Lutherans and Catholics Play Down Their Differences

In some ways, Lutherans and Catholics have drawn slightly closer over the past 50 years. Whatever the theological differences, the styles of their holy communion services are now more similar. Since the reforms of the 1960s, Catholic ceremonies have become less formal, more inclusive and much more likely to be in a local language. But in some respects, the two churches have grown apart. The head of Sweden's Lutheran church who welcomed the pontiff is a woman; the Swedish episcopate has also included an openly lesbian woman. For all the relatively tolerant spirit of some of the pope's remarks on gender and sexuality (“Who am I to judge?”), Catholicism is a long way from that. On the plane back from Sweden, Pope Francis indicated that a ruling by one of his predecessors, John Paul II, had excluded the possibility of women priests for the foreseeable future.