Anglican-Catholic ecumenism.

London - In a graduation address to the Anglican Faculty of Theology at Huron College in London, ON, on April 24, 1997, Anglican Bishop John Baycroft of Ottawa surveyed the ecumenical challenge to Anglicans and Catholics. He first discussed the Anglican-R.C. International Commission (ARCIC) dialogue of the sixties and seventies, its Windsor Agreed Statement on the Eucharistic doctrine (1971), and the subsequent 23 years of elucidations and dialogue. These, Bishop Baycroft thought, had ended in mutual agreement in 1994 with the Vatican's statement indicating that "no further study would seem to be required at this stage."

After touching upon Anglican plans for intercommunion in Europe with Lutherans who have an hierarchical, episcopal structure, and with North American Lutherans who do not, the Bishop concluded as follows:

"There are two truly great obstacles in the path towards full ecclesial communion between the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church: one is the refusal of Roman Catholics to ordain women because their Church does not believe that the Church has the authority to do this, and the other, also to do with authority, is to do with the exercise of authority by the Bishop of Rome as universal primate."

The Bishop added: "We may well be able to solve the second problem theologically before we can reach agreement on the first." Acknowledging that without agreement on the first "we cannot have full mutual recognition of ministries," he expressed hope that on the second point, a "re-reception of the ministry of the Bishop of Rome" might be a possibility in the near future (full text in B.C. Catholic, July 6, 1997).

A similar optimistic view was expressed by the female Anglican bishop newly appointed to Edmonton, Victoria Matthews, in a July interview with the Western Catholic Reporter. Bishop Matthews expects the Catholic Church to eventually accept women priests.

Comment

The genuine sympathy of Anglican Bishops for unity among Christians, and especially between Anglicans and Catholics, is commendable. As Pope, John Paul has supported the ecumenical movement with all his might since 1978; in more recent years he has redoubled his efforts in this respect. Wherever he goes, it is a subject for discourse. In his recent May-June 1997 visit to Poland, for example, he said:

"In recent years, the distance separating Churches and ecclesial communities from one another has diminished significantly. But it is still too great. Can we be fully reconciled among ourselves? Can we bear joint and effective witness to Christ if we are not reconciled with each other? Can we be reconciled with one another without forgiving one another?" (Tablet, June 7, 1997).

And to make clear what he means, the Holy Father in his visit to France this August in support of the World Youth Day rally, which he has called every three years since the start of his pontificate, asked forgiveness for the massacre of French Protestants 425 years ago, on the eve of the feast of St. Bartholemew, August 23, 1572.

But ecumenism is not just a matter of forgiving. No one knows this better than Pope John Paul II. Ultimately, unity must be based on agreement in faith and doctrine. That's why the views of Bishop Baycroft are incorrect and unrealistic. Between Catholics and Anglicans the distance over the last 30 years has not diminished. On the contrary, the gap has widened.

While personal relations may have improved, all the old differences in doctrine not only remain but have been permanently solidified by the 1992 Church of England decision - confirming what had happened earlier in the United States and Canada - to ignore the foundation and history of the Church and introduce women's ordination. That's the real origin of the 1994 Vatican statement that "no further study would seem to be required at this stage." It is now extremely difficult to know where to go from here.

On individual moral behaviour, too, the Anglican Churches have pulled away radically from traditional Christian teaching, beginning with the acceptance of contraception at the Anglican Lambeth Conference of 1930. Since then moral permissiveness has overtaken the various autonomous Anglican communities, especially in the West, where even the murder of preborn babies is formally supported.

If the possible "reception of the ministry of the Bishop of Rome" is to have any meaning at all, the first requirement would seem to be the setting aside of moral permissiveness and a return to the strict standards of Christian teaching on personal morality.

As Cardinal Thomas Winning of Glasgow, Scotland, recently pointed out, that also applies to individual Catholics. The onslaught of secularism and the climate of hedonism are threatening all Christians with ignorance, subjectivism and a "pick 'n' mix" approach regarding doctrines to be believed. (Tablet, June 28, 1997).

As an example of further deterioration within Anglicanism see the next item.