The debate concerning the recognition of the Augsburg Confession
is one of the large issues of German theology between 1975 and 1980.
The Lutheran World Federation joined this debate actively in its Dar
es Salam assembly of 1977 in which this idea of a Catholic recognition
was actively supported.^285 The German Lutheran Bishops’Confer-
ence likewise promoted the project in its statement of 1980.^286
At the same time, other Catholic voices pointed out that the concept
of recognition was not yet sufficiently understood in the proposals of
Fries and Pfnür. In an influential paper of 1978, Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger remarks that while he is basically positive (grundsätzlich
bejahen) about Pfnür’s idea,^287 he nevertheless sees some problems
with this project. In addition to several doctrinal matters of Lutheran
theology, Ratzinger pays attention to the concept of recognition itself.
He considers that a historical revision of the sixteenth-century con-
fessional text as such is not possible. A new historical interpretation of
such a text would be an operation in which academic precision is
soon sacrificed for the sake of suitable reading.^288 This imposes its
limits of credibility on an interpretative revision in the sense of
recognitio.
This means for Ratzinger that an act of recognizing the Augsburg
Confession would necessarily be something more than a historical
and interpretative revision, since it needs to be an act of decision-
making and a spiritual act. Since such acts need considerable time to
mature, one should not expect an official recognition at the 450th
anniversary of the Confession in 1980. Moreover, such an act needs to
be preceded by a more extensive ecumenical dialogue than has
hitherto taken place.^289
Walter Kasper is another prominent international Catholic theo-
logian who considers that the concept of ecumenical recognition
needs further elaboration. He thinks that the studies by Pfnür and
others give sufficient theological and historical ground to a claim that
the Augsburg Confession can be interpreted so as to be recognized by
the Catholic church.^290 Such a project needs, however, to clarify
several conceptual issues. For Kasper, recognition is primarily an
(^285) Dokumente 1977– 1981 , 25. (^286) Dokumente 1977– 1981 ,41–6.
(^287) ‘Zur Frage einer Anerkennung’, 226.
(^288) ‘Zur Frage einer Anerkennung’, 236.
(^289) ‘Zur Frage einer Anerkennung’, 236–7.
(^290) ‘Katholische Anerkennung’, 151.
178 Recognition and Religion