“Today, our world is experiencing a tragic famine of hope. How much pain is all around us, how much emptiness, how much inconsolable grief. Let us, then, become messengers of the comfort bestowed by the Spirit. Let us radiate hope, and the Lord will open new paths as we journey toward the future.”Footnote 15 These challenging and uplifting words by His Holiness Pope Francis were part of an ecumenical service with the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and the Coptic Archbishop of London this year. Preaching during the impact of COVID-19 worldwide, Pope Francis’ message also frames the challenges and hopes of Anglican/Episcopal-Roman Catholic dialogue in the twenty-five years since Pope John Paul II's encyclical Ut Unum Sint (UUS), “That They May Be One.”
The Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church share 1,500 years of common history; this fellowship was broken in the sixteenth century.Footnote 16 We in the Anglican Communion continue to live into our catholic heritage today. Shortly after the Second Vatican Council, the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church initiated the Anglican-Roman Catholic Theological Consultation in the United States (ARCUSA). In 1966, then Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey and Pope Paul VI called for the churches to undertake serious dialogue and initiated the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC). The goal of this commission is to examine the serious obstacles that serve as impediments to full communion within a climate of mutual respect. For more than fifty years, each Archbishop of Canterbury has met with the pope in Rome to encourage continuing dialogue. Recently, Pope Francis and Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby recognized the differences between the churches that continue to be obstacles to unity—the way authority is exercised in the church, the ordination of women, issues regarding human sexuality—yet also pledged to witness “to this common faith in Jesus by acting together.”Footnote 17 The common actions cited in the declaration include sustainable development for all people, especially the marginalized, the discarded, and victims of violence, through education, health care, food, clean water, and shelter.
Most recently, in April 2020, ARCUSA met to complete its work on a document focused on reconciliation. Previous work of the consultation includes “A Pastoral Guide for Understanding Our Two Churches” (2007), “Mary, Grace and Hope in Christ” (2007), and “Ecclesiology and Moral Discernment” (2014).Footnote 18
Between the years 1981 and 2005, ARCIC I and II generated several agreed-upon statements on the church as “communion” and on “emerging ecclesiological and ethical factors making the journey more difficult and arduous.” In 2006, a common declaration signed by Rowan Williams, then Archbishop of Canterbury, and Pope Benedict XVI renewed the vision of full communion. ARCIC III (2011–2017) explored the instruments of communion on three levels of the church: local, regional, and worldwide/universal. “We have become partners and companions on our pilgrim journey, facing the same difficulties and strengthening each other by learning to value that which God has given to the other, and to receive them as our own in humility and gratitude.”Footnote 19
As a priest and scholar in the Episcopal Church, one of the autonomous churches within the Anglican Communion, and the dean of a historically United Methodist, ecumenical, and interreligious theological school, I come to this dialogue with a deep commitment to ecumenism and interreligious dialogue. A note here on Episcopal polity is needed to highlight the different ways dispersed authority, rather than binary authority, is exercised in the Anglican Communion and in the Episcopal Church. The churches within the Anglican Communion participate in a shared (colonial) history, commitment to regional autonomy in governance, and worship through the Book of Common Prayer. By the middle of the twentieth century, Anglicanism was no longer characterized as an extension of English culture, but as a global and interdependent fellowship of member churches. Though an attempt to establish a worldwide binding authority throughout the Anglican Communion was proposed by the Anglican Covenant (2009), most of the provinces (member churches), including the Episcopal Church, did not approve it. Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu of Cape Town once famously noted that the Anglican Communion “is a messy but lovable family.”Footnote 20
Churches within the Anglican Communion do not always agree theologically, nor do we regard uniformity as integral to unity. The Episcopal Church, created in the eighteenth-century United States with the first democratic church constitution in the world, is a member of the Anglican Communion through the bonds of fellowship. We recognize that all authority comes from God and that it is essentially relational in character. Authority in the church is modeled after that exercised by Jesus—personal, communal, and collegial. Thus, there are wide differences across the Anglican Communion theologically, but also in terms of pastoral practices, such as ordination and marriage. “Communion, then, is always a task, a challenge,” writes noted Episcopal theologian and ecclesiologist, the Rev. Ellen K. Wondra, “a project in which persons and groups must engage across the lines of difference.… Communion entails a commitment to stay in relationship in recognition that the fullness of communion, like the fullness of truth, lies ahead.”Footnote 21
This vision of the fullness of communion, “That They May Be One,” suggests that no one vision of the church equals the fullness of truth and that our commitment to the ecumenical movement means we are open to being changed through our relationship with one another. So, what potentially lies ahead for Anglican/Episcopal–Roman Catholic dialogue in the twenty-first century?
