THE ECUMENICAL VISION
by Bishop David Chislett SSC

"How good and how pleasant it is when brethren dwell together in unity." (Psalm 133:1)

It is no exaggeration to say that, from one angle, many of the bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion spent years preparing for their week-long meeting in Portsmouth U.K. at the beginning of October. The rapid disintegration of the wider Anglican world, applications from new clusters of recently unchurched Anglicans to join the TAC, and the need to find a way of properly funding the TAC's international operations were considered at length.

But, as has been widely reported, the most significant aspect of the Portsmouth gathering was the day and a half discussion culminating in all the bishops signing a letter to the Holy See seeking "full, corporate, sacramental union" with the Roman Catholic Church. As Archbishop Hepworth notes in his subsequent press release, this letter was "cordially received at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith . . ." in Rome on the following Tuesday.

THE LORD'S PRAYER
The bishops' discussion often returned to the prayer Jesus prayed the night before he died - his "High Priestly Prayer" in which he said to his Father, "I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me." (John 17:20-21) This and other passages of Scripture inspired us as we debated and amended the text of the letter - an important process ensuring that it could truly be "owned" by the breadth of Anglican tradition represented in the TAC as a whole, and among the bishops in particular.

THE CONTEXT
The cover story of this Patmos Review by Bishop Peter Wilkinson of Canada puts the action of your bishops in the wider context of ecumenical history and the "new obstacles" to Christian reunion that have been created over the last thirty years by much of first world Anglicanism. Some critics, of course, have written unkindly about our aspirations for unity, forgetting that before the advent of these "new obstacles" the Anglican Communion as a whole was officially committed to a process leading to the same goal.

It is important for us to remember that even in the Second Vatican Council's Decree on Ecumenism - Unitatis Redintegratio - the churches of the Anglican Communion were distinguished from other non Roman Catholic ecclesial communities:

" . . . many Communions, national or confessional, were separated from the Roman See. Among those in which Catholic traditions and institutions in part continue to exist, the Anglican Communion occupies a special place." (13)

DASHED HOPES
Without doubt, both Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II had high hopes for the reunion of Rome and Canterbury, hopes that were ultimately dashed when even the Church of England accepted the purported ordination of women to the priesthood. This is sometimes denied by Anglican and Roman Catholic liberals; but most Roman Catholics who were actually part of the ARCIC process admit that their church's dialogue with the Anglican Communion has at the very least been seriously downgraded to an ongoing ecumenical relationship without the expectation of achieving the "full ecclesial reunion" so often spoken about in the 1970s and 80s.

REGROUPING
It is, then, not surprising that we as a small regrouping of Anglicans, having eschewed the direction in which first world Anglicanism as a whole is heading, should want to continue the ecumenical journey that so excited us back in those days.

We see that journey against the backdrop of the careful recognition by Vatican II (in Lumen Gentium and Unitatis Redintegratio) of "the real though imperfect communion" that is shared (already) by all the baptized, and recognition of the work of the Holy Spirit in Christian communities beyond the visible boundaries of the (Roman) Catholic Church. It is as a community that we approach Rome, inspired by those wonderful documents, and encouraged by the mutual desire for unity that emerged at that time.

UT UNUM SINT
But that's not all we have. Nor do we just look back to the process that produced the ARCIC documents. The 1995 encyclical of Pope John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint, also forms an essential part of the backdrop to our journey. In it the Holy Father speaks of Christian unity as a gospel imperative:

"When I say that for me, as Bishop of Rome, the ecumenical task is 'one of the pastoral priorities' of my Pontificate, I think of the grave obstacle which the lack of unity represents for the proclamation of the Gospel. A Christian Community which believes in Christ and desires, with Gospel fervour, the salvation of mankind can hardly be closed to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, who leads all Christians towards full and visible unity. Here an imperative of charity is in question, an imperative which admits of no exception. Ecumenism is not only an internal question of the Christian Communities. It is a matter of the love which God has in Jesus Christ for all humanity; to stand in the way of this love is an offence against him and against his plan to gather all people in Christ." (99)

He surveys the progress made and the problems encountered in ecumenical dialogue since Vatican II. A key to the spirit of the document is Pope John Paul's notion that full communion with the (Eastern) Orthodox churches can be structured on the unity that existed in the first millennium (55, 61).

