On Feast of Martin Luther Pope Benedict / Ratzinger 's Rarely Mentioned Biggest Accomplishment

Today many Protestants celebrate the Feast day of Martin Luther. First Thoughts has a good post up at Celebrating Martin Luther which has excerpts and links to Pope Benedict's thoughts on him and the issues surrounding him.

There has been a good bit of looking back on the service of Pope Benedict to his Church over the period of his life. Strangely perhaps one of the biggest accomplishments of his is rarely mention which occurred before he became Pope. That is making substantial headway and finding agreement on one of the major issues that split up Christianity. That is how we are saved or the issue of Justification.

The JOINT DECLARATION ON THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION signed by the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church in 1999 was and continues to be a rather big deal. In 2006 the World Wide Methoist Council signed on as well. See THE WORLD METHODIST COUNCIL STATEMENT OF ASSOCIATION  WITH THE JOINT DECLARATION ON THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION .

Cardianl Ratzinger was seen as the moving force on the Catholic side to make this happen. No doubt his German upbringing played a role in helping bring this about.

In any list of accomplishments of Ratzinger / Benedict this needs to be at the top of the list.