And now, ARCIC III: isn’t it time to bring this ecumenical farce to an end?

Diplomacy Dr Oddie!
In the same way the Praetorian guard made the Roman laws ‘legal’
We need an ARCIC III to basically show that we’re at an immovable impasse.
It’s required – not for the Anglicans – but our own crowd of oecumaniacs – mostly our professional laity and clergy in Conference.
They are the ones who need to have the plain facts rammed down their throats that any compromise by the Church is utterly untenable – and they MUST cease and desist from denying the situation and mendaciously raising false hope.
ARCIC III also gives His Holiness an opportunity to act on the scandal and sacrilege occurring throughout the land with shared tabernacles, Anglican churches used for Catholic parishes, Catholic/Anglican ‘concelebrations’ etc [all the banalities and travesties which have been around us since +Cormac was in Arundel and Brighton.
This shiny new ‘accord’ will provide the Vatican with enough ammo to act…

Fantastic article by the way – by far the best we’ve had on here for ages.

Pope Benedict spoke in favour of ARCIC at Lambeth Palace in September 2010. Does Dr Oddie consider himself more Catholic than the Pope? That way lies the funny farm. The underlying vision for ARCIC and similar endeavours was set out by Pope Benedict in Cologne in 2005:

I feel the fact that we consider one another brothers and sisters, that we love one another, that together we are witnesses of Jesus Christ, should not be taken so much for granted. I believe that this brotherhood is in itself a very important fruit of dialogue that we must rejoice in, continue to foster and to practice. Among Christians, fraternity is not just a vague sentiment, nor is it a sign of indifference to truth. As you just said, Bishop, it is grounded in the supernatural reality of the one Baptism which makes us all members of the one Body of Christ. Together we confess that Jesus Christ is God and Lord; together we acknowledge him as the one mediator between God and man, and we emphasize that together we are members of his Body. Based on this essential foundation of Baptism, a reality comes from him which is a way of being, then of professing, believing and acting. Based on this crucial foundation, dialogue has borne its fruits and will continue to do so.

…We all know there are numerous models of unity and you know that the Catholic Church also has as her goal the full visible unity of the disciples of Christ, as defined by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council in its various Documents. This unity, we are convinced, indeed subsists in the Catholic Church, without the possibility of ever being lost; the Church in fact has not totally disappeared from the world. On the other hand, this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return: that is, to deny and to reject one’s own faith history. Absolutely not! It does not mean uniformity in all expressions of theology and spirituality, in liturgical forms and in discipline. Unity in multiplicity, and multiplicity in unity: in my Homily for the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul on 29 June last, I insisted that full unity and true catholicity in the original sense of the word go together. As a necessary condition for the achievement of this coexistence, the commitment to unity must be constantly purified and renewed; it must constantly grow and mature. To this end, dialogue has its own contribution to make. More than an exchange of thoughts, an academic exercise, it is an exchange of gifts, in which the Churches and the Ecclesial Communities can make available their own riches. As a result of this commitment, the journey can move forward, step by step, as the Letter to the Ephesians says, until at last we will all “attain to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”.

er…Dave – did you ever, perchance, listen to Dr Williams speech in Rome last year?
Maybe you should ; before you begin casting aspersions that Dr Oddie’s being offensive.
http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/2616

Dave, as an Anglican, I take offense that a fellow Anglican would wish to belittle Catholic judgment with regards to our own “spiritual leader.” They don’t have anyone in their top level of leadership who denies the divinity of Christ or the resurrection as do we. As a result, we have basically “lost it” and should be open to hearing what people of other faithful Trinitarian churches have to say about us, rather than being offended by the help they offer us in revealing things about the state of our church and our leaders. We shouldn’t be getting huffy and offended when we are the perpetrators of great crimes upon the rest of Trinitarian Christianity, no longer even being Trinitarian in practice oursleves, while still pretending to the title.

Mmm, isn’t an ‘expensive freevbie’ something of a contradictio in adjectio?

Thank you. A very informative post, from which I have learned something. The Pope’s idea of ‘exchange of gifts’ indicates that this is not a futile exercise.

The Pope’s words reminded me of Lumen Gentium 8: ‘many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its [the Catholic Church's] visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity.’

I wonder if the gifts of the Anglicans are such gifts.

The full sentence is:
This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him,(13*) although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity.

The Pope’s thought seems to follow the same pattern, moving from the reality of the Church, subsisting in the Catholic Church, to elements outside its visible boundaries, which are nevertheless of value.

Precisely. One wonders what the Commission possibly has to talk about…what to order for lunch, perhaps?

But they could represent nobody else, since Anglicanism has no means of determining what is representative and what isn’t, or even what is normal Anglican belief and what isn’t. Do Anglicans believe in the real presence? Some do some don’t. Do you see what I mean?

Quite so; also, my rage, if any is fairly mild; a touch of impatience or exasperation, perhaps. As for bitterness and paranoia, I think I need to have that explained; that sounds more iike the “Spirit of Vatican II” afficionados to me.

I’ve been a member of an ecumenical Church for almost 24 years (Church of Christ the Cornerstone in Milton Keynes – http://sites.google.com/site/churchofchristthecornerstonemk/), and while there’s been plenty of areas of disagreement over the years, we – by and large! – treat each other with respect. It is one thing to present reasons for disagreement (which is what you did in most of your article, and which is you have done in this comment), but …(hum hum) “spiritual leader” … comes across as provocative. It’s a small thing, I know, but steps towards reconciliation are hard and the slide towards conflict and division is easy. We can’t ignore difference, but there is nothing to stop us choosing our language and our ways of speaking in order to avoid unnecessary offense.

