Abstract
This chapter presents and evaluates the first document of the Third Anglican - Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC III), the Erfurt (Agreed) Statement 2017, Walking Together on the Way: Learning to Be Church—Local, Regional, Universal (published in 2018). The Erfurt statement is a valuable contribution not only to the pursuit of the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church towards full communion but also to the larger area of dialogues between the Roman Catholic Church and the Churches or ecclesial communities issued from the Reformation. Since 1517, the right relationship between the local and the universal level of the Church has been a permanent issue. Both Anglicans and Roman Catholics can learn from each other how to reform their instruments of communion in order to develop a better balance between the local and the universal.
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Notes
- 1.
The texts of the agreed statements of ARCIC I, as well as supporting essays and evaluations, have been edited by Christopher Hill and Edward Yarnold (eds.), Anglicans and Roman Catholics . The Search for Unity (London: SPCK/CTS, 1994). Note also: ARCIC I Co-Chairs: Clarifications of certain aspects of the agreed statements on Eucharist and Ministry of the first Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission http://www.prounione.urbe.it/dia-int/arcic/doc/e_arcic_classifications.html
- 2.
The documents of ARCIC II have been published by Adelbert Denaux, Nicholas Sagovsky and Charles Sherlock (eds.), Looking Towards a Church Fully Reconciled: The Final Report of the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission 1983–2005 (ARCIC II) (London: SPCK, 2016).
- 3.
These were the Anglican theologians Nick Sagovsky and Charles Sherlock and the Roman Catholic theologian Adelbert Denaux.
- 4.
The term ‘instruments of communion’ emerged in Anglican usage. The Commission found that it could also be applied to Catholic structures and procedures.
- 5.
For ARCIC III’s adoption of receptive ecumenism as key to its method, see the communique arising from the Commission’s first meeting in May 2011 at Bose, Italy.
- 6.
Cp. Unitatis Redintegratio, 4: “Nor should we forget that anything wrought by the grace of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of our separated brethren can contribute to our own edification. Whatever is truly Christian is never contrary to what genuinely belongs to the faith; indeed, it can always bring a more perfect realization of the very mystery of Christ and the Church.”
- 7.
- 8.
The importance of the regional in the life of the Church has been stressed by the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, “Ecclesiological and Canonical Consequences of the Sacramental Nature of the Church: Ecclesial Communion, Conciliarity, and Authority”, Ravenna (13 October 2007); also “Synodality and Primacy during the First Millennium: Towards a Common Understanding in Service to the Unity of the Church”, Chieti (21 September 2016).
- 9.
In their preface, the co-chairs announce this feature as follows: “At times the Commission has chosen to represent this by presenting our respective Anglican and Catholic analyses of our structures and their challenges in parallel columns. This allows us to recognize the similar but differentiated ways in which our respective structures seek to serve our communions. At other times, in order to avoid appearing to equate quite different processes, we use a sequential format, but with those paragraphs on the left hand side of the page in an Anglican voice, and those on the right hand side in a Roman Catholic voice. This side-by-side analysis of our structures allows us to identify what is challenged, what is graced, and what we may have to learn from our dialogue partner/pilgrim companion.”
- 10.
By Ecclesial identity, the Groupe des Dombes means the belonging of an individual or a confessional church to the one holy, ‘Catholic’ ad apostolic Church. By confessional identity, the group means belonging to a confessional church with its specific cultural and historical context and its own spiritual and doctrinal profile, through which she distinguishes itself from other Christian. Ecclesial conversion then means the effort required from the whole church and from all churches to be renewed and become more capable of fulfilling their mission in accordance with the motto ecclesia semper reformanda. By confessional conversion, the group understands the ecumenical effort by which a Christian confession cleanses and enriches its own inheritance with the aim of rediscovering full communion with other confessions (cf. Smith 1995, 567).
- 11.
When Archbishop Giovanni Benelli was Substitute, or Deputy, of the Secretariat of State, he made the following observation: “The real, effective power of jurisdiction of the pope over the whole Church is one thing. But the centralization of power is another. The first is of divine law. The second is the result of human circumstances. The first has produced many good things. The second is an anomaly” (quoted in QUINN 1996, 18).
- 12.
Some Anglican Provinces hesitate to accept the attempts to come to an ‘Anglican Communion Covenant’, in which provinces are invited to give up partly their provincial autonomy in order to come to a more effective instrument of a common decision on the level of the international Communion. See the text http://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/99905/The_Anglican_Covenant.pdf?author=Covenant&subject=Covenant. And how the churches reacted so far: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/39753/provincial-reception-of-the-anglican-covenant-for-acc-rev.pdf?subject=Covenant (entry 02-04-2018).
- 13.
To be published in the Information Service of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
- 14.
“We have made little progress in this regard. The papacy and the central structures of the universal Church also need to hear the call to pastoral conversion. The Second Vatican Council stated that, like the ancient patriarchal Churches, episcopal conferences are in a position “to contribute in many and fruitful ways to the concrete realization of the collegial spirit” (Lumen Gentium , 23). Yet this desire has not been fully realized, since a juridical status of episcopal conferences which would see them as subjects of specific attributions, including genuine doctrinal authority, has not yet been sufficiently elaborated (Apostolos Suos). Excessive centralization, rather than proving helpful, complicates the Church’s life and her missionary outreach.”
- 15.
“The authority structures of the Anglican Communion make much more modest claims than do parallel Roman Catholic instruments. As a consequence, Anglicans live with judgements that are understood to be more provisional, requiring to be tested and discerned by the sensus fidelium.
Christians are confronted with new situations in evolving history. They have to discern whether new ways of life are in agreement with the Gospel. The sensus fidelium plays an indispensable role in this process of discernment. It takes time before the Church comes to a final judgement. The faithful at large, theologians and bishops, all have their respective roles to play. This requires that Catholics live with provisionality, and give latitude to those instruments which cannot give judgements of the highest authority. By learning to live with teaching that is improvable, space would be given to the testing and discernment of a proposed teaching.”
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Denaux, A. (2019). The Church Local, Regional and Universal: A Delicate Balance. A Recent Ecclesiological Statement of ARCIC III. In: Miller, V., Moxon, T., Pickard, T. (eds) Leaning into the Spirit. Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19997-5_9
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