| RELATIONS between Anglicans and the Roman Catholic Church — said to have deteriorated over the past decade, at least at other than the local level — were debated in the General Synod on Thursday morning of last week.
The Bishop of Chichester, the Rt Revd John Hind, said that he was saddened and frustrated by the state of progress towards unity between the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches. It had been described by an authoritative voice as “at a standstill”, he said later in his speech.
He began by defining the different functions of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) and the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission (IARCCUM).
ARCIC’s task was to “address doctrinal difficulties which must be overcome if we are to progress toward our declared goal of full visible sacramental communion”. The Synod was to have debated the text Mary: Grace and hope in Christ, which had been withdrawn from the agenda, and Bishop Hind could not try to anticipate a future debate.
He explained: “The difference between Anglicans and Roman Catholics are not that we believe different things about Mary, but that for the Roman Catholic Church certain dogmas are considered de fide and to be accepted as such, whereas Anglicans are not only free to believe them or not, but also to debate among ourselves how coherent they are with the rest of the faith.”
IARCCUM had a different remit, resting on the convictions that: there was more to unity than doctrinal agreement; more united the Churches than divided them; and common faith must be expressed in shared life and collaboration for mission.
A joint statement, a “serious and solemn document” that would have confirmed a new stage in relations between the Churches, was to have been issued, consequent on the IARCCUM meeting in 2000.
“Hardly had that process begun, however, than disarray in the Anglican Communion threatened not only this new stage, but even what agreement we thought we had.”
The Windsor report had been a decisive moment in bringing a return of hope, reinforced by proposals for an Anglican Covenant. “Although no one, in Rome or elsewhere, should think that a Covenant will solve our problems, it was clearly recognised that something of the sort was an indispensable part of our efforts to speak more convincingly to ecumenical partners about what it means to be an Anglican.”
Bishop Hind said that the dialogue was between the RC Church and the Anglican Communion as a whole. “Up until now, Rome has believed we are a single dialogue partner with an ability to make worldwide agreements. Whether this aspiration has any future remains to be seen.”
It was not only Anglican actions and words that had chilled the temperature, he suggested.
The Commission’s Agreed Statement had replaced a Joint Declaration. “We are invited to pass a very modest, and some might think, grudging resolution,” Bishop Hind said. He reminded the Synod that it had already endorsed much of the material as consonant with the faith of Anglicans.
Though he was saddened at going backwards, “it is pretty much a miracle that we have a text at all.” All was not lost; and he hoped that the Synod would join him in welcoming “the sober realism of this assessment and its openness to a happier future”. A positive vote would help the text to be seen as a “work in progress”.
Monsignor Andrew Faley (Roman Catholic Church) spoke of the 40 years of commitment to ecumenism since the Second Vatican Council. The work of ARCIC had brought the two Churches to the point where they could agree and disagree, but in a strong fraternal relationship. The report suggested a range of practical initiatives and how they could be taken very seriously at a local level. Catholics and Anglicans had warmed to each other, especially at a parochial level. The Synod would know well, he said, Pope John Paul II’s comment that “ecumenism is a road with no exits.” The present Archbishop of Westminster, asked about present Anglican-Catholic relationships, said they were “on a plateau”; but it was a plateau with no exits.
“The richness of Catholic-Anglican relations in this country is exemplary,” he said. “Nowhere else in the world do they exist to the same extent.”
The Revd Professor Paul Fiddes (Baptist Union) found difficulty with the emphasis on confirmation through the laying on of hands as empowerment by the Holy Spirit, and said that growing in the Christian life did not come to an end with confirmation and sharing in the eucharist. Initiation was both the act of God and of the disciple. He said that this was quibbling about detail, but it was at the heart of the report that the Churches should recognise each other’s initiation.
The Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, gave a résumé of ecumenism between the Anglican and Roman Churches since James I. He said the special status of the Anglican Communion had been recognised by the Second Vatican Council. When ARCIC was formed, it deliberately based its work on scripture, so to avoid entanglement in past polemics, and it was important not to underrate its achievement. In the matter of authority, it had reached no agreement, only convergence, but bishops had the specific task of promoting and maintaining faith in the Church. The Pope’s teaching office only declared the faith in the Church when it was necessary to do so.
The report before the Synod was to have been an Agreed Statement, was downgraded after recent events in the Anglican Communion, and upgraded again to a study paper. But great care was needed. Instead of convergence, there was a risk of divergence of a most destructive kind. Anglicans did need some arrangement of jurisdictional and magisterial power. Archbishop Runcie had said that he did not want to be an Anglican pope, but Anglicans did need a legitimate patrimony.
