Humble companions: Catholic-Anglican document sees healing in difference Carol Glatz | Jul 2, 2018 Catholic News Service Pope Francis greets Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury, head of the Church of England, during a private audience at the Vatican Oct. 27, 2017. The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission July 2 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. (Credit: CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano.) ROME - 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. In their introduction, the Catholic co-chairman, Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham, England, and the Anglican co-chairman, Anglican Archbishop David Moxon, the archbishop of Canterbury’s representative in Rome, wrote that the document sought to develop the issues of authority and ecclesial communion “in a new way.” Understanding how the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion structure authority and exercise authority in communion on the local, regional and global levels are key for understanding how each body discerns its teaching and practices on critical issues in ethics and moral theology. It is also key for understanding and addressing questions, debates or divisions experienced internally within the churches. Which means the document also seeks to inform, enrich and help not just the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion on an ecumenical level, but also in dealing with their own internal debates and tensions. This first agreed statement from ARCIC III “represents a significant methodological and substantive step-forward for Anglican-Roman Catholic formal ecumenism,” and it is also “in service of ecclesial reform within both Anglican tradition and Catholic tradition,” Paul Murray, professor of theology at Durham University in the United Kingdom and Catholic member of ARCIC, told Catholic News Service. The commission members representing the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion focus on their “respective felt difficulties within their own ecclesial cultures, processes, structures and associated ecclesiologies, and ask how these difficulties might be helped by a process of receptive learning from relative strengths in the theology and practice of the other communion,” he said July 2. This “receptive learning” lies at the heart of what has been called “receptive ecumenism,” that is, a method in which the churches stop asking what the other needs to learn from them and begin asking what they need to learn from the other. It is more about self-examination, inner conversion and discerning what the Lord is calling for rather than convincing or judging one’s partner in dialogue. This method has its roots in how St. John Paul II saw dialogue as not simply an exchange of ideas or a removal of obstacles, but an “exchange of gifts.” “This implies more than ceasing to judge the other tradition as mistaken or problematic but discerning what is graced” and can be “gratefully received,” the document said in its introduction. Click here for the rest of the article: https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2018/07...anglican-document-sees-healing-in-difference/
Ughhh, seeing them so cuddly ... when will the the two Judases stop hugging each other? We all know that both are enemies of the Romans and the Anglicans respectively...
I admire both of these leaders. Both Pope Francis and Archbishop Welby have been at the forefront of ecumenical dialogue which was symbolized in both of them celebrating the joint Anglican-Catholic liturgy in the Vatican in 2016. Great leaders both from my perspective.
I certainly don't envy their jobs. I imagine it's very taxing to try and keep two of the largest communions in the world together through turmoil.