I am moved by your visionary understanding of all this. But I have been watching this process with hope in my heart for three decades now, and it has led to nothing remotely resembling your vision, only to disillusionment and cynicism. I only wish you were right. But your vision, I am certain, isn’t by now even shared by the participants.

I feel sure that Pope Benedict feels that he cannot discontinue this process until it has shown its futility beyond peradventure, until it has truly and visibly come to the end of the road: and he must also show that anglicanorum coetibus is not a matter of “the pope fishing in anglican waters”, one unworthy accusation attaching to the ordinariate. So, for now, I see that the whole thing must continue. But in the end (probably, given my advanced years, I will be dead by then, and will have other, more urgent concerns) I believe that I will be proved fright about this.

See my response to Martin, above

I suspect the following comments will make me a little unpopular, so please accept my apologies in advance for what will hopefully at least be interesting…

I was at +Cormac’s talk on Ecumenism at Worth Abbey in 2009, the week after Anglicanorum Coetibus was announced. A lot of people that the latter made the former rather pointless, but I disagreed, as did +C.

When questioned about the Ordinariate and its effect on the ecumenical process, +C said that it didn’t really affect ecumenical dialogue as it wasn’t really a matter concerned with how two ecclesial bodies interacted, but rather a response to a specific request from those who wanted to leave one for the other. A fact which was reinforced by Anna Arco’s brilliant interview with Fr. Burnham last month.

As for the ARCIC process, there is of course an extent to which the two communities are unreconcilable. Indeed, if there weren’t huge sticking points between us then we simply wouldn’t be too distinct communities in the first place. I rather suspect that it is a little foolish to think that dialogue is rendered pointless by the very thing which necessitates it in the first place.

The fact is that we don’t know how different things would have been had ARCIC not existed. That’s an unsatisfactory statement, for sure, but one that can’t be discounted. Would the clergy conversions of the 1990s have happened without it? Would the Ordinariate?

Well, maybe. But we can’t say so for certain.

I also think – and this is where I get really irritating and vague – that the fruits of ecumenical dialogue cannot be measured simply by conversions. We have to trust that the Spirit has been at work.

I know that Dr. Oddie isn’t necessarily claiming any of his points in the article above, but still.

Regarding the point that there is less impetus for ARCIC now than in the past, I would agree. Though, I don’t think it’s completely pointless, the Anglican Communion isn’t what it was. I think they are heading for a situation where a lot of them leave toward Rome, a lot more of them leave toward Evangelical Churches and a stubborn, dying remnant clings on in the centre of the communion for dear life.

That remnant is what ARCIC must now deal with, and it will be difficult.

It’s time to put those who peddlehateful and divisive speech on these pages out to pasture. Sackcloth and ashes and perhaps even stocks and whips would be too good for these false Pharisees using the cloak of Jesus to hide their evilfrom their public. Repent beforeit is too late.

With respect, father, I don’t think this is fair comment. ‘Normal Anglican belief’ is that we believe in the four ecumenical councils, the three creeds, and the thirty-nine articles. The issue of the real presence is addressed in the thirty-nine articles (a fact which, as a learned man and formerly one of us, I believe you know to be the case).

There is a lengthy record of clergy whose views were/are hard to reconcile with a straightforward reading of these documents being ordained and continuing to minister in the Church of England and other Anglican churches. (Some would think that if that was true in the seventeenth century, it is ten times as true today.)

What this shows is that the Anglicans don’t have a Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, or (even more importantly) a Pope. Therefore I don’t see why anyone would expect Anglicans in general to ‘be quite close to the views of their (hum, hum) “spiritual leader”’. He is not a Pope, and that isn’t how it works.

In conclusion, and as your article is right to point out, the Anglican and Roman churches are very different kinds of institutions. Me, I’m far from convinced that further ARCIC proceedings are worth the effort. I doubt if anyone is intentionally aiming to get an ‘expensive freebie’, but where your article IS fair comment is in pointing out that ARCIC will use up resources which might be better allocated elsewhere.

Absolutely. You really have to wonder what they could agree on, other than lunch and dinner. The end of this farce has come about as the theologoical chasm has just become so wide that no feat of modern spiritual engineering by any Pope or Arch of Canterbury could ever fathom. It is a fact that the Anglican communion has women priests, women bishops and no doubt will soon have divorced and remarried bishops etc. Does the list ever end when the Anglicans will just invent somwthing else and stray even further away from the Truth. Ridiculous

Almost exactly my point. The only evidence for the view that belief in the thirty-nine articles is optional is that some persons (OK, including bishops) have been saying so for some time. These persons are (in my words) ‘clergy whose views were/are hard to reconcile with a straightforward reading of these documents’.

The idea that ‘assent’ ought not to comprehend ‘belief’ some people (perhaps signum_magnum) would class as a charming example of English moderation. Me, I’d call it ‘hard to reconcile with a straightforward reading’–and that’s an understatement; indeed, I fear in some cases the persons who advocated that idea, and the persons who assented [sic] to it, were deceiving themselves. In conclusion, they might as well be Quakers–not that that’s such a terrible fate.