Humble companions: Catholic-Anglican document sees healing in difference

3 July 2018 • Persistent link: iarccum.org/?p=2933

A new document driven by a fresh approach taken by the official AnglicanRoman Catholic dialogue commission reflects a major development in ecumenism where difference is not cause for suspicion or reproach, but is used as an enriching opportunity for mutual listening, learning and conversion.

This notable change is seen in the first agreed statement from the newest and third phase of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, known as ARCIC III. The statement, “Walking Together on the Way: Learning to be the ChurchLocal, Regional, Universal,” was released to the public July 2 after seven years of joint meetings and consultations.

In their introduction, the Catholic cochairman, Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham, England, and the Anglican cochairman, Anglican Archbishop David Moxon, the archbishop of Canterburys representative in Rome, wrote that the document sought to develop the issues of authority and ecclesial communionin a new way.”

Understanding how the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion structure authority and exercise authority in communion on the local, regional and global levels are key for understanding how each body discerns its teaching and practices on critical issues in ethics and moral theology.

It is also key for understanding and addressing questions, debates or divisions experienced internally within the churches. Which means the document also seeks to inform, enrich and help not just the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion on an ecumenical level, but also in dealing with their own internal debates and tensions.

This first agreed statement from ARCIC IIIrepresents a significant methodological and substantive stepforward for AnglicanRoman Catholic formal ecumenism,” and it is alsoin service of ecclesial reform within both Anglican tradition and Catholic tradition,” Paul Murray, professor of theology at Durham University in the United Kingdom and Catholic member of ARCIC, told Catholic News Service.

The commission members representing the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion focus on theirrespective felt difficulties within their own ecclesial cultures, processes, structures and associated ecclesiologies, and ask how these difficulties might be helped by a process of receptive learning from relative strengths in the theology and practice of the other communion,” he said July 2.

Thisreceptive learninglies at the heart of what has been calledreceptive ecumenism,” that is, a method in which the churches stop asking what the other needs to learn from them and begin asking what they need to learn from the other. It is more about selfexamination, inner conversion and discerning what the Lord is calling for rather than convincing or judging ones partner in dialogue.

This method has its roots in how St. John Paul II saw dialogue as not simply an exchange of ideas or a removal of obstacles, but anexchange of gifts.”

This implies more than ceasing to judge the other tradition as mistaken or problematic but discerning what is gracedand can begratefully received,” the document said in its introduction.

The document marks the start of a new phase that emerged after the official AnglicanRoman Catholic dialogue experienced a sixyear hiatus.

Since ARCIC II finished its work in 2005, the Anglican Communion began experiencing strong internal tensions over the ordination of women as priests and bishops, the blessing of gay unions and the ordination of openly gay clergy. Differing positions on those moral issues also created a sense that Anglicans and Roman Catholics were growing farther apart rather than approaching unity.

As such, nowretired Pope Benedict XVI and Archbishop Rowan Williams, the nowformer archbishop of Canterbury, England, and head of the Church of England, had identified two critical areas for ecumenical exploration in their 2006 common declaration: “the emerging ecclesiological and ethical factors making that journey more difficult and arduous.”

The two leaders authorized the new phase of the dialogue at their meeting at the Vatican in November 2009, just one month after Pope Benedict announced his decision to erect personal ordinariates for allowing former Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of their distinctive Anglican heritage, including a certain amount of governing by consensus.

Rather than put the brakes on dialogue, it gave both sides a chance to get a different look at the heart of lingering questions about authority and how decisions on moral issues are made. The two leaders asked ARCIC, which held the first of the new round of meetings in 2011, to focus on the church as communion, local, regional and universal, and how, in communion, the local, regional and universal church come to discernright ethical teaching.”

At 34,000 words, the resulting document represents a detailed exploration of what structures, channels or practices exist that seek to give all the baptizedlay, religious, clergy, bishopsa voice or a role in how decisions are made.

While the commission has left the question ofthe discernment of right ethical teachingfor its next document, “this exploration of the nature of communion has become vital in the light of current debates within the churches,” the document said.

Communion is essentially about having the right balance among the different members of the body of Christ. That would mean no excessive demand for autonomy by the local memberssuch as parishes and diocesesand no excessive demand for centralization by thetranslocal” — such as national bishopsconferences, regional federations, the Roman Curia or the papacy.

In his five years as pope, Pope Francis has already shown several major ways he is seeking to eradicateclericalismand expand ways the voice ofthe people of Godgets heard at the top, for example, with presynod questionnaires and encounters; he is also shifting more weight from the Roman Curia to episcopal conferences by returning oversight of liturgical translations to them and citing their documents in his teachings.

Current issuesnot detailed in the document but in the forefront of debate in the Catholic Churchthat depend on the right use of authority and legitimate diversity include policies on Communion for Protestant spouses of Catholics and guidelines for the interpretation ofAmoris Laetitia,” Pope Francis‘ apostolic exhortation on the family.

In a Catholic commentary published on the website of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity along with the document, Father Ormond Rush, an Australian theologian, highlighted a number of ways the document could contribute toCatholic selfunderstanding and practice.”

There are many parallels between the receptive learning possibilities for the Roman Catholic Church proposed bythe latest ARCIC documentand Pope Francis‘s vision for renewal and reform according to the Second Vatican Council. In other words, the Anglican tradition has much to offer in making the Council a reality.”

A number of elements in the Anglican traditionwith its added emphasis on the mission of the laity, the power of the regional and the benefits of debate as something to be welcomed, not feared — “can assist the Roman Catholic Church to be more faithful to the vision of the Second Vatican Council,” he wrote.

Murray told CNS, “In the longer term this is the way that will take us to full communion because what will happen is that the differences between Anglicans and Catholics will ultimately cease to be communiondividing differences but will be an ecumenicallyenriching differences and communionbuilding differences. It is a growth to full communion by living in and through diversity.”