US: Moves towards closer relations between the Catholic, Lutheran and Methodist churches have been welcomed by the president of the Methodist Church in Ireland, Rev Desmond Bain.
It follows reports that it seems likely Methodists will sign up next year to a 1999 accord which brought Catholics and Lutherans closer.
The World Methodist Council, representing 70 million adherents worldwide, is due to agree at a conference next July to sign that joint declaration which resolved a central dispute which led to the Reformation.
As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict played a key role in drawing up the declaration which revoked heresy charges against Martin Luther and which had led to western Christianity's division into Catholics and Protestants.
Disputes over how to get to heaven were central to the Reformation. The Catholic Church said believers must have faith and do good works while Luther said faith alone would suffice for salvation.
Methodist leaders have made several positive statements following a meeting with the Pope at the Vatican last week.
He told them their support "would be a significant step toward the stated goal of full visible unity in faith".
Rev Geoffrey Wainwright, a theology professor at Duke University in North Carolina and chief Methodist negotiator with the Vatican, said most Methodist churches around the world backed an internal position paper advocating support for the declaration, which found common ground on the dogma of how believers earn eternal salvation.
"We are very hopeful that this document will be approved" at the Methodist council's global conference next July in Seoul, he said. Council chairman Bishop Sunday Mbang of Nigeria was also positive.
"We've done enough talking and we want the fruits of this to be seen everywhere," he told Vatican Radio last week while in Rome to meet the Pope.
"In most African countries and, I'm hearing, in Europe, Catholics and Methodists are working effectively together because of this dialogue," he said.
Responding to these reports last night Ireland's Methodist president, Rev Bain, said that "as members of the World Methodist Council, the Methodist Church (in Ireland) directed its Faith and Order Committee to consider the internal position paper.
"The Methodist Church in Ireland has responded positively to this association with the Lutheran and Roman Catholic Churches."
He continued: "We recognise that the circumstances in which Churches seek to co-operate will vary from one country to another, but welcome the fact that today there is a move away from the polarised positions which used to characterise our relationships, and which often arose from wrong perceptions of one another's beliefs.
"Today we join with others in seeking the greater fulfilment of Christ's prayer, that we may be one in order to face the challenges of secularism and unbelief."
Additional reporting by Reuters
