It is forty years since The Malta Report set Anglicans and Catholics on the way towards unity. Throughout these years, the Catholic Church has always sought dialogue with the Anglican Communion as a whole, with all the challenge that your treasured diversity can sometimes bring to the table. So our Church takes no pleasure at all to see the current strains in your communion ”“ we have committed ourselves to a journey towards unity, so new tensions only slow the progress. But they do seem to concern matters that are very important. These discussions are about the degree of unity in faith necessary for Christians to be in communion, not least so that they may be able to offer the Gospel confidently to the world. Our future dialogue will not be easy until such fundamental matters are resolved, with greater clarity.
People sometimes ask me: ”˜Has it been worth it?’ ”˜You’ve given a great deal of your life to this work and yet where are the results? Are we any closer yet to being united?’ My answer is ”˜Yes, it has.’ I have said many times that I believe the path to unity is like a road with no exit for those who genuinely seek unity and are also seeking the conversion it requires. That’s because I know it is Christ’s will that we be one, and however long it takes that has to be our goal. Pope Benedict again and again comes back to this as at the heart of what he is working for.
Moreover, I am sure that the dialogue Statements of ARCIC, whether or not they are accepted in their entirety, do signal real convergence. We now have the substantial consensus between us on Eucharist and about Ministry, indicated by ARCIC’s work. To the extent that we have achieved genuine convergence in these and other matters, to that extent we are also drawing nearer to the truth together. If truth really is expressed in these agreements they must sooner or later bear fruit. They are ”˜money in the bank’, whose value will one day be clearly seen. We can already notice one result of this ”“ in the changed relationships of these years, and the ways Anglicans and Catholics can sometimes work together with greater confidence in the faith we share.
So I am not gloomy. Dialogue will continue in some form. Even if we sometimes find it hard to discern just how to go forward we cannot give up on seeking the unity Christ wills. As The Gift of Authority puts it so well, ”˜Only when all believers are united in the common celebration of the Eucharist will the God whose purpose it is to bring all things into unity in Christ be truly glorified by the people of God’ (paragraph 33).
While it may be true that there is great theological convergence; the reality is that on the ground, there has been much moral and practical divergence. We will only move forward toward ground level rather than theoretical unity when both Churches address several structural issues: for Anglicans, obviously, the issue of authority and voice (who is speaking and being spoken to by our ecumenical partners); for RC, issues of synodality, the teaching role of bishops and their role in communicating from local to universal and vice versa (which lead to questions of the sensus fidelium).
For now I think we must move forward by addressing our internal issues with an eye firmly planted on making structural decisions that enhance our relationships with our ecumenical partners. At the same time, we need to recognize Anglicanisms own potential gifts of authority that can be shared with our partners. In short, we need to push and pull one another along in how we go about making our decisions as a Church.
“To the extent that we have achieved genuine convergence in these and other matters, to that extent we are also drawing nearer to the truth together. If truth really is expressed in these agreements they must sooner or later bear fruit. They are ‘money in the bank’, whose value will one day be clearly seen.”
This is a perfect piece of theological brilliance, a ray of light and good reason for HOPE.
Agreed with both previous commenters. This is a very important address by the Cardinal–reliable in its presentation of the RC position, and delivered in a spirit of fraternity and love. What a gift to the Lambeth Conference. The coherence of the evolving ecclesiological discussion in the Anglican world–as in other ecclesial ‘worlds’–depends in large part upon bearing in mind this larger ecumenical frame and end: not for some pragmatic or political reason but because we are all already bound up in the one body, in Christ. Spiritually and theologically, therefore, there is no way back nor off of the ecumenical road, as the Cardinal emphasizes.
“We now have the substantial consensus between us on Eucharist and about Ministry, indicated by ARCIC’s work”.
Wishful thinking.
He could well ask English anglo-catholics about last Synod…