Anglicans and Catholics: common witness and worship
(Vatican Radio) Leaders of the dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Anglican
Communion met behind closed doors for talks at the Pontifical Council for Promoting
Christian Unity on Monday. High on their agenda was the whole question of how to make
the substantial - yet little known - progress of recent years much better known to
men and women in the pews of churches around the world. Plans already underway
include a website showcasing best practises of Catholics and Anglicans already working
together on joint worship or mission – for example in Sudan, where bishops of both
Churches are engaged in common actions for peace, reconciliation and support of displaced
people. To find out more, Vatican Radio’s Philippa Hitchen sat down with Catholic
Bishop Don Bolen and Anglican Bishop David Hamid, co-chairs of a dialogue commission
known as IARCCUM. Philippa begins by asking Bishop David what on earth that string
of letters stands for……
Listen:
“That acronym
stands for the International Anglican Roman Catholic Commission on Unity and Mission…..I
think many people in both Churches might be familiar with another acronym ARCIC which
is the theological dialogue commission set up after Vatican II…
IARCCUM was
founded in 2001/2 …by Cardinal Edward Cassidy and the then Archbishop George Carey…
to foster reception of ARCIC by trying to identity areas where we can do more in common
witness, common mission, common prayer and common study….
We are only at the
beginning of doing all that we could do together, based on those elements of faith
that we share, so we’re trying to work that fertile ground, planting seeds where it
is completely appropriate to work together in common witness and mission….”