The Gift of Authority: Observer’s Report and Analysis
ARCIC-II 431/99

Author/editor(s): Michael Root
Creation: 31 Aug. 1999 (The date of original creation or publication, if known)
Event: ARCIC II: Review of Reactions to The Gift of Authority. Preliminary Discussion of Marian Issues, Mississauga, 26 August to 2 September 1999
Protocol: ARCIC-II 431/99

Persistent link: https://iarccum.org/doc/?d=1150 (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.)

Citation:
Root, Michael. The Gift of Authority: Observer’s Report and Analysis, ARCIC-II 431/99 (31 Aug. 1999). https://iarccum.org/doc/?d=1150.

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On 12 May 1999, the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission released its most recent agreed statement, The Gift of Authority: Authority in the Church III (hereafter GA)} This statement takes up one of the most difficult ecumenical topics-the authority within the church of official teaching-and addresses some of its most difficult aspects, from the role of the laity in teaching to the special teaching role of the bishop of Rome. The commission makes large claims for its work: “We believe that if this statement about the nature of authority and the manner of its exercise is accepted and acted upon, this issue will no longer be a cause of continued breach of communion between our two churches” (GA §51). How does the commission reach this conclusion? What does it have to say about authority in the church? How does what it says relate to discussions in the wider ecumenical world, especially within the Faith and Order movement? In addressing these questions, I shall limit myself to the text of GA and not comment on what I observed within the work of the commission as the Faith and Order observer from the World Council of Churches. While seeing the text develop certainly aids in understanding it, what is said here does not depend on “inside information”. (I must add that the commission was unfailingly gracious in its welcome to me.) Moreover, I will relate this report to the wider ecumenical concerns of Faith and Order, although my own Lutheran perspective will undoubtedly shape what I have to say. A bilateral dialogue, especially between churches as closely related as the Anglican and Catholic churches, naturally can agree in greater detail than is possible in the multilateral discussions typical of Faith and Order. We who are neither Catholic nor Anglican need both to ask ourselves what aspects of this text can be taken up into the wider discussion and to let ourselves be challenged by the specificity of what Anglicans and Catholics can say together.