Fr Graeme Rowlands presents the Monstrance to Fr Alan Robinson,
for the National Shrine of the Blessed Sacrament at Corpus Christi

Our Centenary Year has ended with a presentation to the Catholic Church of Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane, of a monstrance bearing the League’s emblem and objects. This is the last donation to a Church to promote the Catholic faith and the spiritual life through purchasing Eucharistic Vessels from the Tabernacle Treasury, a fund of the League's set up by Fr Fynes-Clinton, its main founder.

The Catholic League's Emblem engraved on the foot of the Monstrance

Corpus Christi was founded by Cardinal Manning as a place of reparation for the offences and injuries to the Eucharist, the priesthood and the unity of the Body of Christ in England in the past. He had intended for it be the National Shrine of the Blessed Sacrament, where reparation could be made not through recrimination against history and the Protestantism of the English nation and constitution, but through an ever more intensified pouring out of love and devotion, towards healing, salvation and reconciliation in the one Church of Christ. Fr Alan Robinson, the parish priest, an old friend of Fr Graeme Rowland’s and Fr Mark Woodruff's, has been charged with the restoration of the Church and its work as a National and International shrine to the Blessed Sacrament. It had no monstrance worthy of the task for daily Exposition, Adoration and Benediction, something around which all Christians can be united regardless of the lack of fullness of communion. So the League has presented one, thanks to Fr Rowlands’ efforts, towards the church's restored role. It dates from the late 19th century and matches the Gothic architecture of Corpus Christi.

Fr Robinson is to re-found the Guild of the Blessed Sacrament, which will be an international fellowship of prayer for reparation, peace and reconciliation, sustained by the daily offering of mass and the Adoration that will be at the heart of the Church’s future work. Since these objectives are very close to the aims of the Catholic League, and directly reflect work that we have done on ecumenical reparation and reconciliation in the past, following Pope St John Paul II’s encouragement of “the healing of memories” between the separate Church histories that still divide us as potential rivals, and mindful of Pope Francis own description of how Christians are united by martyrdom and suffering in the past through an “ecumenism of blood”, I hope that members of the League, Anglicans and Catholics alike, will be keen to enrol in the Corpus Christi Guild of the Blessed Sacrament and actively involve themselves in its future new work of prayer and reconciliation.

The inscription on the case reads:

To mark the Centenary of the Catholic League 1913-2013

this Monstrance is entrusted to the Church of Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane,

and the restored Shrine of the Blessed Sacrament
Towards the Unity of all Christians

and Full Communion with the Apostolic See of Rome

In Thanksgiving and Hope



Could the Archbishop and the Pope really reunify the Church? - Paul Vallely in The Independent

Paul Vallely in The Independent, 21st June 2014

Something significant happened in Rome this week [15th June 2014] when the Archbishop of Canterbury met the Pope for the second time since the two men took office, within days of one another, just over a year ago.

They have agreed a joint project to use the worldwide reach of their churches to combat the global trade in human trafficking. They discussed how to pressurise 50 top multi-national companies to render their supply chains free of forced labour by 2020 – and ensure they “slavery proof” the investments and purchasing of their own churches. There were other areas of practical co-operation, including peace-building in areas like South Sudan. As he left Rome, Archbishop Justin Welby hinted that other new initiatives had been discussed.

But what was also striking was the renewed commitment the two men made to the idea that their two churches should merge. Pope Francis said that “the goal of full unity… remains the aim which should direct our every step along the way”.

This is a process which many assumed had stalled. The decision by the Church of England to ordain women in 1992 caused a theological rift between Canterbury and Rome. The ordination in the wider Anglican communion of openly gay bishops, like Gene Robinson in 2003, created another obstacle. And next month the General Synod is likely to vote for women bishops – something Rome sees as a greater theological problem even than female priests.

Yet in the background heavyweight theological discussions, on what unites rather than divides the two churches, have been continuing. One of the purposes of Archbishop Welby’s visit to Rome was to launch a new website (www.iarccum.org) dedicated to implementing better ecumenical relations.
Such a small step is a far cry from the early heady days of ecumenism when it was widely assumed that unity was just a few years away.

Things had moved swiftly after the meeting by Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher and Pope John XXIII in 1960 – the first time an Archbishop of Canterbury had visited to the Vatican for 600 years. Pope John asked when the Anglicans would return to the Catholic fold. Archbishop Fisher replied: “It is not a question of returning, but going forward together.” His words became the model for a new relationship which was affirmed when John XXIII’s revolutionary Second Vatican Council (1962-65) recognised the validity of baptism by other Christian denominations.

In a gesture of massive significance, in 1966, Pope Paul VI gave an episcopal ring to Archbishop Michael Ramsey – which Archbishop Welby wore this week on his visit to Rome. A year later an Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) began unity talks. By clarifying old misunderstandings and embracing new scholarship it resolved many of the divisions which had bedevilled the two churches since the Reformation.

Much of ARCIC’s work is safely banked. When Rome’s top ecumenist, Cardinal Walter Kasper, called a meeting of Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists and Reformed churches in 2010 it found, one insider said, “not one single area of theology in which we do not have some measure of agreement”. This was not just a clever repackaging of old disputes. It is a real growth in understanding.

But until recently ARCIC had hit the buffers. When Rome took an extraordinary 10 years to respond to one key ARCIC agreement many Anglicans lost patience and went ahead with the ordination of women and more liberal attitudes to gays.

In response the Vatican pulled the plug on the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission on Unity and Mission (IARCCUM). Pope Benedict XVI’s unilateral decision in 2009 to set up an Anglican Ordinariate to poach dissident Anglicans to Rome caused further resentment.