Equally remarkable is the Holy Father's sensitivity to the difficulties many Christian traditions have with the Petrine ministry. He distinguishes between the God-given ministry itself and the manner in which it is exercised. He says that he has

"a particular responsibility in this regard, above all in acknowledging the ecumenical aspirations of the majority of the Christian Communities and in heeding the request made of me to find a way of exercising the primacy which, while in no way renouncing what is essential to its mission, is nonetheless open to a new situation." (95)

John Paul II goes further. Quoting from a homily he delivered in the presence of Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios 1 in 1987, he writes:

"for a great variety of reasons, and against the will of all concerned, what should have been a service sometimes manifested itself in a very different light. But ... it is out of a desire to obey the will of Christ truly that I recognize that as Bishop of Rome I am called to exercise that ministry ... I insistently pray the Holy Spirit to shine his light upon us, enlightening all the Pastors and theologians of our Churches, that we may seek-together, of course-the forms in which this ministry may accomplish a service of love recognized by all concerned." (95)

There it is! The Holy Father seeks the input of his partners in ecumenical dialogue even as to how best his Petrine ministry can be exercised in our time. He goes on:

"This is an immense task, which we cannot refuse and which I cannot carry out by myself. Could not the real but imperfect communion existing between us persuade Church leaders and their theologians to engage with me in a patient and fraternal dialogue on this subject, a dialogue in which, leaving useless controversies behind, we could listen to one another, keeping before us only the will of Christ for his Church and allowing ourselves to be deeply moved by his plea 'that they may all be one ... so that the world may believe that you have sent me'" (Jn 17:21)? (96)

In Ut Unum Sint the Holy Father explicitly quotes from Lumen Gentium that ecumenical dialogue is not simply an exchange of ideas but also "an exchange of gifts" and therefore a "dialogue of love." (36,60). Furthermore, he says that in the process leading towards unity, "one must not impose any burden beyond that which is strictly necessary"(78), and that "legitimate diversity is in no way opposed to the Church's unity, but rather enhances her splendour and contributes greatly to the fulfilment of her mission." (50)

THE GIFTS WE BRING
If our response to the ecumenical imperative is informed by the Catholic Church's most recent teaching on the matter, we will feel encouraged to bring with us the particular charisms that the Lord has nurtured within the various Anglican traditions during the time of our separation from the wider Church.

Some of these reflect syntheses of valid theological and spiritual movements that existed within pre-Reformation Christendom, but which suffered an oversystematization in the Tridentine Church as an understandable reaction to protestantism. I believe that much of the ethos and spirituality of English speaking Christianity commonly described as Anglican was that which managed to survive the Reformation in England, rather than something that arose as a product of it. And, although it may not be immediately apparent, this includes what we now call evangelicalism as well as the more catholic strands of the Anglican experience.

However we describe the distinctive aspects of being Anglican that we seek to bring as gifts into the experience of the wider Church, the fact remains that we are a people who have been formed by a particular flow of history and culture. We are a people. One evidence of the Roman Catholic Church's recognition of this is the little cluster of "Anglican Use" parishes and communities in the USA.

Many of my friends have been received individually into the Roman Catholic Church over the last thirty years, and I salute them. But WE come now as a people, as a community. It is our prayer that the movement to full ecclesial reunion sought by the TAC - and others - will enable us both to bring and receive gifts that will be mutually enriching, and engage in the kind of fruitful dialogue the Holy Father invited in Ut Unum Sint, in order for the whole Church to be more effective in her work of evangelization.

WHAT MIGHT IT LOOK LIKE?
I conclude this reflection with a very moving passage written by Father Aidan Nichols OP. For those who don't know, Father Nichols is an English Roman Catholic scholar who has a deep understanding of the Anglican tradition. He is a friend to our movement. Fifteen years ago he wrote a short history of Anglicanism, "The Panther and the Hind" in which he explored the notion of what an Anglican Church in full communion with the Holy See might look like. He has a more expansive vision of this than some Anglicans!

"An Anglican church united with Rome but not absorbed . . . is perfectly feasible but it can only be constructed on the basis of a selection from among the elements which have gone to make it up. It might be a church with a religious metaphysic drawn from the Cambridge Platonists, supplying as this would a doctrine of creation, and an account of the human being 'in the image and likeness of God', necessary to the theocentric humanism of any truly Catholic tradition; a doctrinal and sacramental ethos taken from the Restoration divines, with their stress on the inseparable inter connexion of Incarnation, Church and liturgy; and a missionary spirit borrowed from the Evangelical movement, and centred therefore on the universal significance of the Saviour's atoning work - the whole to be confirmed and, where necessary, corrected by acceptance of the framework of the Roman Catholic communion, including the latter's teaching authority to determine those many questions of faith and morals which, historically, have kept Anglicans divided. In such a way, numerous elements of the Anglican theological tradition 'classics', both as texts and persons - could find repatriation in the Western patriarchate, in peace and communion with that see with which the origins of English Christianity are for ever connected. Such an Anglican Uniate community might be relatively small in numbers, yet, provided with its own canonical structure, liturgical books, parishes, and means of priestly formation, it would enrich Roman Catholicism with its own theological patrimony, and - in the atmosphere of ecumenical detente which holds good in the West, though not, alas, the East, fulfil the role of 'bridge-Church' between Canterbury and Rome."

Published in the Patmos Review, December 2007