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DOCUMENTS

NGLICAN

ROMAN CATHOLIC

RELATIONS

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DOCUMENTS
ON

ANGLICAN ROMAN
CATHOLIC RELATIONS

I

Compiled by

BISHOPS’ COMMITTEE ON
ECUMENICAL and INTERRELIGIOUS

AFFAIRS

in Cooperation with the

JOINT COMMISSION ON ECUMENICAL RELATIONS

1973

Publications Office

UNITED STATES EATHOLIE EONFERENUE

1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.E. 20095





TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

1. COMMENTARY ON THE ANGLICAN-ROMAN CATHO-
LIC AGREED STATEMENT ON EUCHARISTIC DOCTRINE,
Rev. Herbert J. Ryan, S.j 1

2. DOCTRINAL AGREEMENT AND CHRISTIAN UNITY:
METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS, A statement of
the Anglican-Roman Catholic Consultation, U.S.A 49

3. COMMENT ON THE "AGREED STATEMENT ON EUCHA-
RISTIC DOCTRINE" OF THE ANGLICAN-ROMAN CATH-
OLIC INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION, A statement of
the Anglican-Roman Catholic Consultation, U.S.A 54

4. RESPONSE TO THE "AGREED STATEMENT ON EUCHA-
RISTIC DOCTRINE," Bishops' Committee for Ecumenical
and Interreligious Affairs 57

5. RESPONSE TO THE "AGREED STATEMENT ON EUCHA-
RISTIC DOCTRINE," House of Bishops of the Episcopal
Church 59

6. PROSPECTS FOR ANGLICAN-ROMAN CATHOLIC RE-
LATIONS, Cardinal Willebrands 61



Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2016

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Commentary on the

Anglican-Roman Catholic

Agreed Statement on

Eucharistic Doctrine

I. Significance, Purpose, Background and Status

of the Agreed Statement

At Windsor Castle on September 7, 1971, the Anglican/

Roman Catholic International Commission agreed unanimously
to a statement which its members had drafted concerning eucha-
ristic doctrine.

1 Though historians are rarely impressed by con-

temporary events, yet one of the Church of England's most noted

historians, Bishop John H. R. Moorman of Ripon, called the
document the most significant statement of the Roman and
Anglican Communions since the Reformation.2 Why is this docu-
ment so significant? What does it try to accomplish? What is its
background, and what is its status?

The statement produced at Windsor on eucharistic doctrine

is significant because it marks the successful completion of the

first step of the work laid out for the Anglican/Roman Catholic

International Commission. This group of eighteen bishops and

theologians was appointed by the Pope and the Archbishop of

Canterbury in 1969 to oversee Anglican/Roman Catholic rela-

tions and has taken as its aim the achievement of organic union

between the Anglican and Roman Communions.3 At Windsor in
January 1970, the Commission concluded that unity in the faith

must precede organic union. 4 Though Roman Catholics and
Anglicans share the same faith in many matters, it was not clear
to the members of the Commission that Romans and Anglicans
were at one in the faith concerning the eucharist, the nature of

the ordained ministry, and the place and exercise of authority in

the church. These three areas were chosen because, during the

1



four hundred years of estrangement from one another, both

Communions developed an understanding of these points of their
faith in contradistinction to each other and formulated their

understanding at times in polemical terms aimed against the

position which the other espoused. The Commission judged

that if Romans and Anglicans today actually profess the same
faith, it would be necessary to express a common doctrinal agree-
ment in the three areas in which most of the polemical theology

of the past had been written and in which knowledgeable Angli-

cans and Romans thought their differences lay. This was the
strategy that the Commission agreed to adopt during its first

meeting in January 1970. That the Commission, which represents

a very broad spectrum of theology and churchmanship in both

Communions, was able to compose a statement on eucharistic
doctrine to which all the members actually subscribed indicates
that the strategy of the Commission is practicable. This is highly

significant, for it means that the Commission has found a way
to cut through the polemical formulations of the past and un-

cover the present living faith which both Anglicans and Roman
Catholics truly share.

The statement on eucharistic doctrine represents an effort to

express the contemporary faith of Anglicans and Romans in the
eucharistic mystery. There is no polemical intent in the docu-

ment. The statement does not attempt to refute polemicists of

the past, however influential they may have been within our
separate traditions. Although it seeks to incorporate the insights

and concerns of the sixteenth century, the intention of the docu-

ment is to remain faithful to the early tradition of the eucharistic

faith of the church prior to the estrangement of the Roman and
Anglican Communions from one another. On the other hand, the
document is not an exercise in archaic theology or a compromise
statement arrived at after eighteen months of debate. It is a joint

statement made after shared research on the meaning of the
eucharistic mystery as celebrated and apprehended in the church

from the apostolic age to the present time. The statement is

based on the tradition which both the Roman and Anglican

Communions share. Paradoxically, it is the openness of the

document to the tradition, and particularly to the practice and

teaching, of the Eastern Church which makes the statement so

contemporary.5

2



The statement is an expression of eucharistic doctrine. Be-

cause it is a statement of doctrine, the Commission sought to

avoid emphasis on any one theology in expressing the substantial

agreement which the statement records. As such it represents

the core of eucharistic belief and not the theology of any one

school of thought with its own interpretation of that belief. More-

over, the Commission in composing the statement concentrated

on the eucharistic celebration itself and consequently the state-

ment does not treat of the reservation of the eucharist, benedic-

tion of the blessed sacrament, intinction, viaticum, or other

matters. Rather, the statement seeks to provide a context in

which the eucharistic mystery can be considered in itself as the

church's celebration and memorial of the paschal action of the

glorified Christ who through his Spirit offers himself in the eucha-
ristic signs to his church to transform both the church itself and

the world into the new creation. In other words, what the state-
ment attempts to accomplish is to express the living faith of the

church in such a way as to bypass the polemics of the past and
articulate the present faith of the Anglican and Roman Com-
munions in the eucharistic mystery. Yet the statement does not

avoid the hard questions which are difficult because so much past
controversy surrounds them. As Bishop Alan Clark, the Roman
Catholic Co-chairman of the Commission, has written: "The nodal

questions were clearly the relation of the Eucharist with the once-

for-all sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, and the Real Presence of

the risen Lord in the elements of bread and wine. We have tried
to answer these questions, and are convinced that we can answer
them in substantially the same way." G

What is the background of this statement, and what is its
status? The document comes out of the work of the Anglican/

Roman Catholic International Commission. It is drawn from sev-
eral papers written for the Commission, from statements drawn

up by the Commission itself, and from the criticism received from

theologians in many countries in response to previous documents
of the Commission.

At the first meeting of the International Commission at

Windsor in January 1970, Bishop Arthur Vogel, Coadjutor of the

Episcopal diocese of West Missouri, and Fr. Jean Ti I lard, O.P., of

Ottawa, presented papers on the eucharist. On the basis of these
papers a group of Commission members drafted a document

3



which the Commission as a whole helped to amend. This docu-

ment was composed at Venice during the second meeting of the
Commission in September 1970, and was published as a working

paper of the International Commission. 7 During April 1971, a

special subcommission under the chairmanship of Bishop Clark

met at Poringland in England and revised the Venice working

paper after an intensive study of the nature of the eucharistic

sacrifice.
8

In the light of the experience of the Poringland meet-

ing, Fr. Ti I lard then published a lengthy article in the Nouvelle

Revue Theologique which dealt with Roman Catholic and Angli-
can doctrine on the Eucharist.9 At the suggestion of Bishop

Christopher Butler, O.S.B., the Commission, which met at Windsor

in September 1971, drew on the Venice working paper, the

Poringland statement and the Ti I lard study in drafting the docu-

ment on eucharistic doctrine.