Paul Boyd-Lee (Salisbury) introduced amendments that would welcome the work towards the Agreed Statement, would endorse the concerns of the Faith and Order Advisory Group, and have a Synod debate on all the ecumenical documents listed in the appendix of Growing Together in Unity.
His amendments were welcomed in varying degrees by Bishop Hind, and were all carried.
Brian Newey (Oxford) recalled a Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in which two elderly ladies in hats from the Catholic Truth Society had had to spend most of a service in the vestry because they were not allowed to participate, only to emerge at the time of the sermon, which was their contribution to the occasion. The Synod should rejoice in the progress that had been made since then.
Canon Alan Hargrave (Ely) spoke of the retreat from earlier ecumenical achievements. He had served as a eucharistic minister when a Roman Catholic priest had celebrated mass in the church where he was Vicar. The priest had also given communion to members of the Anglican congregation. Four months later, that priest had been disciplined for his unauthorised act, and had been replaced. When people had heard this, they had wept. “I was upset, but my Roman Catholic friends were absolutely devastated.”
There had been a tightening of discipline from the centre of the Roman Catholic Church, and priests could no longer speak out because they feared that they would be disciplined. “These are not rosy at the grass roots,” he said.
The Revd Angus MacLeay (Rochester) said that it would help if future ARCIC and IARRCUM meetings could include more representative groupings, so that groups such as Evangelical Anglicans felt that their voices were heard at an early stage.
Mr Boyd-Lee’s amendment inserting a reference to the Faith and Order Advisory Group’s concerns was carried by 130 to 123, with 7 recorded abstentions.
Dr Christina Baxter (Southwell & Nottingham) said that she welcomed the possibility of defending the many statements that had emerged in ecumenical discussions. She would press hard for lay participation.
Peter Haddock (Southwark) said that the assumption about what RCs and Anglicans held in common had to be tested in the Synod. It might be time to stand up and say that they had problems with the doctrines of Mary and the eucharist.
The Revd Debbie Flach, Priest-in-Charge of Christ Church, Lille, said that to the minority Anglican Church, the majority Roman Catholic community in France were “almost overwhelming” in their welcome.
The Revd John Cook (London) said that there was more to unity than doctrinal agreement. The use of authority to impose the doctrines of Mary’s immaculate conception and her bodily ascension still had not been grappled with. The C of E went to scripture to find its truths.
The Revd Meg Gilley (Durham) was eager for communion with other Churches, because for 15 years she had not been able to share communion with her husband, who became Roman Catholic in 1992; “and that is a great sadness.”
The Archbishop of York, Dr Sentamu, identified a new atmosphere emerging: a new climate of friendship evidenced from conversations he had had in Rome, and from other work at grass-roots level. “The desire for full communion must always be our goal,” he insisted. Social action, justice, and freedom was implicit in that. The Holy Spirit was at work in rediscovering what the Churches’ thinking was, but Jesus’s call for all to be one was paramount. “See where partnership in the love of Jesus will take us.”
The Bishop of Guildford, the Rt Revd Christopher Hill, wanted to bid for “a more enthusiastic spirit”. The amendments passed had taken account of some reservations about some aspects of the agreement, but now he wanted to draw attention to what was rather special in the agreed statement. It tried to lay out what the Churches had in common — the first time this had really been done in a systematic way since 1968.
Lucy Doharty (Portsmouth) represented “interchurch families”. The Churches had struggled with complexities and had experienced both highs and lows, and matters had moved forward “achingly slowly”.
The amended motion was carried by the Synod by 258 votes to 10, with 5 recorded abstentions. It read:
That this Synod, welcoming the work that has been done towards the Agreed Statement of the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission and endorsing its stated aim of closer collaboration in unity and mission between our two communions:
(a) note the assessment of the Agreed Statement in GS 1673 as a contribution to the further development of the text and endorse the concerns of the Faith and Order Advisory Group set out in section 4 of GS 1673;
(b) affirm the further growing together in unity and mission will depend on common witness and the exchange of spiritual gifts, as well as clarity between areas where doctrinal agreement has been achieved and areas that require further work; and
(c) encourage Anglicans to implement, with Roman Catholics, the practical initiatives for bishops and people in Part 2 of the Statement;
(d) request that debates take place in Synod on all the documents listed in Appendix 2, Second Phase in Growing Together in Unity and Mission as the next stage in the process. |
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