Studying Mary: The Virgin Mary in Anglican and Catholic Theology and Devotion. Photo credit: Bloomsbury T&T Clark ~ 2008

Author/editor(s): Adelbert Denaux; Nicholas Sagovsky
Publisher: T&T Clark
Creation: 2008 (The date of original creation or publication, if known)
Size/extent: 288 pages

Persistent link: https://iarccum.org/doc/1723 (Please use this permanent URL in your publications and bookmarks to link to this document. The files linked below may be modified, but this record will remain at this location.)

The fifteen studies in this volume were originally prepared as working papers for the internal use of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) in its study of Mary. According to its mandate, ARCIC seeks agreement on issues that are potentially or actually church-dividing by engaging in a serious dialogue founded on the Gospels and the ancient common traditions. In this dialogue, the members of the Commission make extensive use of historical, theological, liturgical, and devotional literature that is published and accessible to all. In studying Mary, ARCIC’s work was also greatly assisted by internal documents prepared by its members.

Until now this material has not been published and was therefore difficult to find. Those who have read the ARCIC Agreed Statement, ‘Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ’, published by Continuum in 2005, will welcome the opportunity to explore this present collection of related papers. The Agreed Statement on Mary is concise, containing only eighty paragraphs. This required the omission of some historical, discursive and illustrative material that could have been included in a longer document. The papers in this volume will make up for some of the omissions. ‘Studying Mary’ is therefore designed to assist the study of ARCIC’s work on Mary, ecumenically wherever possible, by seminaries, universities, parishes and dioceses around the world. The Seattle Statement urges a ‘re-reception’ of doctrine about Mary by both Roman Catholics and Anglicans.

This will be one more step towards ‘the restoration of complete communion of faith and sacramental life’ which Pope Paul VI and the Archbishop of Canterbury (Michael Ramsay) declared to be ARCIC’s goal in 1966. The journey to this goal has been long. The papers presented in ‘Studying Mary’ formed an important part of ARCIC’s food for that journey.

Table of contents:

1. Introduction / John A. Baycroft and Alexander J. Brunett.

2. Marian issues / Jean-Marie R. Tillard.

3. Marian doctrines and the Bible / John Muddiman.

4. Exegetical note on the ‘perpetual virginity’ of the Blessed Virgin Mary / John Muddiman and Adelbert Denaux.

5. Scriptural basis of the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of the Mother of God / Adelbert Denaux.

6. Marian doctrine and piety up to the Council of Chalcedon : the Fathers and the liturgy ; Marian issues from an eastern perspective / Emmanuel Lanne.

7. Mary in the common Latin tradition : agreement, disagreements, and divergence / Rozanne Elder.

8. Thomas Aquinas, the doctrine of original sin, and the dogma of the Immaculate Conception / Liam G. Walsh.

9. Virgin Mary in the Anglican tradition of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries / Michael Nazir-Ali and Nicholas Sagovsky.

10. Immaculate Conception : why was it defined as a dogma and what was defined? / Sara Butler.

11. Definition of the dogma of the Assumption of Mary into heavenly glory / Liam G. Walsh

12. Second Vatican Council and subsequent documents of the Magisterium with annotated quotations / Sara Butler.

13. Question of the authority of the recent Marian dogmas / Charles Morerod.

14. Mary in the communion of saints : eschatology and invocation ; Liturgical commemoration of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion / Charles Sherlock and Peter Cross.

15. Appendix: The redactional history of the ARCIC document on Mary / Adelbert Denaux