Yet things have clearly begun to change. Pope Francis and Archbishop Welby have similar visions. Both are no-nonsense characters with a “sleeves rolled up” approach to making change happen. Yet both see theological union as crucial. They have no patience with the “let’s agree to disagree on theology and just open a food bank together” approach.

In Rome Archbishop Welby – who despite his evangelical background, has a Benedictine spiritual director and has invited a French Catholic religious community, Chemin Neuf, to live in his home in Lambeth Palace – said that Anglicans and Catholics had to “get away from being quite comfortable with the fact we live separately”. Without theology, he said, the churches will become “just another NGO with a lot of old buildings”.

The renewed talk of unity is more than a pious aspiration. A third round of ARCIC talks has had meetings so far in Bose, Hong Kong, Rio and Durban. They have shifted the focus away from what divides the two churches to “receptive ecumenism” – what each side has to learn from the other.

At the heart of their discussions is how the two Communions go about making decisions. There are huge contrasts: Catholicism is heavily centralised whereas in Anglicanism authority is dispersed between many churches in many nations. Division is part of the Protestant DNA. And Anglicans are more divided among themselves now than ever before.

But Pope Francis clearly wants to change the governance of the Catholic Church so it is less like a mediaeval monarchy and more open to the wisdom and insights of all its members.
Given the practical difficulties posed by issues of gender and sexuality it is hard to see what unity between Catholics and Anglicans might look like – certainly not uniformity. But if the intellectual difficulties are greater now than 50 years ago, emotionally the two churches are closer than at any time since the reign of Henry VIII.

Archbishop Welby this week presented Pope Francis with a cutting from the giant fig tree planted in Lambeth Palace by the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, Reginald Pole (1500-1558). What fruit it will bear, and when, is hard to predict. But hope is a theological virtue. For the past five decades the two churches have been moving on parallel lines. It feels as though, at last, those lines may be once more converging.

Paul Vallely is the author of ‘Pope Francis – ‘Untying the Knots’ 21/6/14

© The Independent Photo - Osservatore Romano

Source: Anglican Centre in Rome

Two traditions, one holy ground - The Tablet

19 June 2014 by Christopher Lamb                                  

After his visit to Rome, the Archbishop of Canterbury tells  Christopher Lamb where he finds the most important points of unity between the Catholic and Anglican Churches




One is an Argentine son of Italian immigrants, the other an Old Etonian whose mother worked for Sir Winston Churchill.

Yet despite coming from opposite ends of the earth – both literally and metaphorically –  Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury have some uncanny similarities.

The two leaders of Christianity’s largest global communions were both considered outsiders when chosen for their roles, both took up their positions within a week of each other and both are renowned for their no-nonsense, down-to-earth style.

If their immediate predecessors, Benedict XVI and Lord Williams of Oystermouth, had a love of the early Church Fathers in common, with Lord Williams able to read Benedict’s theology in the original German, Pope Francis and Archbishop Justin Welby have decided to roll up their sleeves and put the Gospel into action.

During his two-day visit to Rome on Sunday and Monday, the archbishop’s jam-packed itinerary certainly chimed with Pope Francis’ call for pastors to be familiar with the “smell of the sheep”.

This included going to a street shelter project run by the community of Sant’Egidio, meeting a victim of human trafficking and a trip to a refugee project at the Anglican church, St Paul’s-Within-the-Walls.

Combating human trafficking was a major theme of the visit and one of the first items on Archbishop Welby’s agenda was a meeting with the Global Freedom Network at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. The initiative, founded by the Australian philanthropist Andrew Forrest, hopes to eradicate modern- day slavery by 2020.

But does this focus on joint action now take precedence over the two Churches seeking full, ecclesial unity by solving doctrinal disagreements?

“No,” the archbishop says when we meet at the “ceremoniale” in Rome’s Fiumicino airport, the executive lounge for visiting dignitaries, before he catches his plane back to London.

“I think we’re layering one thing on top of the other. There’s a very good theological foundation and there’s now joint action around what the Holy Father described as the three Ps: prayer, peace and poverty.”

He describes his meeting with the Pope, which included a 40-minute private discussion with just a translator present besides the two church leaders, as “a real engagement of love and not just a business connection”.

The archbishop is wearing the episcopal ring of Pope Paul VI given to Archbishop Michael Ramsey following their meeting in 1966 and which is now worn by Archbishops of Canterbury when they come to Rome. As someone who loves history, Archbishop Welby looks back and points to a “renewal in the relationship” between Catholics and Anglicans that started more than 50 years ago with the 1960 meeting between Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher and Pope, now Saint, John XXIII.

A few years later the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission (Arcic) was established whose work Archbishop Welby enthusiastically describes as a “profound theological exploration” that has made “huge progress”. This dialogue has sought to overcome differences between the communions but hit the buffers due to the ordination of women bishops and different approaches to homosexuality. Relations were further strained by the creation of personal ordinariates for groups of Anglicans who wanted to become Roman Catholics, a move about which Lord Williams expressed concern to Pope Benedict XVI. Nevertheless, in 2011, a new phase of Arcic began. 

At a reception at the Anglican Centre in Rome on Sunday night, Archbishop Welby launched a new online resource for relations between the Churches, www.iarccum.org, which stands for the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission (Iarccum, founded in 2000) that works alongside Arcic.

The impression, however, is that the archbishop’s passion is for action rather than theological dialogue. Like Pope Francis, and unlike his predecessor Lord Williams, Archbishop Welby is not a professional theologian. (He spent years working in the oil industry before becoming a late entrant to the priesthood; Pope Francis was the Jesuit provincial in Argentina before being appointed a bishop more than a decade later.) And at the launch of the website when speeches explaining the work of Arcic and Iarccum went on over their allotted time, the archbishop moved to wrap up proceedings pointing out to the gathering that it had been a very long day.

