Benedict XVI, Recorded Live: His Ecumenism? It’s Right Here

The complete transcript of pope Joseph Ratzinger’s address to non-Catholic Christians, delivered in Luther’s homeland. With the addition of all of his off-the-cuff remarks

by Sandro Magister

ROMA, September 1, 2005 – Benedict XVI often enjoys speaking off the cuff. This is also true in the case of very demanding topics.

He did so in his remarks to the priests of Valle d’Aosta, during his vacation in the mountains, at the end of July.

He did it in his homily for the feast of the Assumption of Mary, in the little church of Castel Gandolfo.

And he did so in Cologne, in his August 19 address to the representatives of the Protestant and Orthodox Churches.

On that day, the journalists had received an advance copy of the written text, in various languages. And this is the text to which they referred in their reports.

But in reality, Benedict XVI said much more. On a number of occasions he raised his eyes from the text and improvised.

More here.

This is a very interesting read...for instance, the following as I understand it was "off the cuff":

May I make a small comment: [2] now, it is said that following the clarification regarding the doctrine of justification, the elaboration of ecclesiological issues and the questions concerning ministry are the main obstacles still to be overcome. In short, this is true, but I must also say that I dislike this terminology, which from a certain point of view delimits the problem since it seems that we must now debate about institutions instead of the Word of God, as though we had to place our institutions in the centre and fight for them. I think that in this way the ecclesiological issue as well as that of the "ministerium" are not dealt with correctly.

The real question is the presence of the Word in the world. In the second century the early Church primarily took a threefold decision: first, to establish the canon, thereby stressing the sovereignty of the Word and explaining that not only is the Old Testament "hài graphài" [the Scriptures], but together with the New Testament constitutes a single Scripture which is thus for us the master text.

However, at the same time the Church has formulated an apostolic succession, the episcopal ministry, in the awareness that the Word and the witness go together; that is, the Word is alive and present only thanks to the witness, so to speak, and receives from the witness its interpretation. But the witness is only such if he or she witnesses to the Word.

Third and last, the Church has added the "regula fidei" [rule of faith] as a key for interpretation. I believe that this reciprocal compenetration constitutes an object of dissent between us, even though we are certainly united on fundamental things.

Therefore, when we speak of ecclesiology and of ministry we must preferably speak in this combination of Word, witness and rule of faith, and consider it as an ecclesiological matter, and therefore together as a question of the Word of God, of his sovereignty and humility inasmuch as the Lord entrusts his Word, and concedes its interpretation, to witnesses which, however, must always be compared to the "regula fidei" and the integrity of the Word. Excuse me if I have expressed a personal opinion; it seemed right to do so.

If you noticed the [2] above, here are the notes for it:
[2] In the written text the “small comment,” which the pope developed at length in his spontaneous remarks, was limited to these few lines: “The ecclesiological questions, and especially those of the consecrated ministry, or the priesthood, are beyond a doubt connected to the question of the relationship between Scripture and the Church; that is, of insistence upon the right interpretation of the Word of God and its unfolding within the life of the Church.”