The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission was, for the second consecutive year, unable to meet in plenary due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. Instead, the Commission met in two webinars on 10 and 12 May in which they considered the forthcoming study document of the Faith and Order Commission, Churches and Moral Discernment: Facilitating Dialogue to Build Koinonia. This document was presented jointly by Professor Myriam Wijlens, Co-chair of the study group and consultant of ARCIC, and Dr David Kirchhoffer, the principal drafter of the text. Members considered how the work, and specifically the “Tool” for Moral Discernment developed in the document, could be integrated with ARCIC’s own work.

The Commission is currently examining the question of how the Church in communion discerns right ethical teaching and, in continuity with its previous agreed statement, Walking Together on the Way, is using Receptive Ecumenism to examine this question. The Commission decided to meet for two further webinars later in the year in which it will return to previous case studies presented in its Jerusalem 2019 plenary in the light of the work of the Faith and Order study.

Despite the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, like other dialogues, is finding new ways to continue its work. Its plenary session scheduled to meet in Northern Italy this May was transferred into an online meeting over four days (12-15 May). Commission members were able to exchange texts using email and discuss them via an online platform. The Commission is preparing for two further online meetings later in the year. Work for these meetings will be prepared by subgroups of the Commission also working through online meetings. In this way, it is hoped that ARCIC can maintain momentum in working towards an agreed statement on how, in communion, the local and universal church discerns right ethical teaching. A communiqué was issued at the conclusion of the meeting.

The latest agreed statement by the third Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC III) was released July 2. “Walking Together on the Way: Learning to be the Church – Local, Regional, Universal” indicates that Anglicans and Catholics are still on the way together and learning from each other. The year 1966 included a watershed moment for Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue: Then-Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey paid a visit to Pope Paul VI, and a common journey began. In 1970, ARCIC was instituted and, since then, has explored the themes of authority and ecclesiology of communion.

La differenza non è più motivo di sospetto o di rimprovero, ma è soprattutto un’opportunità arricchente per l’ascolto reciproco, l’apprendimento e la conversione. È questo lo spirito innovativo che sottende il nuovo documento adottato dalla Commissione internazionale anglicana-cattolica. Si tratta della prima dichiarazione concordata della terza fase di dialogo ufficiale, nota anche come ARCIC III. Il documento, intitolato Walking Together on the Way: Learning to Be the Church – Local, Regional, Universal (Camminare insieme sulla strada: imparare a essere la Chiesa – locale, regionale, universale) è stato concordato nel corso di una riunione svoltasi a Erfurt, in Germania, nel 2017, ma è stato diffuso il 2 luglio scorso dopo sette anni di riunioni e consultazioni congiunte.

An agreed statement produced by the official commission for dialogue between the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches has been heralded as “ground-breaking” and an “important step on the pilgrimage towards fuller unity in Christ”. The text for the work – “Walking Together on the Way: Learning to be the Church – Local, Regional, Universal” – was agreed at a meeting of the third phase of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC III) in the German city of Erfurt in May 2017. It was the first document produced by ARCIC III and is the culmination of seven years’ work.

After nearly seven years of deliberation, the third Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC III) has issued a statement on authority, structure, and decision-making, which sets out how the two traditions might learn from each other. The 34,000-word statement Walking Together on the Way: Learning to be the Church — local, regional, universal, which runs to 70 pages, was published on Monday on the website of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. The text was agreed in Erfurt, Germany, the scene of Martin Luther’s early ministry, on the 500th anniversary of the start of the Reformation on the Continent. ARCIC members have described the agreed statement as “exciting”, and suggest that it has the potential to restore ecumenical dialogue to good health after the difficulties experienced since Anglican developments such as the ordination of women and openly gay clergy, and the blessings of same-sex unions.

Members of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission expressed excitement about a fresh approach to ecumenism outlined in a statement that has taken seven years to produce. Paula Gooder, a British theologian and an Anglican member of the commission, known as ARCIC III, described the statement reflecting on authority and ecclesial communion as “groundbreaking.” “We feel that … we are walking together more closely than ever,” Gooder told Catholic News Service in a July 2 telephone interview. “I think this is a really important document.” She described the commission’s work as entering “new territory” and that she sees “great potential for future conversations and that is really exciting.” Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham, England, Catholic co-chair of ARCIC, said he felt the document was “exciting” because it restored ecumenical dialogue after a hiatus caused by the changes within the Anglican Communion, such as the priestly and episcopal ordination of women.

