The third phase of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC III) published its first agreed statement, Walking Together on the Way: Learning to be the Church – Local, Regional, Universal, earlier this month. The statement is online: Walking Together on the Way. Also available are two commentaries: one Anglican and one Roman Catholic.
News and comment on the statement include the following.
Anglican Communion News Office Groundbreaking document released on how Anglicans and Roman Catholics can learn from each other
Simon Caldwell and a staff reporter Church Times ARCIC III: Anglicans and Roman Catholics can learn much from each other, says new agreed statement
Church Times editorial Bold undertaking
Paul Lakeland The Tablet Give and take: what the Catholic and Anglican Churches can learn from each other
Durham University Centre for Catholic Studies First Agreed Statement from ARCIC III (The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, Phase 3)
Christopher Lamb The Tablet New Arcic text charts a way forward
Simon Caldwell The Boston Pilot ARCIC document hailed as ‘groundbreaking’ by Catholics and Anglicans
Nicholas Jesson International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission Agreed statement on ecclesiology: Walking Together on the Way
Joshua J. McElwee National Catholic Reporter Catholic-Anglican dialogue document suggests both churches can learn from other
Notable:
‘Later, the Catholic members consider how their church’s “instinct for unity and participation in the greater whole” can sometimes lead to an assumption that “the entire Church always needs to move as one on all things, with the consequence that even legitimate cultural and regional differences are suppressed.”
‘”While there are acknowledged tensions within the Anglican Communion, the Roman Catholic Church might fruitfully learn from the Anglican practice of provincial diversity and the associated recognition that on some matters different parts of the Communion can appropriately make different discernments influenced by cultural and contextual appropriateness,” they write.’
It is long in words, but short in content.
Paragraphs 137-149 really get at the issues. With the role of Bishops in TEC now being altered, the paragraphs are even more timely in identifying tensions.
I’d be surprised if more liberal anglicans would like much in here, especially with the reflexive assumption of Instruments of Communion, greater role for Canterbury, implicit endorsement of the logic of the Covenant, assumed role of Bishops are so forth.
My wife and I worship at the Catholic church in our area (we live in the catholic rectory in a smaller village nearby). I have never seen the equivalent of laity involvement anywhere in TEC or for that matter in Lutheran and Kirk contexts I have experienced firsthand. Catechesis, hospital chaplaincy, music, eucharistic distribution, funeral involvement, readings in church. Each month one receives a daily lessons/Sunday lessons/meditations/HC texts booklet in the mail. I was asked to give a major address on the 500th anniversary of the Luther movement, by a Lutheran church in Pittsburgh, whose pastor was a former student.… Read more »
“I have never seen the equivalent of laity involvement anywhere in TEC or for that matter in Lutheran and Kirk contexts I have experienced firsthand. Catechesis, hospital chaplaincy, music, eucharistic distribution, funeral involvement, readings in church.”
Clearly, you’ve been in the wrong dioceses and/or parishes. All of these things have been quite common in the parishes I have been a member of, in Pennsylvania and New York. OTOH, the US Roman Catholic parishes I grew up in were notable for their absence of lay involvement and, indeed, the discouragement of it.
Yes, PON, it’s called Vatican II. My point was in reference to lay involvement in all these areas.
No, I was still a Catholic long after Vatican II…and the lay involvement was never encouraged in my parishes. The pastor ruled…and really didn’t much care what the laity wanted. And lay involvement in all the things you mention–especially music, eucharistic distribution, and readings–have always been a part of the Episcopal parishes I’ve been a part of .
Not sure if you are trying to make a distinction between ACC and RCC, but when you write “lay ministry has a long standing significant role in the form of catechists and parochial and diocesan lay readers (some of whom held licenses to preach). Laity are Eucharistic ministers both in the liturgy as well as taking the sacrament to the sick and shut-in, as lectors , leading the prayers of the people, are trained pastoral visitors in homes and hospitals, are involved in community outreach and so forth” — this is exactly the role laity have in the RCC we… Read more »