Anglican-Roman Catholic Dialogue ~ IARCCUM.org

2024 Anglican Primates’ Meeting will be held in Rome for pilgrimage, consultation, and meeting with Pope Francis

Senior archbishops, presiding bishops, and moderators of the churches of the Anglican Communion will meet in Rome for the 2024 Primates’ Meeting (April 29-May 3). Conceived as a pilgrimage, they will pray and study Scripture together, visit holy sites in Rome, and reflect together about the mission and witness of the Church in the world.

In the first gathering of Anglican Primates to be held in Rome, the Primates’ programme will include a meeting with Pope Francis and conversation with Cardinal Grech about the meaning and promise of synodality for the whole Church.

The city of Rome is full of historical and spiritual significance for the whole Christian world. Pope Gregory the Great sent Augustine of Canterbury on mission to England in 597. Especially since the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), Rome has been a centre of inter-Christian encounter and ecumenical research.

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Anglican-Roman Catholic Dialogue:
Online resource centre for Anglican-Roman Catholic relations

Welcome to the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission (IARCCUM) website, an online resource centre for Anglican-Roman Catholic relations.

Highlights of the IARCCUM.org collection

Now available: ARCIC-II fonds 1983-1990 with some gaps.

• 6 agreed statements
• Responses & commentaries
• Minutes
• Study papers
• Draft texts

Material in this archive is sorted hierarchically into:

Fonds (collections of documents generally corresponding to the dialogue commissions and other bodies),
Series (phases of a dialogue),
Documents (individual titles), and
Items (digital files associated with a document). There may be many items associated with the same title.

Within each fond or series, documents are also grouped by genre: agreed statements, minutes, study papers, draft texts, press releases, etc…

About IARCCUM

IARCCUM is a commission established by the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church as an official joint commission. IARCCUM exists in parallel with the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, the theological commission known as ARCIC. IARCCUM’s purpose is:

to facilitate the development of strategies for translating the degree of spiritual communion that has been achieved into visible and practical outcomes;
to promote and monitor the formal response and reception of the agreed statements of ARCIC;
to strengthen relations between ARCIC and national Anglican-Roman Catholic Commissions (ARCs), and between different national ARCs, providing support and resources in order to foster an exchange of information and practice;
to encourage Anglican Provinces and Roman Catholic Episcopal Conferences to establish ARC dialogues where they do not exist;
to encourage Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops to develop projects and programmes of joint witness and mission in the world.

In 2000, Archbishop George Carey, then Archbishop of Canterbury, and Cardinal Edward Cassidy, then President of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, convoked a conference of Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops at Mississauga in Canada to discern the progress made in theological conversations since the 1960s, and whether closer co-operation could be developed between the two traditions. The result was IARCCUM, which has been meeting since 2001. In February 2007, it published the first fruit of its work, the report Growing Together in Unity and Mission, accompanied by two commentaries. IARCCUM’s work continues under the co-presidency of Archbishop Donald Bolen and Bishop David Hamid.

In October of 2016, IARCCUM gathered 19 pairs of Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops in Canterbury and Rome for an 8-day pilgrimage. This gathering was an opportunity to study and pray together at the tombs of Saints Peter, Paul, Augustine of Canterbury, and Thomas à Becket. The bishop-pairs were commissioned by Pope Francis and Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby at vespers at San Gregorio al Celio. On the site where St Gregory the Great commissioned St Augustine to evangelise the English, these bishops were commissioned to promote the growth in communion between these two churches and the reception of the agreements reached in the theological dialogues.