The Third Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC III) has issued its first agreed statement with the title Walking Together on the Way: Learning to be the Church – Local, Regional, Universal. Since its first meeting in 1970, ARCIC has published thirteen agreed statements. The third phase of the dialogue began in 2011 with the dual mandate to explore “the Church as Communion, local and universal, and how in communion the local and universal Church come to discern right ethical teaching.” The current document completes the first part of this mandate.

The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission published its first document in 13 years on how both institutions can learn from each other in the exercise of ecclesial authority locally, regionally and globally. The document, “Walking Together on the Way: Learning to Be the Church – Local, Regional, Universal,” is the first to come out of the third phase of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, known as ARCIC III, which began meeting in 2011. The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity made the document public on its website July 2. The latest agreed statement on how structures of authority support and promote ecclesial communion is considered a key element in understanding how discussion and debates are handled and decisions about ethics and “right” moral teachings are made, which will be the topic of the next document by ARCIC III.

“Walking Together on the Way: Learning to Be the Church – Local, Regional, Universal” is the first document produced by ARCIC in 13 years. Catholics can learn from Anglicans in giving a greater role to the laity in matters of church governance and more authority to local bishops’ conferences, according to a landmark new document from the official dialogue body of the two Churches. Anglicans, the text also argues, should focus on setting up structures and processes that safeguard the worldwide identity of its Communion and avoid becoming too focussed on one province. The recommendations are contained in “Walking Together on the Way: Learning to Be the Church – Local, Regional, Universal”, the first document produced by the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) in 13 years.

A new document driven by a fresh approach taken by the official Anglican-Roman 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 Church — Local, Regional, Universal,” was released to the public July 2 after seven years of joint meetings and consultations.

The official commission for dialogue between the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches has published its first document in 13 years, focusing on how each global institution can learn from the other in balancing exercise of ecclesial authority at the local, regional and worldwide levels.

Among the considerations in the 68-page report, released July 2, are questions of how the Catholic Church might learn from the Anglican experience to empower local church leaders to act more independently from Rome at times, and to give more governing authority to consultative bodies such as the Synod of Bishops.

“The Roman Catholic Church can learn from the culture of open and frank debate that exists at all levels of the Anglican Communion,” the members of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission state in one of the conclusions of their document, titled: “Walking Together on the Way: Learning to Be the Church — Local, Regional, Universal.”

‘Walking together on the way’ is the title of a new document to be published by the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, whose members met this month in Erfurt, Germany. Despite some “difficult conversations” and “hard questions” over the past year, the Anglican and Catholic theologians who make up ARCIC III managed, at the May 14th to 20th meeting, to conclude the first part of their mandate, finding agreement on ways in which the two Churches are structured at local, regional and universal levels. The new statement opens the way for the Commission to tackle the second part of its mandate on how the Churches, at local and universal level, are able “to discern right ethical teaching”. But what does the new ecumenical text contain? And how will it affect ordinary Catholics and Anglicans in the pews? To find answers to those questions, Philippa Hitchen spoke to the Catholic co-secretary of ARCIC III, Fr Anthony Currer of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity.

Anglicans and Roman Catholics should see in each other “a community in which the Holy Spirit is alive and active,” the latest communiqué from the official ecumenical dialogue between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church says. Members of the third-phase of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) met in the central German city of Erfurt early this month for their seventh meeting. They chose to meet in the city to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation – it is here that Martin Luther was ordained and lived as a monk. During their meeting, the members of ARCIC agreed the text of a new statement looking at Anglican and Roman Catholic ecclesiology. Walking Together on the Way: Learning to be Church – Local, Regional, Universal, to be known as The Erfurt Document, will be published next year.