When it comes to resolving differences between Anglicans and Catholics, Archbishop Welby is realistic. Next month at the General Synod, the Church of England is likely to vote for legislation allowing women bishops, already permitted in other parts of the Anglican Communion.

Bishop Brian Farrell, the secretary at the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said in an interview earlier this year that such a move “weakens” the special relationship that exists between Anglicans and Catholics. Archbishop Welby acknowledges the problem.

“I am very conscious that this is something we have to deal with,” the archbishop tells me. “This is a difficulty but a difficulty that we can handle in the context of a good relationship rather than a pit into which we [are likely to] fall.”
His meeting with the Pope on Monday was the second they have had within 18 months and was described by the archbishop as “very, very honest”.

“The discussion was much more transparent, real about the issues we face, honest about where we go with them.”




Read full article here: The Tablet - 21 June 2014

Pope to Anglican Primate: Our division is nothing less than a scandal and burden

2014-06-16 - Rome Reports


"It's always good to see you.”
For the second time, Pope Francis welcomed the head of the Anglican Church, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, at the Vatican's Apostolic Palace.

"It's an exceptional pleasure to see you again.”
The archbishop was in Rome on a three-day tour. It included a review of the progress made by the Global Freedom Network, a joint Catholic-Anglican project to counter human trafficking. It's been one of the areas of greatest cooperation between the two Churches. Archbishop Welby introduced his delegation, which included two female priests.


In his address to the Pope (see below), the Anglican leader expressed his desire to achieve full communion between the two Churches. He also praised their cooperation to promote peace and reconciliation.

MOST REV. JUSTIN WELBY, Archbishop of Canterbury: "I marvel at the way God guides frail human vessels to be bearers of the message of salvation, leaving us a legacy across hundreds of years, to which we in our time are called to be faithful. We also know that from the start, as for so many at this time, this has been a witness unto death.”

For his part, during his speech (at the foot of this post), Pope Francis asked the archbishop not to forget the three P's: prayer, peace and poverty, for which they must walk together, he added. The Pope also talked about their shared history, which includes not only, cooperation, but also division.

POPE FRANCIS: "We cannot claim that our division is anything less than a scandal and an obstacle to our proclaiming the Gospel of salvation to the world. Our vision is often blurred by the cumulative burden of our divisions and our will is not always free of that human ambition which can accompany even our desire to preach the Gospel as the Lord commanded.”

They followed their speeches with the traditional gift exchange. The archbishop's gifts were loaded with meaning. The first was a branch from a fig tree with historic roots.

"It comes from a fig tree planted by Cardinal Pole, the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury in 1556, which is inside Lambeth Palace. That tree came from the Holy Land.”

PF: Let's hope that they're sweet.
JW: Oh they are. They're very good. They need sunshine.

His second gift was the copy of a register belonging to Card. Pole, as well as a book on the Lambeth Palace Library. Meanwhile, Pope Francis also gave the archbishop a book, but in a much larger scale.

"This is the book with all the papal medallions from all of the buildings in the Vatican.”

After they exchanged gifts, the two leaders walked by side, inside a chapel at the Apostolic Palace. They prayed in silence for a few minutes before an image of Baby Jesus.

Source: Pope to Anglican Primate: Our division is nothing less than a scandal and burden


Address of Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby to Pope Francis at their 16 June 2014 meeting at the Vatican

Your Holiness, Dear Friends,

My heart is full of gratitude to God, that I have the privilege and pleasure of addressing you once again in this city of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. I marvel at the way God guides frail human vessels to be bearers of the message of salvation, leaving us a legacy across hundreds of years, to which we in our time are called to be faithful. We also know that from the start, as for so many at this time, this has been a witness unto death. I was moved to be in Santa Bartolomeo where amongst many recent martyrs, the seven members of the Anglican religious order the Melanesian brotherhood are commemorated.

Your Holiness much has happened in the year since I first received your gracious hospitality here. I am grateful for the progress that has been made through the generous support of many, to draw to the attention of the world to the evils of Modern Slavery and Human trafficking. The Global Freedom Network can achieve much practically to dismantle what you have so often rightly said is a grave crime against humanity. It is a crime that we all need to overcome as a matter of urgency, as a matter of human dignity, freedom and wholeness of life. May God give us the resolve and cooperation we need together.

With so many around the world I am profoundly grateful for your remarkable witness of care for the poor and suffering of the world, for your passion for reconciliation, as witnessed so recently in your visit to the Holy Land. 

Calling the faithful to pray for peace and reconciliation and doing that publicly is a witness to the power of prayer, one that I have sought to imitate. Such prayers are urgent and vital in so many countries. I especially hope and pray that our collaboration may lead to effective challenge to the unspeakable disaster of wars and civil conflict. In recent months I have travelled with my wife to many of them, into the heart of the areas of war, and the memory of the dead lying unburied and the suffering of the survivors is imprinted on our hearts. What more could be done by our churches together to challenge the resort to war and offer the dream of peace?

Your Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium was inspirational for all Christians. The task of making disciples is of compelling urgency so that the light of Christ may shine into every corner of the world. I have personal reasons for gratitude for the work of the Alpha Course of evangelism, so it is significant for me that it has found a place in the Catholic Church, especially in Latin America. We continue to develop many other means of evangelism, most recently in the Pilgrim Course, pray that we may continue to learn from one another about the joyful task of leading people to know Jesus Christ.

