By Ann Marie Foley - 01 June, 2016
Archbishop David Moxon, director, Anglican Centre, Rome and Anglican co-chair ARCIC
Next October, Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Justin Welby will pray together with 36 Anglican and Catholic bishops at the Church of St Gregorio al Celio in Rome.
The joint Anglican-Catholic prayer service will mark the 50th anniversary of the Anglican Centre and the setting up of ARCIC (Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission) by Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey.
Archbishop David Moxon from New Zealand, who heads Rome’s Anglican Centre, and is co-chair of ARCIC with Catholic Archbishop Dr Bernard Longley of Birmingham revealed news of the proposed joint prayer service at the Rome church.
Speaking about the meeting of ARCIC in Canada, he said that in Rome the bishops will blessed and mandated “to go out and demonstrate partnerships that are possible” in mission and common worship, to show that “no one of us has got it all together, but together each one of us can share it all”.
At this latest meeting, the delegates agreed to publish the first ARCIC III document on the theme ‘Towards a Church fully reconciled’ in the autumn.
It explores the tensions and progress between the local and Universal Church within the two communions.
It is now working on its second volume looking at how Anglicans and Catholics make difficult moral and ethical decisions.
Archbishop Moxon noted that the first document has been “quite exciting to see already how user-friendly and readable it’ll be”.
He said that the group has been very encouraged by feedback from local young Canadians from different cultural backgrounds who have helped to make it “a more third millennium book”.
The Anglican Archbishop said the book clearly states that we need to be “converted by each other”, showing each other “our wounds, our limitations, our weaknesses” in order to help each other to grow.
He noted that there is still a long journey ahead towards the goal of organic union, but said the group is encouraged by the “inch-by-inch progress that we see around us”.
Roman Catholic ARCIC co-chair Archbishop Bernard Longley
Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham said that everyone in the Commission is “on board with the approach of this document which contrasts somewhat with the previous agreed statements of ARCIC’s first two phases”.
He said it is new in that it uses “Receptive Ecumenism” which allows Anglicans and Catholics “to look at the reality of life within each of our two communions, looking with a critical eye too at where we fall short”.
This was the sixth annual meeting of ARCIC III and it was hosted by the Anglican sisters of St John the Divine in Toronto.
There were 18 members of the Commission present.
This is the first time ARCIC has met in Canada, and it gave Canada’s own Anglican-Catholic community a chance to meet with their international colleagues.
ARCIC was set up in 1969 to further ecumenical dialogue between the world’s 85 million Anglicans and 1.3 billion Catholics.
