Dialogue Resource
The Hope of Eternal Life: Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue XI (2011)
The Hope of Eternal Life: Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue XI
The document, The Hope of Eternal Life, was developed as a resource by the Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Relations section of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). It was reviewed by Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory, chair of the USCCB Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, and Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson of the ELCA, and it has been authorized for publication by the undersigned. Msgr. David Malloy General Secretary, USCCB and the Rev. Donald J. McCoid Ecumenical Executive, ELCA
“The Hope of Eternal Life” is a human yearning that is both deeply personal and widely shared. For Christians, that hope is confessed regularly. As we declare in the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in . . . the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” Likewise, in the Nicene Creed, we and the whole church confess, “We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.”
The agreements emerging in Round XI of the U.S. Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue contribute to the ongoing ecumenical journey of our churches. This dialogue has been described by Pope Benedict XVI and others as a very productive one. Indeed, the U.S. dialogue has produced substantive results since it was inaugurated on March 16, 1965, less than four months after the publication of the Decree on Ecumenism during Vatican II.