As we remember the precious spiritual heritage that is common to us both. I pray for the continuing work of the members of the official groups who conduct our ecumenical conversations.


Remembering always the desire of Our Lord that “all may be one”, we remain deeply committed to this work. I realise that that there are matters of deep significance that separate us. Yet looking back, we see that the Grace of God has led so much to happen. In November this year be it will be 50 years since the decree on ecumenism, Unitatis Redintigradio, was promulged by your predecessor Blessed Pope Paul VI, and it is right that I should pay tribute to the work of the Holy See through the PCPCU through these fifty years towards the goal of full visible unity. In 2016 we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Archbishop Ramsey's historic visit, commemorated in the ring given him by Pope Paul VI.

Your Holiness when we first met, I expressed the hope that we might find ways to strengthen what we share, and that we might seek opportunities as pastors of the Christian family to pray, act and speak together. I am glad that there have been opportunities as well for me and His Eminence Cardinal Vincent Nichols to do just that. I have found much encouragement in this. A further sign of this joyful intention is the establishment of the Chemin Neuf Community at Lambeth Palace. This religious Order with an ecumenical charism founded by Fr Laurent Fabre, is a daily sign of hope to us in our spiritual life of what we can share spiritually. Last Wednesday I saw again Jean Vanier, and we prayed together. What a gift he is to the whole of the poor of the earth.

Please be assured, Your Holiness, of the continuing respect and affection of the Anglican Communion, and the assurance of our prayers as we seek with you to serve the call of Christ to maturity in faith, and to do so full of joy in service.

I’d like to end with a prayer for the Global Freedom Network in its struggle to persevere against modern slavery and human trafficking: that the Church has the freedom and courage to witness to and to serve the cause for peace, together, globally. Amen.





Pope's Address to Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby

"The goal of full unity may seem distant indeed, yet it remains the aim which should direct our every step along the way"
The Vatican translation of the Pope's address to Archbishop Justin Welby of the Anglican Community 16 June 2014 at the Vatican:

Your Grace,
Cardinal Nichols,
Cardinal Koch,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,

 "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!" (Ps 133:1). Once again we meet, Your Grace, as co-workers in the Lord’s vineyard and fellow pilgrims on the path to his Kingdom. I welcome you and the distinguished members of your delegation, and I pray that today’s meeting will serve to strengthen further our bonds of friendship and our commitment to the great cause of reconciliation and communion between Christian believers.

The Lord’s question – "What were you arguing about on the way?" (Mk 9:33) – might also apply to us. When Jesus put this question to his disciples they were silent; they were ashamed, for they had been arguing about who was the greatest among them. We too feel ashamed when we ponder the distance between the Lord’s call and our meagre response. Beneath his merciful gaze, we cannot claim that our division is anything less than a scandal and an obstacle to our proclaiming the Gospel of salvation to the world. Our vision is often blurred by the cumulative burden of our divisions and our will is not always free of that human ambition which can accompany even our desire to preach the Gospel as the Lord commanded (cf. Mt 28:19).

The goal of full unity may seem distant indeed, yet it remains the aim which should direct our every step along the way. I find a source of encouragement in the plea of the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on Ecumenism that we should advance in our relationship and cooperation by placing no obstacle to the ways of divine providence and by not prejudicing future promptings of the Holy Spirit (cf. Unitatis Redintegratio, 24). Our progress towards full communion will not be the fruit of human actions alone, but a free gift of God. The Holy Spirit gives us the strength not to grow disheartened and he invites us to trust fully in the power of his works.

As disciples who strive to follow the Lord, we realize that the faith has come to us through many witnesses. We are indebted to great saints, teachers and communities; they have handed down the faith over the ages and they bear witness to our common roots. Yesterday, on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Your Grace celebrated Vespers in the Church of San Gregorio al Celio, from which Pope Gregory the Great sent forth Augustine and his monastic companions to evangelize the peoples of England, thus inaugurating a history of faith and holiness which in turn enriched many other European peoples. This glorious history has profoundly shaped institutions and ecclesial traditions which we share and which serve as a solid basis for our fraternal relations.

On this basis, then, let us look with confidence to the future. The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission and the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission represent especially significant forums for examining, in a constructive spirit, older and newer challenges to our ecumenical engagement.

At our first meeting, Your Grace and I discussed our shared concerns and our pain before a number of grave evils afflicting our human family. In particular, we shared our horror in the face of the scourge of human trafficking and forms of modern-day slavery. I thank you for the leadership you have shown in opposing these intolerable crimes against human dignity.

In attempting to respond to this urgent need, notable collaborative efforts have been initiated on the ecumenical level and in cooperation with civil authorities and international organizations. Many charitable initiatives have been undertaken by our communities, and they are operating with generosity and courage in various parts of the world. I think in particular of the action network against the trafficking in women set up by a number of women’s religious institutes. Let us persevere in our commitment to combat new forms of enslavement, in the hope that we can help provide relief to victims and oppose this deplorable trade. I thank God that, as disciples sent to heal a wounded world, we stand together, with perseverance and determination, in opposing this grave evil.

(Pope Francesco): Don’t forget the three p's:
(H.G. Welby): Three p's?…
(Pope Francesco): Prayer, peace and poverty. We must walk together.
(H.G. Welby): We must walk together.

Your Grace, I thank you once more for your visit. I ask the Lord to shower his blessings on your ministry and to sustain you and your loved ones in joy and peace. Amen.