Though the statement is brief and avoids the excessive use

of technical theological language, the document attempts to
describe the deep and central consensus which the Commission,

after eighteen months of intensive study and research, believes

the Roman and Anglican Communions presently share on eucha-
ristic doctrine.

What is the status of the Agreed Statement on Eucharistic
Doctrine? The Statement is a study document. In the introduc-

tion to the Statement which the Bishops Co-chairmen of the

International Commission appended to the Statement prior to its
publication in the press on December 31, 1971 the status of the
document is clearly brought out. "The document, agreed upon
at our third meeting, at Windsor, on 7 September 1971, has been

presented to our official authorities, but obviously it cannot be

ratified by them until such time as our respective Churches can
evaluate its conclusions." Cardinal Willebrands of the Vatican

Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, in an address on the

Vatican Radio during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in
January, 1972 also stressed the status of the document. "Obvi-

ously this Statement does not constitute agreement between the

Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion. Agreement has
been reached, for the moment, at the level of the International
Commission. The text is being published, so that further study

and discussion may be carried out by theologians. The Commis-
sion will examine the suggestions and criticisms, take them into

4



consideration if necessary, for the improvement of the text. All

this will then constitute the basis on which authorities in both

Churches can assess opinions expressed on the area of agree-

ment." 10 On October 4, 1972 the Cardinal returned to the same
point in an address he gave at the Great Hall of Lambeth Palace

while on an official visit to the Archbishop of Canterbury. "On
31st December 1971 the Commission published an Agreed State-
ment on the Eucharist. I want to express sincere gratitude for the

work done by the Commission. This kind of work is exactly what

we hoped for. I appreciate the difficulty in taking up this central
and essential subject and I respect the efforts and decision shown
by the Commission in giving this arduous service to the Church.

Those who have mixed feelings and reserves about this State-
ment, I ask: Had we the right to expect more from the Commis-
sion? Can we ask from the Commission what can only be done
by the Churches themselves? At present the Statement is sub-

mitted to further study and discussion by the theologians. The

Commission will examine their suggestions and criticisms. The
official authorities of the Church will not take over the task proper

to the theologians, but follow their further work with confi-
dence." 11 Father Jean Ti I lard, O.P., one of the chief architects of
the Statement, writing in the Summer issue of One in Christ
touches briefly on the status of the document. . . . "(I)t is the
wish of both Churches that the texts of the Commission should
be seen as submissions for discussion by theologians, clergy and
faithful of each Communion. This is a wise measure. It derives
from an accurate view of the conditions upon which unity may be
sought. There would in fact be a danger of ecumenical dialogue
being restricted to discussions among theologians and specialists
without the individual member of the faithful, of average Chris-
tion education, ever coming to grips with what is at stake in these
discussions and understanding the implications of the desired
consensus. What would be the value of a church union born
merely of the toil and love of a little group of experts?" 12

II. The Agreed Statement

Before reading the Agreed Statement on Eucharistic Doctrine
it would be worthwhile thoughtfully to study and compare actual
texts used by the Episcopal and Roman Catholic Churches in the
celebration of the Eucharistic liturgy. Sections of the canon or

5



anaphora are given from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer and
from the fourth canon of the current Roman Missal:

When the Priest, standing before the Holy Table, hath so
ordered the Bread and Wine

, that he may with the more readi-
ness and decency break the Bread before the People, and take
the Cup into his hands

, he shall say the Prayer of Consecration

,

as followeth.

All Glory be to thee, Almighty God, our heavenly Father,
for that thou, of thy tender mercy, didst give thine only Son

Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the Cross for our redemption;
who made there (by his one oblation of himself once offered)
a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfac-
tion, for the sins of the whole world; and did institute, and in
his holy Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memory
of that his precious death and sacrifice, until his coming again:

For in the night in which he was betrayed, (a) he took Bread;
and when he had given thanks, (b) he brake it, and gave it to
his disciples, saying, Take, eat, (c) this is my Body, which is
given for you; Do this in remembrance of me. Likewise, after
supper, (d) he took the Cup; and when he had given thanks,
he gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of this; for (e) this is my
Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you, and for
many, for the remission of sins; Do this, as oft as ye shall drink
it, in remembrance of me.

(a) Here the Priest is to take the Paten into his hands.

(b) And here to break the Bread.

(c) And here to lay his hand upon all the Bread.

(d) Here he is to take the Cup into his hands.

(e) And here he is to lay his hand upon every vessel in which
there is any Wine to be consecrated.

The Oblation

Wherefore, O Lord and heavenly Father, according to the
institution of thy dearly beloved Son our Saviour Jesus Christ,
we, thy humble servants, do celebrate and make here before
thy Divine Majesty, with these thy holy gifts, which we now
offer unto thee, the memorial thy Son hath commanded us to
make; having in remembrance his blessed passion and precious
death, his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension; render-
ing unto thee most hearty thanks for the innumerable benefits
procured unto us by the same.

6



The Invocation

And we most humbly beseech thee, O merciful Father,
to hear us; and, of thy almighty goodness, vouchsafe to bless

and sanctify, with thy Word and Holy Spirit, these thy gifts and
creatures of bread and wine; that we, receiving them accord-
ing to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy institution, in

remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his
most blessed Body and Blood.

And we earnestly desire thy fatherly goodness, mercifully
to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; most

humbly beseeching thee to grant that, by the merits and death
of thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in his blood, we, and

all thy whole Church, may obtain remission of our sins, and all
other benefits of his passion. And here we offer and present
unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a
reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee; humbly be-
seeching thee, that we, and all others who shall be partakers
of this Holy Communion, may worthily receive the most pre-
cious Body and Blood of thy Son Jesus Christ, be filled with
thy grace and heavenly benediction, and made one body with
him, that he may dwell in us, and we in him. And although
we are unworthy, through our manifold sins, to offer unto thee
any sacrifice; yet we beseech thee to accept this our bounden
duty and service; not weighing our merits, but pardoning our
offences, through Jesus Christ our Lord; by whom, and with
whom, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honour and glory be
unto thee, O Father Almighty, world without end. Amen.

Eucharistic Prayer No. 4

V. The Lord be with you.
R. And also with you.
V. Lift up your hearts.
R. We lift them up to the Lord.
V. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
R. It is right to give him thanks and praise.

PREFACE

Father in heaven, it is right that we should give you thanks and
glory:

you alone are God, living and true.
Through all eternity you live in unapproachable light.
Source of life and goodness, you have created all things, to fill

your creatures with every blessing

7



and lead all men to the joyful vision of your light.
Countless hosts of angels stand before you to do your will;
they look upon your splendor
and praise you, night and day.
United with them and in the name of every creature under

heaven,

we too praise your glory as we sing (say):

SANCTUS [First Acclamation of the People]

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.

[Praise to the Father]

Father, we acknowledge your greatness:
all your actions show your wisdom and love.
You formed man in your own likeness
and set him over the whole world

to serve you, his creator,

and to rule over all creatures.

Even when he disobeyed you and lost your friendship
you did not abandon him to the power of death,

but helped all men to seek and find you.
Again and again you offered a covenant to man,

and through the prophets taught him to hope for salvation.

Father, you so loved the world

that in the fullness of time you sent your only Son to be our

Savior.

He was conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit, and
born of the Virgin Mary,

a man like us in all things but sin.
To the poor he proclaimed the good news of salvation,

to prisoners, freedom,

and to those in sorrow, joy.

In fulfillment of your will

he gave himself up to death;

but by rising from the dead,

he destroyed death and restored life.