When his Grace, Archbishop Justin Welby, visited Rome in June 2014, Pope Francis, in his address to the Archbishop said, quite simply, “We must walk together.” The image of the journey undertaken together was already a theme common to a number of papal speeches, and part of Pope Francis’s vision of the Church. Addressing clergy and lay-people in Assisi on 4 October 2013, he said, “I think this is truly the most wonderful experience we can have: to belong to a people walking, journeying through history together with our Lord, who walks among us! We are not alone; we do not walk alone. We are part of the one flock of Christ that walks together.” This conception of the Church has much to offer our ecumenical relationships. The image has now been used in a variety of different contexts and has been enthusiastically taken up by other Christian leaders. However, two moments in Anglican-Catholic relations that occurred in 2016 have given a fuller sense to its meaning and enable us to discern with greater clarity what walking together with our ecumenical partners might mean.

These two moments came at the beginning and the end of a vespers service celebrated by Pope Francis and Archbishop Justin Welby at San Gregorio al Celio on 5th October. The vespers celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the historic meeting between Blessed Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey in 1966. On that occasion the first Common Declaration between a Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury was published. It signalled the desire of both communities to work towards a “unity of truth”.

If Christians are called to live their faith concretely, then they cannot leave out concrete signs of the unity to which Jesus calls them. And just because the formal Anglican-Roman Catholic theological dialogue has been forced to grapple with new church-dividing attitudes toward issues such as the ordination of women and the blessing of same-sex marriages, it does not mean that common prayer led by Anglican and Catholic leaders and concrete collaboration by Catholic and Anglican parishes are simply window dressing.

Dozens of Catholic and Anglican bishops and several hundred priests and laity from both communities gathered in Rome in early October to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Vatican meeting of Blessed Paul VI and Anglican Archbishop Michael Ramsey of Canterbury, almost 50 years of formal theological dialogue through the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (known as ARCIC) and the 50th anniversary of the Anglican Centre in Rome.

The celebrations, highlighted by an ecumenical evening prayer service Oct. 5 with Pope Francis and Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury, coincided with a meeting of a newer body, the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission, known as IARCCUM.

‘ARCIC & IARCCUM: 50 years of walking together in faith’ is a symposium to be held Wednesday, 5 October 2016 at the Pontifical Gregorian University. Planned in conjunction with the IARCCUM pilgrimage, this symposium will be an opportunity to explore in detail some of the achievements of 50 years of dialogue between Anglicans and Roman Catholics.

Anglican and Catholic theologians, meeting in Toronto, Canada this week, have agreed on the publication of their first ARCIC III document on the theme “Towards a Church fully reconciled”. The volume, which is likely to be published in the autumn, uses the ‘Receptive Ecumenism’ approach to look at the limitations within each communion and see how one Church can help the other grow towards the fullness of faith. The third Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC III) is holding its sixth annual meeting from May 11th to 19th, hosted by the Anglican sisters of St John the Divine in Toronto. The 18 members of the Commission have completed work on the first part of their mandate, exploring tensions between the local and Universal Church within the two communions, and are continuing discussions on a second volume, looking at how Anglicans and Catholics make difficult moral and ethical decisions.

After nearly 50 years of discourse between the Catholic and Anglican communions, the official dialogue body wants to fine-tune how it studies the differences and similarities between two churches which both call themselves Catholic.

“ARCIC III hasn’t proved itself yet,” Sir David Moxon, Anglican co-chair of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, told The Catholic Register following an ecumenical evensong on Pentecost Sunday.

This third stage of the dialogue has been meeting since 2011, but has yet to publish a major document. It is currently studying how the Church arrives at moral teaching.

The official dialogue sponsored by the Vatican and the Archbishop of Canterbury is meeting in Toronto until May 18, when a concluding communique is expected from the meeting of 22 bishops, theologians and support staff. It is the first time the body has met in Canada and, to the knowledge of the participants, the first time in 50 years that ARCIC has met during Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit first revealed the global unity of the Christian message expressed in the diversity of languages from around the world.

One of the most important and troubled projects from the Second Vatican Council arrives in Toronto May 11 for some serious, scholarly, and saintly talk.

The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, better known as ARCIC, rolls into town to puzzle over how Catholics and Anglicans make decisions over ethical questions and to find new ways to sum up its work over the last five decades.

ARCIC is the official ecumenical dialogue between the world’s 85 million Anglicans and 1.3 billion Catholics set up by the Vatican and the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1969.

This is the first time ARCIC has met in Canada, and it gives Canada’s own Anglican-Catholic dialogue partners a chance to rub shoulders with their international counterparts.