Anglican leader comes to Vatican, launches IARCCUM website Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio, 14 June 2014) The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby arrives in Rome on Saturday for a two day visit that will culminate on Monday in a meeting with Pope Francis in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace. On Sunday the Anglican leader will preach at Vespers at the church of St Gregory on the Caelian Hill, visit the two Anglican churches here in Rome and take part in a prayer service with the St Egidio community at St Bartholomew’s on the Tiber Island. During his packed programme, the Archbishop will also launch a new website for the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission on Unity and Mission (IARCCUM), showcasing ways in which members of the two communions are increasingly worshipping, working and witnessing side by side.

To find out more, Philippa Hitchen spoke with Canadian bishop Donald Bolen, co-chair of IARCCUM and Canon Alyson Barnett-Cowan, director of Unity, Faith and Order at the Anglican Communion office in London and co-secretary of IARCCUM…

Listen:





Bolen: The website is meant to be a resource centre on-line for anyone interested in Anglican-Roman Catholic relations, from parishes looking for best practises, to researchers looking into the archives of Anglican-Catholic dialogue, to anyone following the news who might be interested in more information – for example about the visit of the ABC to Pope Francis.

Q: It’s a real scholars’ paradise of documents relating back to the beginning of the dialogue in the 1960s?

Yes, the coordinators of Anglican-Roman Catholic relations passed the guidelines that once material is over 30 years old it could be made available to the public, so there’s a wide range of archive materials up to the early 1980s, but there’s also newer material that will be of interest to many people…..

It’s also got a small photo galley that we hope can become much bigger – our hope is that people working on Anglican-Roman Catholic relations in different part so the world will send in resources, best practises, covenants, photographs, videos, which will give other people encouragement and ideas about how to foster relations in their area.

Q: IARCCUM itself is all about encouraging best practises, isn’t it?

Yes indeed, IARCCUM is really called to address the gap between what we could do and share together in terms of common witness, common mission, common prayer, common study, and what we actually do – which is very little. So the idea of best practises, which are all fully acceptable to our churches but which would give inspiration or ideas to others, is one of the purposes of the website….

In New Zealand the local Anglican and Catholic bishops have come up with joint liturgies for Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Advent, that’s a practise which would be quite easy to emulate.

Q: There’s also the question of covenants you mentioned?

I was involved in the preparation of one of those covenants in southern Saskatchewan in western Canada, so that will be on the website and I think would be a good model for other diocese who would be interested in entering into a deeper relationship with their Anglican counterparts…..it identifies many of the things which are held in common and have been worked through in our dialogues, it identifies common concerns and then sets out some practical steps…. for instance from praying in each other’s cathedral together once a year, working together with First Nation people or some other justice issues, to joint formation on everything from altar servers, to sharing of ideas about stewardship and a wide range of ideas where it’s responsible for us to work together.

Alyson Barnett-Cowan, what can you do to spread this kind of work?

Barnett-Cowan: One of the strategies we have is to try and identify pairs of Anglican and Catholic bishops in every country of the world who’ll be champions for the work of putting Anglican-Roman Catholic initiatives together – they’ll be the lead people in promoting this, but we hope that word about the website will spread, that the stories on our Communion news services and the work of Vatican Radio will all penetrate to parts of the world which don’t have perhaps have formally established dialogues.

Q: How does IARCCUM hope to move forward when there are still theological issues still causing obstacles?

The theological stumbling blocks are still there but that’s no reason for us to stop trying to do as much as we possibly can together. Often when you’re trying to solve a theological dilemma, it looms large as the only thing to think about, but the shared faith we have is far larger than the few things that divide us.

Q: You were meeting most recently with ARCIC in South Africa – what can you share from that encounter?

It was a very exciting venue to be in – we met in a leadership development centre where Anglicans, Catholics and Methodists are together working on leadership development with young south Africans, often in situations of poverty. Then we went to a number of projects, an HIV-AIDS cooperative, a women’s collective and places where the churches in Diakonia are equipping the people to be self-supporting – it’s really important for ARCIC to be aware that the Diakonia work of the church is, in many ways, more important than the theological conversations, since it actually changes lives of people directly.

Anglican leader comes to Vatican, launches IARCCUM website Vatican Radio

ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY'S VISIT TO ROME, June 2014

From the Anglican Centre in Rome, 11 June, 2014 When Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and the Pope meet on June 16th, they will be following the pattern of the past fifty years. Pray for them, and for all the meetings Archbishop Justin will be having during his stay in Rome.   Draft itinerary - Sunday 15th June 8.45 am: Meeting with Cardinals Tauran, Turkson, Pell & Bishop Sanchez Sorondo re: Modern Slavery/Human Trafficking 10.00 am: Meet St Peter's Cricket Team in preparation for match in September 11.00 am: Eucharist at All Saints - preside and preach 2.30 pm: Visit Refugee Centre at St Paul's within the Walls. Meet with survivors of human trafficking & exploitation 5.00 pm: Ecumenical Vespers San Gregorio - preach. 6.30 pm: Reception at the Anglican Centre in Rome. 8.30 pm: Attend and preach at St'Egidio Vespers at Santa Maria de Trastevere Monday 16th June 9.00 am: Meet with Fr Adolfo Nicolas SJ, Superior General Society of Jesus 11.00 am: Meet with Pope Francis 12.00 pm: Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity 1.00 pm: Lunch at Santa Marta with Pope Francis 3.15 pm: Meet with St'Egidio community mission and poverty projects 4.30 pm: Meet with Rome-based Chemin Neuf community The Anglican Centre's Mission The Anglican Centre in Rome promotes Christian unity in a divided world. It is a permanent Anglican Communion presence in Rome. Its Director is the Archbishop of Canterbury's Representative to the Holy See. It exercises a ministry of hospitality and prayer, and provides educational opportunities and resources. UK Charity No 1003666 Company No 2604444

Anglican Centre in Rome : York Weekend on ARCIC III - October 11 + 12, 2014

Organised by the Friends of the Anglican Centre, Rome

SATURDAY 11TH OCTOBER – 11am – 4pm at Clements Hall

York Open Meeting The Synod of Whitby (664AD) : The Church Universal and Local – ARCIC III

• Dr Clare Stancliffe, Honorary Reader in Ecclesiastical History at Durham University with a research interest in Christianity in Northumbria to 800
• Father Henry Wansbrough, Emeritus Member of the Faculty of Theology at Oxford, a Benedictine monk at Ampleforth Abbey and a member of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC III).