And that we might live no longer for ourselves but for him,
he sent the Holy Spirit from you, Father,

as his first gift to those who believe,
to complete his work on earth

and bring us the fullness of grace.

8



[Invocation of the Holy Spirit]

Father, may this Holy Spirit sanctify these offerings.
Let them become the body and blood of Jesus Christ our Lord
as we celebrate the great mystery
which he left us as an everlasting covenant.

[The Lord's Supper]

He always loved those who were his own in the world.
When the time came for him to be glorified by you, his

heavenly Father,

he showed the depth of his love.
While they were at supper,
he took bread, said the blessing, broke the bread

and gave it to his disciples, saying:
Take this, all of you, and eat it:
this is my body which will be given for you.
In the same way, he took the cup, filled with wine.
He gave you thanks, and giving the cup to his disciples, said:
Take this, all of you, and drink from it:
this is the cup of my blood,
the blood of the new and everlasting covenant.
It will be shed for you and for all men
so that sins may be forgiven.
Do this in memory of me.

[Memorial Acclamation]

Priest: Let us proclaim the mystery of faith.

PEOPLE:

A Christ has died,
Christ is risen,

Christ will come again.

B Dying you destroyed our death,
rising you restored our life.
Lord Jesus, come in glory.

C When we eat this bread and drink this cup,
we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus,
until you come in glory.

D Lord, by your cross and resurrection
you have set us free.
You are the Savior of the world.

[The Memorial Prayer]

Father, we now celebrate this memorial of our redemption.
We recall Christ's death, his descent among the dead,
his resurrection, and his ascension to your right hand;

9



and, looking forward to his conning in glory, we offer you his
body and blood,

the acceptable sacrifice which brings salvation to the whole
world.

Lord, look upon this sacrifice which you have given to your
Church;

and by your Holy Spirit, gather all who share this bread and
wine

into the one body of Christ, a living sacrifice of praise.

[Intercessions: For the Church]

Lord, remember those for whom we offer this sacrifice,
especially N., our Pope,

N., our bishop, and bishops and clergy everywhere.

Remember those who take part in this offering,
those here present and all your people,

and all who seek you with a sincere heart.

I
For the Dead]

Remember those who have died in the peace of Christ
and all the dead whose faith is known to you alone.

I
In Communion with the Saints]

Father, in your mercy grant also to us, your children,

to enter into our heavenly inheritance

in the company of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Cod,
and your apostles and saints.
Then, in your kingdom, freed from the corruption of sin and

death,

we shall sing your glory with every creature through Christ
our Lord,

through whom you give us everything that is good.

[Concluding Doxology]

Through him,
with him,

in him,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

all glory and honor is yours,
almighty Father,

for ever and ever.

All reply: Amen.

In reading the Agreed Statement it would be well to keep

in mind not only the texts that have just been presented but the

wide measure of agreement that Anglicans and Roman Catholics

10



share on the worth and meaning of liturgical action. Both Angli-

cans and Roman Catholics see the Eucharistic liturgy as a memo-
rial of Christ's sacrifice. Both firmly believe in the real and effec-

tive presence of Christ in the Eucharist building up His Church

and nourishing with His Body and Blood those faithful who re-
ceive communion. The Agreed Statement is trying to affirm these

central truths. It does not give an elaborate theological explana-

tion of how the Eucharistic liturgy is a sacrifice. It does not
attempt to explain in philosophical terms how Christ is present
through the signs of bread and wine at the conclusion of the

anaphora. What then is the Statement trying to say?

When the Church, obedient to her Lord's command to do
this in remembrance of Him, celebrates the Eucharistic liturgy,

she understands her action to be the sacrament of the sacrificial

act of Christ. During the anaphora of the Eucharistic liturgy bread

and wine are consecrated by the power of the Holy Spirit to
make the paschal sacrifice of Jesus present. The Eucharistic pres-
ence of Jesus is a presence in the sacramental order, the order of

the new creation. In this order bread and wine become by the
power of the Holy Spirit the body and blood of the Risen Christ.
The reason why the body and blood of Christ is to be received
by the faithful in communion at the Eucharistic liturgy is that the
faithful are to be participants in the sacrifice of the Pasch of

Jesus who sacramentally communicates his risen life to them . 13

11



The Statement on the Eucharist

Anglican-Roman Catholic

International Commission

Third Meeting, Windsor, 7th September, 1971

AGREED STATEMENT ON EUCHARISTIC DOCTRINE

INTRODUCTION

The following Agreed Statement evolved from the thinking

and the discussion of the International Commission over the past

two years. The result has been a conviction among members of
the Commission that we have reached agreement on essential
points of Eucharistic doctrine. We are equally convinced our-
selves that, though no attempt was made to present a fully com-
prehensive treatment of the subject, nothing essential has been

omitted. The document has been presented to our official authori-
ties, but obviously it cannot be ratified by them until such time

as our respective Churches can evaluate its conclusion.

We would want to point out that the members of the Com-
mission who subscribed to this Statement have been officially
appointed and come from many countries, representing a wide
variety of theological background. Our intention was to reach a
consensus at the level of faith, so that all of us might be able to

say, within the limits of the Statement: this is the Christian faith

of the Eucharist.

12

HENRY OSSORY
ALAN ELMHAM

Co-Chairmen



ANGLICAN-ROMAN CATHOLIC AGREEMENT

THE STATEMENT

1. In the course of the Church's history several traditions have

developed in expressing Christian understanding of the eucha-

rist. (For example, various names have become customary as

descriptions of the eucharist: lord's supper, liturgy, holy mysteries,

synaxis, mass, holy communion. The eucharist has become the

most universally accepted term.) An important stage in progress

towards organic unity is a substantial consensus on the purpose

and meaning of the eucharist. Our intention has been to seek a

deeper understanding of the reality of the eucharist which is

consonant with biblical teaching and with the tradition of our

common inheritance, and to express in this document the con-
sensus we have reached.

2. Through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ God
has reconciled men to himself, and in Christ he offers unity to all
mankind. By his word God calls us into a new relationship with
himself as our Father and with one another as his children—

a

relationship inaugurated by baptism into Christ through the Holy

Spirit, nurtured and deepened through the eucharist, and ex-

pressed in a confession of one faith and a common life of loving
service.

I. THE MYSTERY OF THE EUCHARIST

3. When his people are gathered at the eucharist to commemo-
rate his saving acts for our redemption, Christ makes effective
among us the eternal benefits of his victory and elicits and renews
our response of faith, thanksgiving and self-surrender. Christ

through the Holy Spirit in the eucharist builds up the life of the

church, strengthens its fellowship and furthers its mission. The
identity of the church as the body of Christ is both expressed and
effectively proclaimed by its being centered in, and partaking of,

his body and blood. In the whole action of the eucharist, and in
and by his sacramental presence given through bread and wine,
the crucified and risen Lord, according to his promise, offers him-
self to his people.

4. In the eucharist we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
Receiving a foretaste of the kingdom to come, we look back with

13



thanksgiving to what Christ has done for us, we greet him present
among us, we iook forward to his final appearing in the fullness
of his kingdom when "The Son also himself [shall] be subject
unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in
all" (1 Cor. 15:28). When we gather around the same table in
this communal meal at the invitation of the same Lord and when
we "partake of the one loaf," we are one in commitment not
only to Christ and to one another, but also to the mission of the

church in the world.

II. THE EUCHARIST AND THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST

5. Christ's redeeming death and resurrection took place once

and for all in history. Christ's death on the cross, the culmination

of his whole life of obedience, was the one, perfect and sufficient

sacrifice for the sins of the world. There can be no repetition of

or addition to what was then accomplished once for all by Christ.

