Anglican-Catholic Expectations

The Vatican has announced plans for the first meeting of a new phase of Anglican-Catholic dialogue which will take place from May 17th to 27th at the Monastery of Bosé in the north of Italy..
Ten Catholic and ten Anglican experts in ecumenism will discuss the theme ‘Church as Communion – local and universal’, looking at how this relationship affects the two Churches’ teaching on the ethical questions of our day.
But how will this new phase of the dialogue be affected by the recent establishiment of the new Ordinariate for former Anglicans? What are the expectations for these talks? And how will they be received by ordinary Anglicans or Catholics in the pews?
To find out more, Philippa Hitchen spoke to Msgr. Mark Langham, the Catholic co-secretary of this third phase of the ARCIC dialogue:

Listen:

“It’s a theme which really arose out of the discussions of the Holy Father and Archbishop Rowan Williams when they met in Rome and are very much related to issues affecting the Anglican Communion at the moment - discussions on what makes the Church and how individual churches relate to the wider communion, so the main topic is about communion at local and universal level.”
Beyond that you’re looking at how this relates to pressing ethical issues of our day ….I
Yes, inevitably those are very much part of the scene but we’re not simply diving in and looking at those hot button issues. We’re trying to go behind them and see where those differences arise...we begin by stressing what we have in common and then moving forward from that to find out where and when and why we diverge. That’s a more productive and creative way of addressing our issues.
What kind of expectations do you have?
Ecumenical conversation is not just about discussing things when we’ve got things sorted out. It’s very much about discerning the will of God through the Spirit for us here and now and at this difficult time it’s perhaps more important than ever that we both try and listen out for the will of God for the church. We’re always saying that ecumenism is not a work of human hands, it’s actually the desire of God for his church, so we’re trying to clear away some of the clouds of human misapprehension so that we can understand more fully the will of God for his church. It’s hard to say what our expectations are… what is important is that we come together to affirm what we have in common and affirm our belief that the Lord is calling us together eventually in corporate union.
It’s a very ecumenical setting for the talks?
Monastery of Bose is a wonderful setting…it is an ecumenical monastery, it’s a bit like Taize with doctoral degrees, a very evocative place that is extremely well known to both Roman Catholics and Anglicans. At the last Lambeth Conference the monastery sent a representative at the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It’s also a very beautiful place that will provide tranquillity and space for some very serious talking
10 days is a long time for a meeting?
It’s a long meeting because people come a long way and there’s an importance in the themes we’re discussing. It’s a little bit top loaded as in the first few days we’ll be following quite a strict programme… the second half is a little bit less planned as we think themes will emerge during those first five days.
How will this work be received by the rest of the Church
This is an important question. Ecumenical dialogues have never seen themselves as an end in themselves but part of a bigger process which involves reception at grass roots level, at leadership level and in the way the two churches work and pray together. ARCIC is well aware that these dialogues need to be complemented within a context of other things going on. When the Pope was in UK he set a programme before all the Christian communities there to work together in bringing the gospel into the social and political discourse of the nation – that’s ecumenism as well. So our documents need to be fed into that wider context. They need to be in a format that can be discussed and received at all kinds of levels by leaders and ordinary Christians of all traditions.
How will the new Ordinariate affect your work?
We’ve always said the path of traditional ecumenical dialogue is different from that of individual or group conversion – Vatican Council makes that clear in its document on ecumenism, so we don't see our work lying within that framework of the ordinariate. Our work is to stress the traditional relationship between the two traditions that has been expressed over 40 years in ARCIC so although the ordinariate is an extremely important aspect of the landscape it won’t in itself be something that comes into our discussions.