Una Sancta
Why Are We Still Separated?
- Theology
- Publisher: Resource Publications (Wipf and Stock)
- Published: 2025
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Publisher's Description
The unity of the Christian church in the world has been broken many times, with major schisms between East and West in the Great Schism of 1054 and the Western schism between Catholics and Lutherans which resulted in 1530. The Western schism at the Reformation occurred at the Augsburg Diet in 1530, when Catholics theologians and leaders of the German Reformation movement failed to agree on the wording of the articles of the Augsburg Confession. This document, regarded by many Catholic and Lutheran theologians today as not being "church-dividing" or heretical, is being reconsidered by theologians of both churches to see if substantial agreement can be made on its articles before its five hundredth anniversary in 2030. This book charts the course of the confession from its creation in 1530 until the present day and lays out a hope for a substantial healing of the Western schism by its five hundredth anniversary.
Endorsements (5)
“Cormac O’Duffy rehearses the roots of both the Wittenberg Reformation and the twentieth century attempts at Roman Catholic-Evangelical rapprochement in the dark days of National Socialism as background to the call for Roman Catholic recognition of the Augsburg Confession in the 1970s. This appeal sought to use Philip Melanchthon’s formulation of the core of the biblical message in that Confession as a platform for our common witness to Jesus Christ in our time. Readers will profit much both from O’Duffy’s historical reporting and from his message of reconciliation based on this document from a critical time of separation within Western Christendom. This book challenges readers to rethink what it means to be Christ’s church and to act in confessing the faith with Melanchthon in our own time and place.”
“Christian unity is a goal that seems so elusive all these five hundred years. The Augsburg Confession of 1530 was an opportunity missed. Today we have another chance to heal this wound of the church. Cormac O’Duffy has written the history of the Confession and has detailed the struggle in the 1970s for the Roman Catholic Church to come to some recognition of the Confession. Reading O’Duffy’s work will enlighten those who can take up the task again to confront the need for unity that Christ himself desires of us. This book helps all of us to reflect on the way forward and take the steps to meet the challenge Christian unity invites us to make.”
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