Any attempt to express a nexus between the sacrifice of Christ
and the eucharist must not obscure this fundamental fact of the

Christian faith.* Yet God has given the eucharist to his church as
a means through which the atoning work of Christ on the cross
is proclaimed and made effective in the life of the church. The
notion of memorial as understood in the passover celebration

at the time of Christ—i.e., the making effective in the present of
an event in the past—has opened the way to a clearer under-
standing of the relationship between Christ's sacrifice and the

eucharist. The eucharistic memorial is no mere calling to mind

of a past event or of its significance, but the church's effectual

proclamation of God's mighty acts. Christ instituted the eucharist

as a memorial (anamnesis) of the totality of God's reconciling

action in him. In the eucharistic prayer the church continues to

make a perpetual memorial of Christ's death, and his members,
united with God and one another, give thanks for all his mercies,
entreat the benefits of his passion on behalf of the whole church,
participate in these benefits and enter into the movement of his
self-offering.

* The early church in expressing the meaning of Christ's death and resur-
rection often used the language of sacrifice. For the Hebrew sacrifice was a
traditional means of communication with God. The passover, for example, was
a communal meal; the day of Atonement was essentially expiatory; and the
covenant established communion between God and man.

14



III. THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST

6. Communion with Christ in the eucharist presupposes his true
presence, effectually signified by the bread and wine which, in

this mystery, become his body and blood.** The real presence of

his body and blood can, however, only be understood within the

context of the redemptive activity whereby he gives himself, and

in himself reconciliation, peace and life, to his own. On the one
hand, the eucharistic gift springs out of the paschal mystery of

Christ's death and resurrection, in which God's saving purpose

has already been definitively realised. On the other hand, its pur-
pose is to transmit the life of the crucified and risen Christ to his

body, the church, so that its members may be more fully united
with Christ and with one another.

7. Christ is present and active, in various ways, in the entire

eucharistic celebration. It is the same Lord who through the
proclaimed word invites his people to his table, who through his
minister presides at that table, and who gives himself sacra-
mentally in the body and blood of his paschal sacrifice. It is the

Lord present at the right hand of the Father, and therefore trans-

cending the sacramental order, who thus offers to his church, in
the eucharistic signs the special gift of himself.

8. The sacramental body and blood of the Saviour are present

as an offering to the believer awaiting his welcome. When this
offering is met by faith, a lifegiving encounter results. Through

faith Christ's presence—which does not depend on the indi-
vidual's faith in order to be the Lord's real gift of himself to his

church—becomes no longer just a presence for the believer, but
also a presence with him. Thus, in considering the mystery of the

eucharistic presence, we must recognise both the sacramental
sign of Christ's presence and the personal relationship between
Christ and the faithful which arises from that presence.

9. The Lord's words at the last supper, "Take and eat; this is my
body," do not allow us to dissociate the gift of the presence and

** The word transubstantiation is commonly used in the Roman Catholic
Church to indicate that God acting in the eucharist effects a change in the
inner reality of the elements. The term should be seen as affirming the fact
of Christ's presence and of the mysterious and radical change which takes place.
In contemporary Roman Catholic theology it is not understood as explaining
how the change takes place.

15



the act of sacramental eating. The elements are not mere signs;

Christ's body and blood become really present and are really

given. But they are really present and given in order that, re-

ceiving them, believers may be united in communion with Christ

the Lord.

10. According to the traditional order of the liturgy the con-

secratory prayer (anaphora) leads to the communion of the faith-

ful. Through this prayer of thanksgiving, a word of faith addressed

to the Father, the bread and wine become the body and blood of

Christ by the action of the Holy Spirit, so that in communion we

eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood.

11. The Lord who thus comes to his people in the power of the

Holy Spirit is the Lord of glory. In the eucharistic celebration we

anticipate the joys of the age to come. By the transforming action

of the Spirit of God, earthly bread and wine become the heavenly

manna and the new wine, the eschatological banquet for the new

man: elements of the first creation become pledges and first

fruits of the new heaven and the new earth.

+ + + #

12.

We believe that we have reached substantial agreement on
the doctrine of the eucharist. Although we are all conditioned by

the traditional ways in which we have expressed and practised our

eucharistic faith, we are convinced that if there are any remaining

points of disagreement they can be resolved on the principles

here established. We acknowledge a variety of theological ap-
proaches within both our communions. But we have seen it as

our task to find a way of advancing together beyond the doctrinal

disagreements of the past. It is our hope that in view of the

agreement which we have reached on eucharistic faith, this doc-

trine will no longer constitute an obstacle to the unity we seek.

16



Anglican delegates

The Rt. Revd. H. R. McAdoo,
Bishop of Ossory, Ferns and Leighlin

(Co-Chairman)

The Most Revd. F. R. Arnott,
Archbishop of Brisbane

The Rt. Revd. J. R. H. Moorman,
Bishop of Ripon

The Rt. Revd. E. C. Knapp-Fisher,
Bishop of Pretoria

The Very Revd. Henry Chadwick,
Dean of Christ Church, Oxford

The Revd. J. W. Charley;
Vice-Principal, St. John's College,

Nottingham

The Revd. Professor Eugene
Fairweather,

Keble Professor of Divinity, Trinity

College, University of Toronto

The Revd. Professor H. E. Root,
Professor of Theology, University of

Southampton

The Rt. Revd. A. A. Vogel,
Bishop-Coadjutor of West Missouri

Consultants

The Revd. Dr. R. J. Halliburton, Tutor,
St. Stephen's House, Oxford

The Revd. Dr. H. R. Smythe, Director,
Anglican Centre, Rome

Secretary

The Revd. Colin Davey, Assistant
General Secretary, Church of England
Council on Foreign Relations

Roman Catholic delegates

The Rt. Revd. Alan Clark,
Auxiliary Bishop of Northampton

(Co-Chairman)

The Rt. Revd. Christopher Butler, O.S.B

Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster

The Revd. Fr. Herbert Ryan, S.J.
Professor of Historical Theology,

Pontifical Faculty of Theology,

Woodstock College, New York

Professor J. J. Scarisbrick,

Professor of History, University of

Warwick

The Revd. Fr. George Tavard, A.A.
Professor of Theology, Methodist

Theaological School, Delaware,

Ohio

The Rev. Fr. Jean M. R. Tillard, O.P.
Professor of Dogmatic Theology in
Dominican Faculty of Theology,
Ottawa

The Revd. Fr. P. Duprey, W.F.
Under Secretary, Vatican Secretariat

for Promoting Christian Unity

The Revd. Fr. E. J. Yarnold, S.J.
Master, Campion Hall, Oxford

The Revd. Fr. Barnabas Ahern, C.P.
Professor of Sacred Scripture, Rome
—was unable to attend the Wind-
sor meeting, 1971

Secretary

The Very Revd. Canon W. A. Purdy,
Staff Member of the Vatican Secre-

tariat for Promoting Christian

Unity

World Council of Churches Observer

The Revd. Dr. Gunther Gassmann,
Research Professor at the Centre

d'Etudes Oecumeniques,
Strasbourg q

17



III. Commentary

Four members of the Anglican Roman Catholic International
Commission which composed the Agreed Statement on Eucha-
ristic Doctrine have written about the Statement. In the hope of
elucidating each of the twelve numbers of the Statement this

commentary has been gathered from the reflections about the
Statement which the four ARCIC members have published.

