatorische Kritik an der Scholastik
(1994); Die Sünde. Kommentar zu Thomas von Aquin,
Summa Theologiae I-II 71-89 (00). As the titles of
these many books quite rightly indicate, Pesch’s work
has continued to revolve around its ecumenical center
by means of an illuminating comparative analysis of
Martin Luther and Thomas Aquinas.
In addition to these many and weighty tomes,
and to a number of others for which he served as
editor, Pesch has also written frequently for a more
popular audience. These “pocket books” are frequently
addressed to the practical questions faced by the aver-
age Christian, e.g., Das Gebet (1980); Die Zehn Gebote
(1976, 9th ed. 1995); Heute Gott erkennen (1980, 3rd
ed. 1988); Kleines Katholisches Glaubensbuch (15th
rev. ed. 004); and Die Sünde (004). Finally, as if to
add good humor to such a long and impressive list
of publications, mention must also be made of his
Warum hast du so große Ohren? Rottkäppchen—the-
ologisch zu Gehör gebracht (1993), ET as What Big
Ears You Have! The Theologians’ Red Riding Hood
(3rd rev. ed. 000).
These extensive scholarly contributions brought
with them quite naturally a long history of coopera-
tion and friendship with colleagues in Germany and
Foreword 7
beyond. Indeed, Pesch has lectured in no less than 11
countries, nowhere more than in the United States.
In addition to frequent service as visiting professor
in American universities, he has been a frequent par-
ticipant and lecturer in meetings of the International
Luther Congress, as well as a plenary speaker at the
Aquinas-Luther Conference at Lenoir-Rhyne College.
In addition, he is past President, now Vice President,
of the Académie internationale des sciences reli-
gieuses (Brussels), and serves on the editorial boards
of Concilium and Ökumenische Rundschau. Pesch is
a member of the Advisory Board of the Institut für
Europaische Geschichte—Abteilung Abendländische
Religionsgeschichte (Mainz), and a member of the
Joachim-Jungius-Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften in
Hamburg. He has also been for many years a member
of the influential Ökumenischer Arbeitskreis evange-
lischer und katholischer Theologen, a group whose
work helped make possible the Joint Declaration on
the Doctrine of Justification in 1999.
As a Catholic university with an ecumenical faculty
of theology, one with a longstanding commitment to
“Luther studies in a Catholic context,” it is fitting,
indeed it is a profound honor, that we should welcome
Prof. Dr. Otto Hermann Pesch to Marquette not
only as a guest, but as a colleague and friend in what
we hope will have already become a newfound home
away from home.
Mickey L. Mattox
Ash Wednesday 006

The Ecumenical Potential of
the Second Vatican Council
Retrospective and Prospective
Otto Hermann Pesch
University of Hamburg/Germany
A. Looking Back
The Ecumenical Start of the Council
I. The Point of Departure
The ecumenists, the so-called “Pan-Christians,”
“arrange conferences and meetings; they give lectures
for large audiences to which they invite for discus-
sion all kinds of people whether they are pagans,
Christians, or even those who unfortunately have
fallen away from Christ. Given this state of affairs it
is clear that neither the Apostolic See can attend such
conferences [i.e. the conferences of the Ecumenical
Movement], nor can Catholics be somehow allowed
to support these attempts or to contribute to them.
If they did, they would legitimate a false Christian
religion that is fundamentally divergent from the one
Church. Can we tolerate such a great ungodliness, that
the truth, indeed the truth revealed by God, would be