“If this bold initiative works … communion between Catholics and Anglicans in the Global South would be an overwhelming witness of the Kingdom and empowering to both churches.”
Here’s something to make you sit up and take notice:
The Vatican is taking historic strides towards achieving “full communion” with Anglicans who do not ordain female priests. It is doing so by recognizing Anglican holy orders and churches, but not requiring them to merge with or convert to Roman Catholicism.
“We are scheduled to begin our talks at the Vatican this coming September 26-27,” Bishop Ray Sutton, presiding bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church in the U.S., announced in an Ecumenical Relations Task Force Report of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) College of Bishops.
The ACNA bishops, who oversee 128,000 Anglicans in more than 1,000 congregations across Canada, Mexico, and the United States, met during a provincial council from June 20-25 at St. Vincent’s College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
The report reveals that Archbishop Foley Beach, who was then the primate of ACNA; Bishop Eric Menees, the chair of dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church; and Bishop Sutton flew to the Vatican for meetings at the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) in June 2023.
The Anglican bishops held talks with Catholic Archbishop Joseph Augustine Di Noia, who was then the adjunct secretary of the DDF, and his assistant, Fr. Andrew Liaugminas, who is seconded to the DDF by the archdiocese of Chicago.
In an unprecedented move, the process of Anglican-Roman Catholic union is being led by the DDF — the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog — instead of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, which is the Holy See’s conventional means of dialogue with Christians of other denominations.
This correspondent learned of secret meetings between ACNA bishops and top officials at the DDF earlier this year and published an exclusive news story about the historic meeting in the summer edition of Mass of Ages, the quarterly magazine of the Latin Mass Society.
… Fr. Bryan Lobo, S.J., the dean of the Faculty of Missiology at the Pontifical Gregorian University, explained to The Stream the impact the move could have on the worldwide Church.
“Anglicans form the third largest body of Christians in the world (around 80 million members) behind the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches in more than 165 countries. Today, a majority (55%) of the world’s Anglicans live in sub-Saharan Africa,” Lobo observed.
“If this bold initiative works and is then broadened as the ACNA proposal states, communion between Catholics and Anglicans in the Global South would be an overwhelming witness of the Kingdom and mutually encouraging and empowering to both churches.
“I think ecumenism should be considered as one of the primary missions of the Church. I would therefore support any initiative of the Catholic Church towards ecumenism.”
Photo: Vatican Media
