Anglican-Roman Catholic Efforts

In 1966 the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is generally acknowledged to be the spiritual head of the Anglican Church, agreed to the formation of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission. Beginning in 1970, it spent 12 years examining the difficulties hindering unity and recommending possible solutions. The Commission, made up of ten scholars from each religion, paid particular attention to three controversial issues: authority (including papal primacy and infallibility); Catholic adoration of the Eucharist; and the ordained ministry.

How was the Commission’s report received by the two churches? Neither rejected it out of hand. In fact, it is expected that each Church will take years to formulate an official response. But a London Times editorial forecast that “actual union between the two [Rome and Canterbury] is surely a generation away at least.” Blocking the path are such issues as contraception, married clergy, the infallibility and jurisdiction of the pope, the adoration of Mary, and the ordination of Anglican clergy, declared to be “utterly invalid and altogether void” by Leo XIII at the First Vatican Council in 1896.

When Pope John Paul II visited Britain in the summer of 1982, he and the Archbishop of Canterbury agreed to set up another international commission to study further the possibility of moving towards unity.

Well aware of the religious disunity around them and the setbacks they have encountered, the ecumenists continue their conciliatory efforts. For them, unity is a pious hope for the distant future. For the time being, they seem happy to settle for cooperation and mutual respect. The talk is of “union without absorption” as the joint chairmen of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission described it.