1. From the very beginning of the Christian church it is evident

that those who had been baptized into Christ met to share in the
breaking of bread. It was their characteristic act. To try to live as

a Christian without the Lord's supper would have been unthink-

able, even though pressure of circumstances might sometimes

have denied the opportunity. At the Lord's supper the significance

of their baptism was expressed and lived out. Here was brought

into focus the whole compass of God's salvation. Here was sus-

tained the Christian's union with his Lord and with his fellow-

members of Christ's body. No wonder this was the characteristic
act of the first disciples, and such it has continued to be for subse-

quent generations. It is all the more tragic, therefore, when
Christians so diverge from one another that they can no longer

share together in what is, after all, the "Lord's" supper and not

man's.

It also follows from this that, where there is any fundamental

doctrinal disagreement among Christians, it is very likely to im-
pinge in some way upon this central act of worship. Smaller
matters may not affect it, but any important variance most prob-
ably will. Therefore, to reach a substantial consensus on the

purpose and meaning of the eucharist is rightly described as "an

important stage in progress towards organic unity." To attain

agreement here has implications for other doctrinal matters in

dispute. It may provide some indications of the way forward in
resolving other difficulties. But the introductory paragraph is care-

ful not to claim too much. The consensus attained is said to be

"substantial," not in the sense of "large-scale" but rather "with

regard to the essentials": i.e., it deals with the fundamental pur-

pose and meaning of the eucharist. The Statement is not therefore

intended to be exhaustive and this needs to be borne continually

in mind. Nevertheless, the degree of agreement reached by the

Commission should be recognized as a significant milestone,

especially in the light of past controversy.

18



The quest for a deeper understanding of the eucharist has

had the further goal of seeking to bring the two communions

closer together. Consequenty it was fully recognized that any

consensus would have to be "consonant with biblical teaching

and with the tradition of our common inheritance." These are
also the criteria by which the consensus should be judged. The

aim has not been to split hairs but to discover the extent to which

we can agree. At the same time there has been no hesitation in
tackling the subjects that have been most divisive in the past,

such as eucharistic sacrifice and the real presence.

To think freshly with an open mind upon theological issues

about which we feel deeply is never an easy task. Our convictions
are bound up with traditions in which we have been reared. The
Statement recognizes the variety of these traditions that seek to

express the meaning of the eucharist. That such variety exists

should neither surprise nor alarm us. If so much Christian truth
is focused in this act of worship, then our insights and emphases

are sure to be numerous. What is needed is that they should be
tested by the criteria already mentioned. Unfortunately, different

names that have become customary for describing the eucharist
have tended to become party labels. While one term is jealously
guarded, others are spurned. Yet very often they express different

aspects of the truth that complement each other. For instance,
Evangelicals have preferred to speak of "the Lord's supper" or

"communion," while regarding "eucharist" as characteristically

Anglo-Catholic and therefore suspect. Yet all three expressions are

biblically legitimate. Instinctive reactions should not be allowed

to obscure clear thinking. The Statement makes the factual com-
ment, "The eucharist has become the most universally accepted
term." For the theologian "eucharist" also has the practical advan-

tage of providing an adjective, "eucharistic" which the other

terms do not . 14

On this number of the Statement Bishop Alan Clark, the
Roman Catholic Co-Chairman of ARCIC, writes:

It is obvious that unless we can achieve a substantial consensus
on the purpose and meaning of the Eucharist, then our
progress towards organic unity is threatened with failure. For,

as the first four paragraphs of the Statement say so vividly, the

Eucharist is at the centre of the Church's life.

19



We speak of "the tradition of our common inheritance" as the
basis of our effort to express the contemporary faith of Angli-
cans and Catholics in the Eucharistic mystery.

In all this we are being faithful to the method enjoined on us
in the Malta Report of 1968, which read as follows:

—

"Each accepts the basic truths set forth in the ecu-

menical Creeds and the common tradition of the
ancient Church, although neither Communion is tied
to a positive acceptance of all the beliefs and devo-

tional practices of the other." (para. 7).

2. In paragraph 2, Christ's redemptive activity is described. One
of the effects of redemption is to bring about the union of God
with men and the union of men with one another. "By his word
God calls us into a new relationship with himself as our Father
and with one another as his children—a relationship inaugurated
by baptism into Christ through the Holy Spirit, nurtured and deep-

ened through the eucharist, and expressed in a confession of one

faith and a common life of loving service." This sentence intro-
duces the concept of koinonia

,

i.e., Christian fellowship or com-

munion. The sentence acknowledges several levels of koinonia.

Baptism creates Christian koinonia. But there is also koinonia on

the level of faith and mission. Eucharistic sharing is an action

that involves all three levels of Christian koinonia. Thus one can-

not argue with the desired effect, that Christians who share bap-
tismal koinonia should go to communion together during the
eucharistic liturgy. To have that occur there must be a mutual

sharing in koinonia on the levels of faith and mission as well as

that of baptism. This important sentence draws attention to the

Commission's task. The Anglican/Roman Catholic International

Commission must show that a koinonia of faith exists between
the Anglican and Roman Communions and must win official ap-
proval for its findings, as well as move both Communions forward
in a mutual fostering of a common mission for the church. How
much koinonia in mission is required before sacramental eucha-
ristic sharing would be true to the sign of unity, which the eucha-
rist is, remains a difficult and very new theological question.
About this new question one thing seems relatively certain: No
old answer will properly solve it. 16

3. Section I, entitled The Mystery of the Eucharist, is the pivotal

point of the document. In it the Commission seeks to answer

20



the fundamental question of what the church believes it is doing

when it celebrates the eucharistic mystery. The emphasis is on the

eucharist as an action, a dynamic, living and personal liturgical

event. The eucharist is the action of persons, and it is in the light

of this obvious truth that the document lays such emphasis on

the part that faith plays in the eucharistic mystery. It was this

starkly obvious insight into the nature of individual and corporate

personal action that led to the area of most fundamental agree-

ment. Both the Anglican and Roman Communions share a most
profound sense of the meaning of liturgical action and the sig-

nificance of the eucharistic celebration. It was the context pro-

vided by this basic agreement that made it possible to proceed
further and articulate a doctrinal agreement on the relationship

between The Eucharist and the Sacrifice of Christ (Section II) and

The Presence of Christ (Section III). In a sense, both of these

questions flow from the prior question of what the church be-

lieves it is doing in the actual celebration of the eucharistic

mystery. Christ is really acting in his church in a sacramental

way, offering himself to his people. If there is agreement on this

mysterious yet true fact, one possesses the basis for a doctrinal

agreement on the fact of a relationship between Christ's unre-

peatable sacrifice and his action in the eucharistic mystery, as also

the fact of his presence in the whole of the eucharistic mystery

and especially by the signs of bread and wine . 17

In the same number Mr. Charley clarifies what the Statement
means by entitling the Section "Eucharist as Mystery." Among
several meanings the word "mystery" has a long tradition of tech-
nical use signifying approximately "God's action in a visible or

quasi-sacramental way, whereby the transcendent God commu-
nicates with man." It is in this sense that the present section is

entitled "The Mystery of the Eucharist," for what it sets out to do
is to define the essence and heart of the sacrament. However,

by reason of the section's character as a general outline, it inevi-

tably leaves many questions unanswered. In the nature of the
case some are not only unanswered but unanswerable.

Perhaps one of the main reasons for theological confusion
with regard to the eucharist has been a lack of awareness of this

element of mystery. It has been thought possible nicely to dissect

the whole subject with coldly confident analysis. It would have
been more timely to heed Augustine's dictum: "Doctrine is that

21



which hedges about a mystery." There is in the Statement a phrase

that suggests why such an awareness is essential. It indicates a
dimension too often forgotten, for it speaks of what Christ does

in the eucharist "through the Holy Spirit." To omit this aspect of

the divine activity is to distort the whole picture. Now the New
Testament emphasizes the inability of man to fathom the working
of the Spirit. "The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the

sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it
goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8).
The Spirit, like the wind, is completely beyond the control and

comprehension of man. What is true for the new birth is also
true for the eucharist, since the same Spirit is operative in both.

