The great flowering of ecumenical relationships between the Catholic Church and other Churches and Ecclesial Communities since the Second Vatican Council's Decree of Ecumenism Unitatis redintegratio (21 November 1964), and its consequences for the Church at a universal, diocesan and parochial level, have been well documented, and much excellent and challenging work has been done to renew and deepen the fellowship which all Christians ought to share in obedience to Our Lord's will ‘that they may all be one’ (John 17:21).

The ecumenical movement has tended to focus on the lex orandi, eg worshipping together at such events as the annual week of prayer for Christian unity, and the lex credendi, eg the various doctrinal agreements that have been reached between the Catholic Church and other Christian communities. It has tended to ignore what could be called the lex vivendi – canon law, that system of divine and ecclesiastical law which provides a fundamental structure for the living out of the teachings and practices of the faith.

In the 1990s, the (Anglican) Ecclesiastical Law Society approached the (Catholic) Canon Law Society of Great Britain and Ireland seeking some form of canonical co-operation between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion. This resulted in the establishment of a lecture in honour of William Lyndwood (1375–1446), variously Bishop of Menevia, Dean of the Arches and Keeper of the Great Seal, mediaeval England's greatest canonist, which is given every two years.Footnote ¹

Contemporaneously, there was a small but nevertheless significant resurgence in the study of canon law within Anglicanism. Whereas the Catholic Church takes for granted the establishment and usefulness of faculties of canon law in ecclesiastical and Catholic universities, it was not ever thus within Anglicanism, and Cardiff Law School has been in the forefront of a renaissance in the study, not least through its Centre for Law and Religion under Professor Norman Doe, its director. The first Colloquium of Anglican and Roman Catholic Canon Lawyers took place in Rome in 1999 on the subject of ecclesiastical property. Succeeding Colloquia have examined clerical discipline (Windsor, 2000), Christian initiation (Rome, 2001), authority in the Church (Cardiff and St Davids, 2003), ecumenical co-operation (London, 2004), holy orders and primacy (Johannesburg, 2005; Rome, 2006), preparation for ministry (Rome, 2007) and marriage (Malta, 2008). The proceedings of the Colloquia have been reported in the pages of this Journal and a cumulative overview (running to some 44 pages) appeared in the last issue under the title, ‘A Decade of Ecumenical Dialogue on Canon Law’.Footnote ²

The Tenth Colloquium met in Rome, from 1–3 March 2009, with the task of looking back over the nine previous Colloquia, and looking forward to the work that can and should be done in years to come, in co-operation with the various channels of dialogue which exist between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion. Even though many events have disquieted the ecumenical worldview in recent years, the Colloquium's determination that its work should contribute to the continued growth towards Christian unity was unstinted.

The Colloquium held three sessions in the Pontifical Gregorian University, and a fourth session in the Beda, where we were met in the common room by the Rector and his fellow member, and were subsequently entertained to an excellent and welcome lunch. The Colloquium held its final working session in the Vaughan Room. This comprised the final drafting of a Report on the Proceedings of the Colloquium.Footnote ³ It is intended that this document will bring the work of the Colloquium more firmly into the public domain and will act as a foundation document for the eleventh Colloquium to be held in Walsingham in April 2010 when the canonists will be joined by ecumenists (one Anglican and one Catholic) when it is intended that the dialogue be taken further.

The participants then attended St Paul's Basilica, the church which the Roman Pontiff visits on every Feast of the Conversion of St Paul to preside at Vespers to mark the conclusion of the week of prayer for Christian unity, to make a pilgrimage to the Tomb of the Apostle in this Pauline Year – a most fitting way to conclude the Tenth Colloquium.