Lunch provided – cost £20 per head (£10 for those in full time education)

SUNDAY 12TH OCTOBER 2014

Pilgrimage to Whitby, Lastingham and Rosedale

A short pilgrimage following on from the Open Meeting, to embrace some of the significant Christian sites in North Yorkshire. Overnight at Sneaton Castle, Whitby. £32.60 a head for B & B, plus £13 for a 2 course evening meal on arrival

Further details for both Saturday and Sunday from:

Canon David Goodacre - david.goodacre29@sky.com

The Rt Revd Edward Holland - ed.holland@uwclub.net

The Revd Bill Snelson, Development Officer – development@anglicancentre.it (01423 862660)

Whole York Weekend

Download full information

Download booking form

Download printable brochure

Book by email here, and pay using the Donate button on the Anglican Centre site here:

Anglican Centre in Rome : York Weekend - October 11 + 12, 2014

Centenary Thanksgiving and Annual General Meeting

Please join us for a Mass of Thanksgiving to mark the end of our Centenary Year, at the Church of St Silas, Kentish Town, London NW5 3QP, at 1800 on Monday 30^th June, 2014.

 

The principal concelebrant is Fr Graeme Rowlands, Priest-Director of the Sodality of the Precious Blood, our sister society for celibate clergy members.

The Mass will be preceded by our Annual General Meeting at 5.15pm.

Afterwards there will be a celebratory dinner – please remember to book with the Secretary in order to ensure your place, by the 16th June.

The Tabernacle Treasury – Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane

For most of its history, the League ran a Tabernacle Fund, set up by Fr Fynes Clinton to assist Anglican parishes with the purchase of eucharistic vestments, monstrances and tabernacles as a means of promoting the spiritual life and Catholic faith in the sacraments, all directed towards the corporate reunion of the Church of England and the Catholic Church. Until a few years ago, we maintained a register of monstrances owned by the League and lent to parishes and clergy unable to maintain possession of their own. About five years ago, we were able happily to complete the work of the Tabernacle Fund by donating the remaining monstrances out on loan. Then a new opportunity emerged and we reopened the Tabernacle Fund one more time, for an exceptionally good cause close to the League’s heart.

Corpus Christi Church on Maiden Lane in London’s Covent Garden will be known to many. It was established by Cardinal Manning, but not many now remember why. He built it as a National Shrine in honour of the Blessed Sacrament, in reparation for the blasphemies occasioned upon the Most Holy Eucharist in the 16th century and since, and the physical and religious destruction visited upon the Church and its unity as the Body of Christ. This relates directly to work on reparation for the damage of the Reformation era and on reconciliation through honouring the Anglican, Protestant and Catholic martyr traditions, which the League undertook under four successive Priest-Directors - Frs Philip Gray, Robert Farmer, Brooke Lunn and Mark Woodruff.

Corpus Christi Church is currently being restored to its former glory as a Victorian gem. It will become once more the National Shrine of the Blessed Sacrament, where there will be all-day adoration and a new Guild founded for union of prayer and ever greater conversion to faithfully following our Lord. The needs and intentions of the Members of the Guild across the world will be remembered daily at a special Mass. We very much hope that members of the League will wish to join.

The one thing that Corpus Christ Church lacked was a monstrance of the size and design suited to the Church and its new work. Thanks to Fr Graeme Rowlands, we have purchased a beautiful monstrance, now engraved with the Emblem of the League, that will always stand as a witness to the League’s hopes for the union of all Christians, and especially the reconciliation of Anglicans and Catholics in fullness of communion at the Altar of the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church.

The members of the Executive will attend the Vigil Mass of the Holy Trinity at 1800 on Saturday 14th June to present the Monstrance that will henceforth serve at the centre of the Shrine. Fr Mark Woodruff will preach at the 1130 Solemn Mass and Procession the following week on the Sunday of Corpus Christi, 22 June 2014, when the Monstrance will be used for the first time. All members of the League are warmly invited to take part in these magnificent ways to conclude our Centenary Year.

Britain’s Christian Society: Priest Director's Newsletter, Easter-Summer 2014

When the Prime Minister repeated his view in April 2014 that Britain is a Christian country, it was hard to forget two things – what he said to Pope Benedict on his departure from England at East Midlands airport in 2010 and his argument against the Archbishop of Westminster over the effects of welfare reforms in February.

To Pope Benedict, Mr Cameron recalled Newman’s lesson from the decline of ancient Rome, about a state that had lost its “sentiment of sacredness” and its need for a “common bond of unity” based on more than the unanimity of self-interest (Lectures on the History of the Turks in their Relation to Europe, Lecture 7, Barbarism and Civilisation). Reflecting the Pope’s observation at Westminster Hall that British constitutional values concerning power, democracy and liberty have much in common with Catholic Social Teaching, he latched onto the Pope’s “challenge” for humanity to embrace its true purpose with “the new culture of social responsibility we want to build in Britain”, of which “faith is part of the fabric”. Such responsibility is more than working for the common good. It estimates Britain in theological terms, going beyond faith as personal profession, to faith - specifically the Christian faith - as defining British civilisation and a national life together conceived on Christian lines. Thus, whatever our hard-won tradition of tolerance and personal religious liberty, nonetheless Britain is a corporately Christian state.