Furthermore, this working of the Spirit implies a dynamism
which knits together "the whole action of the eucharist." So the

sacramental presence of Christ is "given" through bread and wine:

the crucified and risen Lord "offers himself to his people." The

life of the church is built up, its fellowship strengthened and its

mission furthered. This theme is elaborated later in the section

on the Presence of Christ, but it is to be noted that it was found

necessary to incorporate it in this initial part of the Statement

also, where the essential meaning of the eucharist is summarized.

A clear grasp of this working of the Spirit will preserve us from
too static a view of the eucharist, a tendency only too common
in much eucharistic theology. All that having been said, the ele-
ment of mystery remains; indeed, it is heightened by this aware-

ness of the Spirit's role. 18

4. In the third and fourth paragraphs the context of the eucharist

in the life of the Church is summarized. Answering the question:

what happens when we attend the eucharist, or in our own ter-
minology, when we celebrate Mass, we recognize an indivisible
connection between the Body of Christ distributed to us in com-
munion, and the Church which is itself, in St. Paul's terminology,

Christ's body. St. Paul himself never hesitated to express that

connection:

—

"The loaf which we break, is it not a participation in the Body
of Christ? Because the loaf is one, we, who are many, are one
body, for we are all partakers of the one loaf." (1 Cor. 10:16f).

Christian tradition, therefore, uses the word communion
(koinonia) to express both the fellowship of Christians in the

22



Church and their participation in the Lord's Body given in the

eucharist. It is through our receiving the Body of Christ that the

Church grows in communion. In the celebration of the eucharist

the Church becomes fully actual as a community, a community in

the bond of a mutual charity, and corporately enters into the

mysterious unity with God, which is Christ's gift. As theologians

will remember, St. Thomas says that the unity of the Church is
the res, or result, or fruit of the eucharist. There is a profound

interpenetration of understanding when we name the eucharist
and the Church the Sacrament of Christ.

It is, then, in the light of faith that we discover the presence
of Christ operative in the world through the Church which is his

body. This world he redeemed once for all, but each succeeding

generation must enter into that redemption.

This is the thought behind these paragraphs. They necessarily

lead the Statement into a discussion of the relationship of the

celebration of the eucharist to the Sacrifice of Christ. For it is

through the eucharist that this Sacrifice embraces the world in

its whole history.

In short, here is set out the answer the Commission gives to

the fundamental question as to what the Church believes it is

doing when it celebrates the eucharistic mystery.19

5. Section II on The Eucharist and the Sacrifice of Christ covers

two points. The eucharistic celebration does not repeat or add

to Christ's one, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the

world. The eucharist is a memorial (anamnesis) which is the
church's effectual proclamation of the totality of God's reconcil-

ing action in Christ. While this section does not propose to
elaborate a theory of how the sacrifice of Christ is related to the
eucharistic celebration, it nevertheless professes a belief that the

connection between Christ's once-for-all sacrifice and the eucha-
ristic action is to be found in the character of the eucha-
ristic mystery as a memorial. This section is a further illustration

that the fundamental area of agreement lies in the nature of litur-
gical action. The Roman and the Anglican Communions are at
one in their belief concerning the meaning of the eucharistic
celebration. Because there is this basic agreement, both can assert
the existence of a necessary relationship between the eucharistic
celebration and the unrepeatable, once-for-all sacrifice of Christ,

23



without fear of contradicting biblical data and without the elabo-

ration of a common theological explanation of this relationship.
The agreement is on the level of action, i.e., both Communions
have the same belief about what they are doing and what is done

to them in the eucharistic celebration .20

On this pivotal section Bishop Clark writes the following.

This section starts off with a firm assertion of the once-and-

for-all nature of Christ's redeeming death and resurrection.
One can sense the history behind this assertion, i.e., the con-
tention of the Reformers that the Mass was an attempt to
repeat Calvary. One acknowledges at once that we are ap-
proaching a mystery here and are all too aware that our formu-
lation of the connection between the Sacrifice of the Cross and
the Eucharist is inadequate. Nevertheless, it is firmly pointed

out that in the Eucharist Christ is really acting in his Church in
a sacramental way.

Though, as has been noted by several critics, there is no
categoric assertion that the Eucharist is a sacrifice (for reasons

which will become clear), neither has this been excluded. In
fact the whole thrust of the reasoning here is that the Eucharist
makes present the once-for-all Sacrifice of Christ here and
now. If that is so, then it cannot be anything but a sacrifice in

one sense or another. However, the Commission were con-
scious that the word 'sacrifice'' has been indiscriminately used,
without due attention being given to its meaning. Pages of
theological treatises have been written in an endeavour to
apply the notion to the Eucharist. There is no definition of the
Church as to what constitutes a sacrifice, for the word ob-
viously admits of analogy. It would, therefore, be theologically

and doctrinally dangerous to construct one's idea of sacrifice
merely from Old Testament ideas, let alone ideas current in
primitive religions. What we want to find is the meaning given
in the traditional thought of the Church when this idea was
applied to the Eucharist. Here we must all admit that we come
face to face with the dimension of mystery. The Eucharist is
indeed a "magnum mysterium".

In faith we recognise an identity between Christ's personal
sacrifice in the mystery of his Death and Resurrection and the
celebration of the Eucharist. At the same time we recognise an
element of non-identity well expressed in our traditional cate-
chism definition. It is here that the Commission resorted to
the notion of memorial (anamnesis) as given us in Tradition,
and in that notion offered a reconciliation of the polemical
difficulties of the past.

24



The Statement says the atoning work of the Cross
—

"the

totality of God's reconciling action in Christ"
—

"is made effec-
tive in the life of the Church." By the power of the Holy Spirit,
what happened once in the Person of Christ is present on our

altars because he is present and active in our celebration. We
are not just remembering a past event, we are celebrating it in
person. It is noteworthy that "memorial" is used in this sense

in the Constitution on the Liturgy (para. 47); and one remem-
bers St. Thomas' "recolitur memoria passionis eius" and his

"O memoriale mortis Domini".

The final sentence of this section describes what the

Church does in the Eucharist, for it is an action of the Church

with its Head. Many have felt that too little attention is given
to the Eucharist as an action of the Church, especially in so far

as it is an offering of the members of Christ's body, of Christ
himself, to the Father. It could be that the sentence is clumsy,

but the Commission wishes to underline that we do not offer
ourselves apart from Christ, but "enter into the movement of
his self offering"—for he alone is the ever acceptable Victim
to the Father. 21

Mr. Charley has written at length on number 5. Only a por-
tion of his commentary is given here. If there was one subject that

epitomized the tearing apart of Catholic and Protestant in the

sixteenth century it was the sacrifice of the Mass. Cranmer wrote,

"The papistical priests have taken upon them to be Christ's suc-

cessors, and to make such an oblation and sacrifice as never
creature made but Christ alone, neither he made the same any
more times than once, and that was by his death upon the
cross."

22 The Council of Trent pronounced an anathema upon
those who would deny the offering of Christ to God in the Mass
or that the Mass was propitiatory.23 To what extent there may
have been mutual misunderstanding is debatable, but that the rift

was great is undeniable, and it was a rift in which the Church of

England was clearly set on the Protestant side over against the

Church of Rome. With these harshly defined positions behind

us, what hope had our Commission of reaching a consensus on
this thorny matter?

