Resolution IV.23

The Roman Catholic Church

This Conference:

1. continues to be grateful for the achievements of the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission and, recognising that there are a number of outstanding issues which still need to be addressed, strongly encourages its continuation;
2. welcomes the proposal for a high-level consultation to review Anglican-Roman Catholic relationships in the light of the agreements reached and the ‘real though imperfect communion’ already existing between the churches of the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church. The Conference requests that the consultation should include different local situations, including the movement of clergy from one Church to another; the experience of Christian solidarity under persecution [e.g., in the Sudan]; discussions of the implications of having agreed statements on Eucharistic Doctrine and Ministry and Ordination, and the status of Apostolicae curae in the new context brought about by the work of ARCIC;
3. recognises the special status of those Agreements which have been affirmed by the Lambeth Conference 1988 as ‘consonant in substance with the faith of Anglicans’ (Eucharistic Doctrine, Ministry and Ordination, and their Elucidations) and urges the provinces to receive them into their life;
4. encourages the referral of Salvation and the Church (1987), Church as Communion (1991), Life in Christ (1994), and the anticipated completion of ARCIC’s work on authority in the Church to the provinces for study and response back to the proposed Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations and (through the Primates’ Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council) to the next Lambeth Conference; and
5. welcomes warmly the invitation of Pope John Paul II in his Encyclical Letter Ut unum sint (1995) to consider the ministry of unity of the Bishop of Rome in the service of the unity of the Universal Church, strongly encourages the provinces to respond and asks the proposed Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations to collate the provincial responses.