 

On Cardinal Nichols (as he now is) he observed, “Many of the great political questions of our time are also moral questions – we should not be surprised, and nor should we be dismissive, when members of the clergy make their views known.  But neither should political leaders be afraid to respond…  The Archbishop of Westminster … offered a critique of this Government’s welfare reforms. I respect his view but I also disagree with it deeply.”

It is hard to reconcile the two comments. First he admires a society that is unified in purpose, bears a sacred character, and thus resonates with Catholic Social Teaching. Next, when a Catholic Social Teacher “challenges” (Mr Cameron’s word!) the direction that British society’s purpose is taking - because in its effects it is unpicking the fabric of the common good of which is part - it is extraordinary that he personally goes to the lengths of arguing against the Church’s moral critique of these effects, point by point, in The Daily Telegraph (18 February). It is important to recognise that the Cardinal was not casting doubt on the decency or good faith of political reformers, let alone involving himself with the practicalities which are the concern of party politics. But in any state, especially a professedly Christian state, Christian teaching about how the Kingdom of God is served in this world has to be heeded, not just noted “with respect”. For, far from being “simply untrue”, as the Prime Minister complained, everything Cardinal Nichols had stated about people’s safety net being withdrawn came from the direct experience of priests, parishes, charitable organisations and other dioceses and Churches across Britain. Thus he was merely doing what a certain type of British politician says the Church should confine itself to – defining what is right and where people are going wrong, and thus saving people’s souls. He had acknowledged that politicians were trying to repair public finances, as well as to break dependency, stimulate more employment and improve more prosperous livelihoods in a sustainable way, with the necessary support for those at greatest risk. But he also pointed out, whatever the good intentions, that systems and the politics behind them are not neutral or occupy a different compartment of the universe from the “spiritualities” – they boil down to personal effects on individual households; and when this causes hardship, especially noticeably wider hardship, there is a moral question to be answered. Thus the Cardinal was not just expressing his “views” with which the Prime Minister felt free to disagree “deeply”; he was speaking truth unto power. Power found this “challenge” uncomfortable, weighed it respectfully, set aside what it had earlier said to Pope Benedict, and rejected the Cardinal’s application of Catholic social teaching.

So did the Prime Minister also dismiss the “sentiment of sacredness” and the “common bond of unity” arising from it? When Mr Cameron says “Christian”, he means a rather individualised version of “Protestant”. In a Protestant society, the individual believer is his or her own interpreter of the Bible, needing no mediation from the Church for access to God, faith or salvation. The Church conducts worship based on the Bible and its clergy’s preaching is authoritative because the theology tradition claims it says nothing more, nothing less than is explicit in the text.  In such a society, this may be fine as long as the State likewise sees itself as subject to the Scriptures (and can thus use the Church to keep the people there too). But when the nature of the text of the Bible itself is open to question -  its formation, its origins, its literary genres, its historical and social contexts, its standing as  literal, analogical or allegorical truth – who is the interpreter then? What authority privileges the “view” of the Church – in other words, her teaching - when all the world is free to decide from out of the same Scriptures their own religious teaching and moral choice, rather than those of the Body as a whole?

Thus Britain, a confessionally Christian state, has abandoned the defence of marriage and family stability by facilitating divorce; it has undermined the corporate observance of Sunday and the principal Christian holy days (notably Good Friday and Ascension Day) in favour of the pressures of the market; it has engineered the exclusion of historic Catholic institutions that helped to found the nation’s childcare services from any further role in adoption and fostering; it is tacitly softening the application of the laws that strictly limit abortion and forbid euthanasia; it is barring the professional freedom of Catholics and other Christian doctors and nurses working in general practice and reproductive healthcare if they are conscientiously opposed to the termination of the lives of unborn children, or refuse to refer applicants to those who are not. There are numerous further examples.

Yet this is not because any of our succession of church-going Prime Ministers is not Christian. It is because they do not see that, beyond a moral or spiritual critique, the Church has bearing on society, and how individuals live their lives in good conscience and under the law, any more than anyone else. The individual is free to decide, the Archbishop of Westminster is entitled to his views and a Christian Prime Minister “deeply disagrees” with him. No one wants a theocracy, social rule by religious leaders. Nor do we want this or that political leader’s subjective impression of Christianity, its generalised values and supposed historic influences, rather than what it teaches and demands. Instead we need a society that is able to integrate, rather than balance off against each other, our political and our spiritual identity, one that is, as Mr Cameron himself said to Pope Benedict, a “fabric” where faith is not a patch stitched on but in the weave.

For this to happen, as Fr Brooke Lunn insisted time and again, both as editor of The Messenger and then Priest Director, England needs the Christians of this country to be united, not at odds. A society with political, social, historical, moral and spiritual integrity deserves a Church that brings Christ’s voice to bear upon it because she is His Body exemplifying His wholeness in humanity; a society without wholeness even more deserves the Church that brings integrity to its political, social, historical, moral and spiritual identity for it truly to be humanity. Only the Catholic Church can provide this; not because its universal extent in time and place can be all-encompassing, but because its social teaching is the teaching of Christ about human beings and how they are designed by God in the image of Christ to make up one humanity in Him. This is not a view, or one critique among many. It is how things are from the perspective of the Kingdom of Heaven and how they ought to be conformed in the kingdoms of this world. In a Christian society, it is not merely to be taken into account by the rulers, but internalised and put into practice.