There could hardly be a more explicit emphasis on the
finality of the atoning work of Christ. His redeeming death and
resurrection are firmly placed in history. The emphasis of the
writer to the Hebrews upon the "once for all" nature of Christ's
sacrifice

24
is taken up and spelled out. "There can be no repeti-

tion or addition." "Any attempt to express a nexus between the

25



sacrifice of Christ and the eucharist must not obscure this funda-

mental fact of the Christian faith." It will be observed that the

Statement itself conforms to this principle by declining to call

the eucharist a sacrifice, although this term has frequently been

used by theologians of both communions; it prefers to employ

the term "memorial." In fact, "the notion of memorial as under-

stood in the passover celebration at the time of Christ—i.e., the
making effective in the present of an event in the past—has
opened the way to a clearer understanding of the relationship
between Christ's sacrifice and the eucharist. The eucharistic

memorial is no mere calling to mind of a past event or of its sig-

nificance, but the church's effectual proclamation of God's mighty

acts." The implication is clear. It is not that sacrificial language

is wholly out of place in eucharistic theology, but that an un-

guarded use of it has tended to suggest a denial of the finality

of the atonement. The members of the Commission have set
their faces strongly against any such denial. After all, the New
Testament writers in employing a rich variety of terms significantly

do not call the eucharist a sacrifice (nor indeed do they call the

church's ministers priests). Nevertheless, by the second century

the application of sacrificial language to the eucharist was taking

place. In all probability such language was from a scriptural

standpoint entirely unobjectionable.

However, this language of sacrifice, when transferred to the
eucharist, has proved in the centuries since then to be a slippery

slope. By 1500 the change of terminology had led to a change

of theology. Much of what Kiing has called "the valid demands
of the Reformers" has now been met by the Church of Rome in
the new Eucharistic Prayers, though even in these there remain
echoes of the Pre-Reformation language of eucharistic sacrifice.

However, the present Statement avoids any suggestion of "re-

presenting" Christ's death. What is made present is not the his-
torical sacrifice of Christ itself, but the efficacy of it

—
"the making

effective in the present of an event in the past" (5). There is no

biblical warrant for any supratemporal interpretation of the cross

which circumvents its historical finality. . . .

Protestant theology has sometimes tended to isolate the

death of Christ from his life, resurrection and ascension. But the

cross cannot be understood in isolation. Without that whole life

of obedience preceding it the cross could not have been an

26



atoning sacrifice. Only the righteous could make an offering for

the unrighteous and so bring men back to God (1 Pet. 3:18). In
this way is Christ's life of obedience fundamental to the cross.

The resurrection and ascension relate no less closely to the cross,

for they are God's seal that the cross spelt victory and that the

same Christ now reigns. Consequently, while rightly locating the
atonement in the death of Christ, the Statement continues:

"Christ instituted the eucharist as a memorial of the totality of

God's reconciling action in him." The bread and wine are the

sacrament of his death, but Jesus said, "Do this in remembrance
of me"—of me, that is of the incarnate, crucified, raised and
ascended Lord. 25

6. Section III of the document treats of the presence of Christ

in the eucharistic mystery. The section begins with a clear state-

ment of the real presence of Christ effectually signified by the

bread and wine which become his body and blood. The stress
in this section is on the reason why Christ is present, body and
blood, in the eucharistic mystery. Christ's body and blood are

his eucharistic gift. This eucharistic gift transmits the life of the

crucified and risen Christ to his church so that its members, being

more fully united with Christ, may be more deeply united with
one another. The document is at pains to avoid a localization or
containment of Christ in the consecrated elements.26 To repre-
sent in such crudely unimaginative terms the effect of the mirabi-

lis conversio wrought by the Spirit on the bread and wine during

the consecratory prayer is quite against the church's traditional

understanding of Christ's sacramental presence signified by the

bread and wine. 27 During the anaphora and before the com-
munion, God effects a change in the inner reality of the bread
and wine. In what way this change takes place has not been
revealed. The church has always held that it is God who effects
this change in the inner reality of the elements, not the faith of
the believer. 28 The section then goes on to enumerate the vari-

ous ways in which the glorified Christ is present in the entire

eucharistic celebration. 29 Again, stress is laid on the nature of

liturgical action and the eucharistic celebration in particular as

the action of persons. Christ's eucharistic presence is not only

for the believer, but through faith it is a presence with the be-

liever. Thus the document emphasizes the importance of the
reception of communion, the act of sacramental eating of the

27



eucharistic gifts. The section ends by indicating the eschatological

dimensions of the eucharistic celebration/50 The eucharist is an

anticipation of the joys of the age to come. Bread and wine have

become the heavenly manna and the new wine. The eucharist
is the eschatalogical banquet for the new man. Bread and wine,
fruit of the earth and the work of human hands, which are ele-
ments of the first creation, become pledges and first fruits of the
new creation.'51

The first sentence of this section is cardinal.

"Communion with Christ in the Eucharist presupposes his true
presence effectually signified by the bread and wine, which,

in this mystery, become his Body and Blood."

It is in this sentence that the central dogma of eucharistic
faith is asserted. The word "become" could only be ambiguous
if taken out of the context of this purpose for which Our Lord
gave us this Sacrament. Later, in paragraph 9, further clarification,

if necessary, is given.

"The elements are not mere signs; Christ's Body and Blood
become really present and are really given."

Then in paragraph 10:

"Through this prayer of thanksgiving . . . the bread and wine
become the Body and Blood of Christ by the action of the
Holy Spirit, so that in communion we eat the flesh of Christ
and drink his blood."

and paragraph 11

:

"By the transforming action of the Spirit of God, earthly bread
and wine become the heavenly manna and the new wine,
eschatological banquet for the new man."

I do not think the objective presence of Christ could be

more clearly asserted. It is, as many have noted, to the first of
these sentences that a widely discussed note on transubstantiation

is attached. Some praise it, some find it poverty-stricken, a few
condemn it. Yet one would assert that it contains the restrained
doctrine of Trent, which concentrates on the "mirabilis conversio"

as the center of eucharistic faith in the Real Presence.

This is not to deny for a moment that the Council found
transubstantiation as the most apt way (aptissime . . . conven/en-
ter et proprie) of making the meaning of the "mirabilis conversio"

28



clear. As the note says, it indicates that God, acting in the eucha-

rist, effects a change in the inner reality of the elements while

the sense data remain. It is equally true that the Council had no

wish to lock itself to a particular philosophy of substance and

accident, but did wish to indicate unequivocally that what I per-

ceive through my senses as ordinary bread and wine are no longer
bread and wine, but the Body and Blood of Christ, thus illustrating

"the mysterious and radical change which takes place" (so the

note).

It was, therefore, the purpose of the Commission to under-

line the truth that the dogma of the Real Presence is based firmly
on the "mirabilis conversio." This is not to set aside the doctrine

implicit in the term transubstantiation but to emphasise its real

meaning in terms of a "mirabilis conversio." It belongs to the-

ology to reflect on this—hence the developed notion of transub-
stantiation to be found in our text-books. But the development

of this ideas rests on a particular philosophical framework and

should not be inserted in what is a credal statement and no more.

It was therefore no attempt to avoid real doctrinal contro-

versies or divergencies that made us relegate an explanation of
the term to a footnote, but a conviction that this Catholic doctrine

can be misinterpreted even by ourselves. The query among some
whether the Catholic doctrine (that a conversion involving a

change of nature really takes place) is covered in the Statement

is, I think, answered by the explanation.™

There is no question of a crude material presence here. Our
physical bodies are fed in the eucharist by bread and wine, "not

mere signs": they are his body and blood. He "gives himself sacra-
mentally in the body and blood of his paschal sacrifice" and this

he does as "the Lord present at the right hand of the Father, and

therefore transcending the sacramental order." By the gracious

initiative of God something profound occurs by which the life of
Christ is transmitted to the members of his body/™

Father Jean Ti I lard's position paper written expressly for the

third ARCIC meeting at Windsor in September, 1971, provided
the basis for the text of this section of the Agreed Statement.

