Title: Lutheran-Catholic Agreement News from the Evalgelical Lutheran Church in America May 21, 1996 LUTHERAN-CATHOLIC AGREEMENT The Roman Catholic Church and the churches of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) will come to agreement on the same issue that divided the churches in the 16th century. That is the conclusion of the Lutheran-Roman Catholic Coordinating Committee which met April 26-28 in St. Louis to review the proposed "Joint Declaration on Justification by Faith." The U.S. Catholic Conference and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) assembled the committee to coordinate the U.S. response to international drafts of the declaration. The final version of the declaration is expected to be published this summer. Lutherans and Catholics have been in dialogue in the United States for more than 25 years and influenced international resolve on the issue in 1983 when they issued "Justification by Faith." The proposed joint declaration will be considered by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the assembly of LWF churches to be held July 7-17, 1997, in Hong Kong. LWF is a Geneva-based communion of 56 million Lutherans in 122 member church bodies in 68 countries. There are about 60 million Lutherans worldwide. The 5.2-million member ELCA is the second largest LWF member, after The Church of Sweden. [ELCA News and Information: 8765 W. Higgins Road, Chicago, IL 60631; phone 312/380-2963]