The alternative is a society defenceless against monstrosity. One hundred years ago, Britain and Ireland went to war in defence of “little Catholic Belgium”. Four years ago, the centuries-old “folk Catholicism” of Belgium and its uneasy modus vivendi with political liberalism were irrevocably shattered, when Bishop Roger Vangheluwe of Brugge admitted the sustained abuse of two nephews. Nuns were heckled in the streets, priests advised not to appear in public, the Archbishop of Brussels-Malines repeatedly assaulted with custard pies, and the retired Cardinal Danneels questioned by police. In March 2014 King Filip of the Belgians, whose uncle King Baudouin had abdicated rather than approve the legalisation of abortion, signed into law the euthanasia of children.

A remarkable recent book, Justice, Unity and the Hidden Christ, by Matthew John Paul Tan, explains what has been going on in advanced Western societies, by asking why, when there is so much need for Christians to unite in addressing the ills of society, and there are so many opportunities for the concerted social action in service of suffering humanity that Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism called for, Christian unity has not come to pass and the Church remains in a state of rupture. Tan locates the problem in the decision of the Church in the modern world to recognise the freedom of the world and its social, economic and political structures from the Church, allowing them to migrate beyond the realm of the Kingdom of God. The Church may seek to set the tone, but civil society and the state have autonomy in their own, separate sphere. Free from the boundaries of the reign of Christ, the state and civil society identify their own ultimate objective, which now becomes earth-and-time-bound, in preference to the end of all things - the good, and the coming of the Kingdom, such as we see in the Beatitudes and the Lord’s Prayer.

Tan sees the Church in shock and denial at the flight of its child and what it has chosen for its path to happiness. For instead of the Kingdom, the state and civil society have chosen for their own the objectives of the unfettered market. This means unconstrained personal liberty, even to the interpersonal “violence” that means one person may prevail over the rest. In this context, says Tan, it is hardly surprising that the Churches have not been able to draw together in serving the realisation of the unity of humanity in Christ, because the new “state/society/market matrix” actively prevents them from doing so. The Christian Churches have been constrained to be part of a market of choice and competition – not just with each other but with every other ware on offer. Thus the Universal Catholic Church can hope at best, if it is to engage with the world to which it has given spiritual liberty, to serve as its chaplain. It is a far cry from Newman’s state with both a common bond of unity and a sentiment of sacredness, or even Mr Cameron’s socially responsible state, with faith woven through its “fabric”. But it is what we have come to.

Tan’s remedy is to say that the Church’s diakonia – its service of the Kingdom in and for the world - whether ecclesial or ecumenical - would be impossible now, unless it is united with its leitourgia. This is not just its “liturgy” as the work of the people to worship God, but the work of God for and upon the worshipping people.  By this he means that it is time for the Church to reassert itself as the alternative humanity, the “still more excellent Way”, restoring as its end the objective that points us towards God and his Kingdom. Thus humanity can recover a proper view of the human person, and of its relations with the other, that is not modelled on the untrammelled needs of the market and unfettered personal liberalism, but on the endless self-giving and mutually receiving of the persons of the Trinity, as the pattern for the people of God and the best, the only true, pattern for the whole of humanity.

With regard to our leitourgia – how we are the humanity focussed upon God and His Kingdom – Tan believes that the way we celebrate Mass and the direction we offer it actually conforms us to the “state-society-market matrix” that frustrates us so. In other words, we aim at ourselves and our own progress and development, rather than Christ and His Kingdom. This is why we are of no use to the world and why we cannot collaborate ecumenically in a lasting way that can be consolidated, in order to transform the ills of the world by looking to the transcending intervention of the Kingdom of God in our own hands as its People.

This is also why the People of God fails to exhibit itself as the Body of Christ; for, as chaplain to the “state-society-market matrix”, we are forced to pursue its objectives and not those of the Kingdom. The “matrix” will seek the Kingdom, not because the Church as its chaplain exhorts it to, but because that happens to suit its ends for the moment. People of God we may call ourselves, but we are merely “people” like anyone else, competing in the market place of ideas and offers and objectives. Hence, we need to declare our own freedom from this “matrix”, in order to reassert the sovereignty of God and the lack of society’s autonomy to direct itself as though it lies beyond the Kingdom of God and the hearing of the teaching of Christ and His Church. As Martin Luther said, “Let God be God” – not what political leaders, however well-meaning and personally devout, need Him to be and to mean from this day to that.

In 2013, a commemorative stone was set into the floor of the West Door of Westminster Cathedral, commemorating the visit of Pope Benedict XVI. Its Latin says that he “celebrated the Mass … showing what advantage faith may be to society.” Advantage? Is that all that is left for us to offer? Is faith not the “sentiment of sacredness” of a state’s very fabric, sealing that “common bond of unity” that forms society out of more than the mere coming together of otherwise divergent and sectional interests?

We are a country of wondrous diversity in which all have a stake and all possess rights and mutual obligations. Our traditions of freedom of speech, of personal and corporate religious liberty, of tolerance, equality and the rule of law have been won at the price of blood that live on in our collective memory as both defining our present identity and a warning from history. But our society is not Christian because Christianity transmits values we can all mostly sign up to, or because Christ reigns in all or some of our hearts, feebly or strongly, high in archbishops and ministers of the Crown, or low in us normal people around the altars and pulpits of our churches. It is Christian because the kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdom of Our Lord and of His Christ. This does not depend on a ministerial evaluation, or because the Church can make a convincing argument. Christ reigns in and over society, whatever we think. That is just the way humanity and the universe have been made. To this the Church holds it.