The sense of the faithful
In 1896, Pope Leo XIII, by his Apostolic Letter Apostolicae Curae, ruled that Anglican orders are “absolutely null and utterly void”: that is, that not only are they not valid for the exercise of the ministry within the Roman Catholic Church, but they are not orders at all. Putting it crudely, the Archbishop of Canterbury is a layman dressed up in a cope.
In 1897, the Anglican Church responded with a very learned document which suggested, with copious evidence, that according to the wording of numerous formulas for ordination, and indeed the very text of the Roman Canon of the Mass itself, Catholic priests were not actually doing what it was claimed they were doing!
The sense of the faithful
That was then, and now is now. This is not to suggest that truth can be changed according to the mood of the decade. But the passing of time generates experience, especially that experience which we call the “sense of the faithful” – sensus fidelium – how the man and woman in the pew feel.
I suspect that not many here would now wish to call their Anglican neighbours “absolutely null and utterly void”. I admit that there are places – Belfast and Glasgow sadly come to mind – where the same sentiments might still be expressed today, but in less diplomatic language.
But as we lower our mutual fortifications, we begin to discern things about each other, and as we do, we begin to notice all that we have in common, rather than what keeps us apart.
I am not simply saying: “let’s kiss and make it up”. Nor do I have any truck with the frequently trotted out phrase “there’s only one God”, which in my experience is most frequently deployed as an excuse for not practising one’s faith at all. Moreover, in some parts of the world, Anglican Orders are hardly an issue: how many Anglicans are there in Paraguay, for example?
Doctrinal tensions
But the Anglican Church is not the only one to have ‘doctrinal tensions’.
On the one hand, the present Pope, when still Cardinal Ratzinger [1998], maintained that Leo XIII’s statement was a required belief for Catholics. On the other hand, the statements of IARCCUM [the commission charged with exploring Anglican/RC relations] declare [2007] that there is “substantial agreement” between the churches over the ancient threefold ministry: bishop, priest, deacon. If that is so, an Anglican priest cannot be ‘just a layman’. And if Archbishop Rowan Williams was invited to preach (Sep 2008) during Mass at the shrine of Lourdes – hardly a Catholic backwater! – and the homily may only be given by an ordained minister…
There is a ‘message’ here, is there not?
Representatives of two Churches – in the case we have been discussing, Anglican and Roman Catholic – may declare they are in “substantial agreement”, but the question still remains: how representative are they, and how substantial is “substantial”?
ARCIC
Pope Benedict and Archbishop Rowan
The official dialoguing body between 1970 and 2005 was ‘ARCIC’ – the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission. Between 1970 and 1982 it produced joint statements on the Eucharist, Ministry, and Authority in the Church; between 1982 and 2005 on Salvation, Church as Communion, Life in Christ, Authority, and Mary. It was wound up in 2005 when it was semi-officially admitted that the matter of Anglican female orders changed the whole scene.
From the Catholic side, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith raised many objections to these statements, saying that they often did not properly represent Catholic teaching, and required their redrafting. From the Anglican side, the evangelical wing strongly maintained that these statements betrayed classical Anglican teaching, and also were never put to the Church as a whole, via the Synod, so that they could be “adopted”.
And that leaves the man and woman on the pew in the middle.
One important factor distinguishing the year 1970 from the year 2009 is that Christianity in this country is more severely threatened than ever. Is this the time for doctrinal niceties – though many would call them essentials?
Doing things together
Perhaps with this in mind, in 2006 ARCIC was reinvented as IARCCUM, now a “Commission for Unity and Mission”. The stress was now on doing things together, rather than seeking doctrinal unity. And it is perhaps in “doing things” that Christians have most easily come together. There are those who would say, though, that when we don’t clearly know what we believe we compensate it for it by a frenzy of activity, huffing and puffing and blowing the house down.
Really we are dealing with two different ‘temperaments’: the Anglican one broadly speaking accepts that diversity is inevitable, and pursues that path despite doctrinal confusion and various other ‘accidents’; the Catholic one stresses a uniformity which sometimes exists more in theory than in practice.
For our part, we should stress charity, clarity and loyalty. Charity, not to give offence. Clarity, to know what our Church really teaches. And loyalty, even if it means worshipping in the horrid Nissen hut Catholic church by the gasworks rather than that lovely Anglican church by the duckpond on the village green.