Why now? Because through 50 years of theological dialogues, Catholics and Lutherans have shown repeatedly that we have the resolve and the capacity to address doctrines and practices that have kept us apart. Through our dialogues, we are renewed in our commitment to continue together on the way to full communion, when we will experience our unity in sharing the Eucharist, in the full recognition of each other’s ministries and of our being Christ’s church.
An outstanding fruit of these dialogues was the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. Here Catholics and Lutherans demonstrated how, through sustained theological dialogues and prayer, a major doctrine once deemed to be church-dividing can become a teaching in which we find our unity through reconciled diversity. The JDDJ provided an ecumenical breakthrough in distinguishing divisive mutual condemnations from diversities in theology and piety which need not divide the church, but which can in fact enrich it.
Source: Declaration on the Way - Declaration on the Way: Church, Ministry and Eucharist, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/ecumenical-and-interreligious/ecumenical/lutheran/upload/Declaration_on_the_Way-for-Website.pdf