And yet, only days after signing the document, the major Vatican negotiator, Cardinal Edward Cassidy, President of the Vatican?s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said that the accord ?helps us to put in a balance which does not place too much emphasis neither on the divine, neither on justification, nor the human but at the same time finds a way of bringing these together.?
Asked by a reporter whether there was anything in the official common statement contrary to the Council of Trent (The Roman Catholic Church?s 16th-century response to the Reformation), Cardinal Cassidy said, ?Absolutely not, otherwise how could we do it? We cannot do something contrary to an ecumenical council. There?s nothing there that the Council of Trent condemns.?
But Canon IX of the decrees of the Council of Trent says, ?If anyone says that the ungodly is justified by faith alone in such a way that he understands that nothing else is required which cooperates toward obtaining the grace of justification,? which is what traditional Lutherans say, ?let him be anathema.? And Canon XII says, with the Augsburg Confession in mind, ?If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else that trust in divine mercy, which remits sins for Christ?s sake, or that it is this trust alone by which we are justified, let hem be anathema.?