When Ut Unum Sint was released in 1995, the encyclical was praised by Episcopal Church leadership for a “new openness,” especially regarding Pope John Paul II's willingness to examine the role of the papacy in an expansive way. Then Episcopal Bishop of Chicago, Frank T. Griswold,Footnote 22 cochair of the dialogue between the Episcopal Church and the Roman Catholic Church, stated that he believed the pope was demonstrating a sensitivity to the ecumenical community and found it “extremely heartening that he would raise the question of the reform of the papacy.”Footnote 23 Other Episcopal participants in the dialogue believed that the encyclical came after a decade during which our Roman Catholic counterparts considered ecumenism a low priority; the pope desired to halt the decline by irrevocably affirming the ecumenical commitment of the Roman Catholic Church. Further, Ut Unum Sint reaffirmed that “legitimate diversity is in no way opposed to the Church's unity, but rather enhances her splendor and contributes greatly to the fulfillment of her mission.”Footnote 24
Now Pope Francis’ emphasis on the pastoral context, empowerment of the laity, social vision, global mission, and the renewal of both ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, rather than on doctrinal purity, opens further opportunities for Christians in the Anglican tradition to become active partners with Roman Catholics in healing the world.Footnote 25 “These are signs of hope in a very down to earth and genuine way,” said the Most Rev. David Moxon, director of the Anglican Center of Rome and the Archbishop of Canterbury's representative to the Holy See. Moxon does not see a need for further statements on what holds Christians together beyond Ut Unum Sint. Rather, he argues that Christians have much work to do in living by the principles of Ut Unum Sint every day. “A new day will be made visible,” Moxon said, “by clear demonstrations of unity over issues like justice and peace, like the environment, like solidarity with the poor, and with ordinary acts of compassion where the wounds of the world bleed the most.”Footnote 26
The realities of the Christian ecumenical context have grown increasingly diverse and complex over the past twenty-five years. Christian churches in North America and in Europe no longer have the same moral authority as they did a generation ago. Christianity is more pluralistic, and non-Christian religious communities are not only larger, but playing a more visible role in their societies. Although the dialogues begun in the era of Nostra Aetate should not be understated, people of faith in local communities are now enthusiastically working together on issues of deep concern—poverty, racial justice, immigration reform, gender equality, climate change, globalization, LGBTQI equity, to name a few—within a range of ecumenical and interreligious relationships that are porous and fluid.Footnote 27 In my experience, part of what the ecumenical movement of the last twenty-five years gives to the world is a framework within which we practice formation from the perspective of the transformation of whole persons in community. Ironically, the best way we can witness to the importance of ecumenical and interreligious dialogue is to give the world more than churches.
Ecumenical and interreligious dialogue emanates from the collective belief that we are all, despite our theological differences, members of one human community; if life is improved for just one person due to our efforts, all benefit. “My humanity is bound up in yours,” said Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, “for we can only be human together.”Footnote 28 Many of the religious leaders of the world support the notion that, even though there are many differences among us, we also share in the common work of peace and reconciliation for the sake of a better world and the preservation of our planet.
One of the great Talmudic sages, Maimonides, taught that although it is not our responsibility to complete the healing of the world, we cannot morally refrain from participation. In a world where the majority are marginalized, religion easily becomes a tool of oppression when limited to theological abstractions, or correct belief, or internal squabbles, while most of humanity is deprived of basic human needs, and the fate of the planet is in serious jeopardy. Ecumenical and interreligious dialogue is not only about mutual understanding, but about creating a better world. In this way, ecumenical and interreligious dialogue are critical to human survival. May a new day be made visible. There is much work for us to do together.