The Kurios exercises his Lordship over men essentially
through the dynamism which reconciles them and brings them
together, making them into one body, his Body. The gift of the

29



Eucharistic Body and Blood represents in the economy of the
new time the act par excellence of the full Salvation which is
the effect of the paschal Sacrifice. Thus the sacramental pres-
ence is the efficacious encounter of the Lord with the com-
munity celebrating the memorial and his encounter, within that
community, with each of the faithful. Thus we have here a
presence which, since it is that of the Lord in the exercise of

his Lordship over his Church, is at the centre of a dynamic
process leading towards a welcoming in which, on the be-
liever's side, faith plays the key part. [Trent is careful to state

that this presence is for us (nobis). And this moreover is the
reason why the Eucharistic Canons or Anaphoras require the
transformation of the bread and wine but do so in such a way
as to stop never at the presence as such but rather at a further

transformation—the one which the Body and Blood of Christ
are to perform in the lives of the believers.] The real presence
of the Lord's Body and Blood is thus—and not by accident

—

unintelligible without this insertion into the movement, the
salvific action, whereby the Lord gives himself to those who
are his own. To put it in another way: the presence represents
what the movement contains, what it brings, the reality which
it communicates. Its reality, its truth are therefore determined
in their purpose by the experience of grace enjoyed by those
who in and through it will receive communion with the
mystery of reconciliation and peace which is the Lord's hu-
manity. (Scholasticism said in a technical way that here we
were at a level of res et sacramentum completely directed
towards the ultimate level of the res .)

:{4

7. This dynamism flowing from the Lord to the assembly, which

has its source in the sacramental Body and Blood, also brings

about a presence of the Lord which overflows the limits of the

signs used. For although the Lord only becomes present in the

way hitherto described in the bread and the cup, which pass on
the fullness of the gift of himself, it is the same Lord who in the
word that is proclaimed fires the hearts of his own so that they
may receive him in truth; it is the same Lord too who through the
person of the minister presides at the Supper to which he invites

them. What Catholic tradition calls the substantialis presence
springs from this widely-spread presence of the Lord in the midst

of his People, this presence being wonderfully expounded by the

Constitution of Vatican II on the Liturgy and above all by the

Encyclical Mysterium Fidei and the Instruction on Eucharistic

Worship. There we find its nature made plain. One cannot truly
understand it unless one grasps it in the action of the Kurios

inviting (through his minister and his Word) his own to his Table,

30



presiding at that Table through his minister, giving himself sacra-

mentally but really in the Body and Blood of his Pasch, so that all

may be enrolled in the salvific power of his Lordship, thus becom-
ing his Body. Let us make it clear at once that it is the Lord present
at the right hand of the Father, and therefore outside the sacra-

mental world, who thus offers to his Church in the eucharistic
signs the special gift of himself.

35

8. Catholics have always feared that the Protestant emphasis

upon faith at the point of reception delivered the whole rite over

to subjectivity. By apparently making the gift of God dependent
upon man's faith and not God's grace, Protestants have seemed

to make the presence of Christ to be almost at man's beck and
call. Hence the Statement asserts that Christ's presence "does not

depend on the individual's faith in order to be the Lord's real

gift of himself to his church." So long as the eucharistic action is

seen a>s a whole, this logical order of Christ's "offering to the

believer awaiting his welcome" presents no difficulties. It only

becomes suspect when a severance is made between a consecra-
tion and reception. Christ offers himself to the believer and

awaits his welcome. He does not offer bare signs of bread and
wine. "The Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body
of Christ" (Article XXVIII. cf. Cor. 10:16, 17). The sacramental

bread and wine effect what they signify.

Paragraph 8 says that when the offering to men of the sacra-
mental body and blood of the Saviour is "met by faith, a life-giving

encounter. results." Jesus told the Jews, "Unless you eat the flesh

of the Son of man and drink his blood you have no life in you"
(John 6:53). Believing in Jesus, coming to him and feeding upon

him are closely interrelated in this sixth chapter of John's Gospel.

So to feed in faith is a life-giving encounter. From his presence

in the eucharist arises a "personal relationship between Christ and

the faithful." But to eat and drink unworthily cannot result in any

such relationship. If to the unbelieving the sacrament brings

judgment, not life (1 Cor. 11:27-30), there must be a distinction

within this mystery of the eucharist at the point of reception. One
welcomes, another rejects the offer of Christ. Granted this dis-

tinction, the same offer has still been made in both instances.

The words of Jesus, "This is my body," "This is my blood," set
a pattern of realist language in eucharistic theology. To suppose

31



this was the prerogative of Catholic tradition only is to fly in the
face of history. In Protestant and Reformed theology also there

has always been a tradition of this nature. Zwinglianism was very
much a minority opinion and generally repudiated. Calvin is a
striking example of one who gives objective content to the sacra-
ment. He speaks of "the sacred Supper, where Christ offers him-
self to us with all his blessings, and we receive him in faith."

I am not satisfied with the view of those who, while ac-
knowledging that we have some kind of communion with
Christ, only make us partakers of the Spirit, omitting all men-
tion of flesh and blood.

We infer from the exhibition of the symbol that the thing itself
is exhibited. For unless we would charge God with deceit,
we will never presume to say that he holds forth an empty
symbol . 36

"Exhibited" means that it is presented and offered to the com-
municant. If Calvin's eucharistic teaching is occasionally obscure,

perhaps because he constantly acknowledges it to be a mystery,

yet the realist language is unequivocally there.

The Westminster Confession of Faith , whilst categorically denying

any material presence of Christ in the elements, nevertheless fully

justifies this realist language.

There is in every sacrament a spiritual relation, or sacramental

union, between the sign and the thing signified; whence it
comes to pass, that the names and effects of the one are attrib-
uted to the other. 37

Richard Baxter's Reformed Liturgy included this prayer:

Sanctify these thy creatures of bread and wine, which, accord-
ing to thy institution and command, we set apart to this holy
use, that they may be sacramentally the body and blood of thy
Son Jesus Christ.

Gregory Dix regarded Baxter's liturgy as "a whole stage nearer to
the catholic tradition" than Cranmer's, because of the essentially

Calvinist theology that lies behind it . 38

Because others have seemed to read into biblical language
concerning the sacraments a false sacramentalism, Protestants

have sometimes been loath to use even biblical phraseology lest

they thereby appeared to be endorsing a questionable eucha-

ristic theology. A reaction, however understandable, against a

32



false position is not the happiest starting-point for obtaining a

clear grasp of the comprehensive teaching of scripture. Our aim

should be to ensure that both eucharistic doctrine and eucharistic

language are "consonant with biblical teaching" and do exact jus-

tice to the balance of scriptural truth.
39

Again it was Jean Ti I lard's position paper that provided the

basis from which the text was drawn.

One can say—but clearly in a special sense—that the sacra-
mental Body and Blood with their salvific reality are present
as an offering, awaiting the welcome of the believer; this wel-
come can only become real through lively faith, itself a gift of
the Spirit. Faith causes the presence to blossom as a life-giving

encounter. Roman Catholic tradition has never ceased to make
its own the Augustinian view that different people partake of
the Body of Christ with different effects. Without the faith of
the Christian, the Eucharist could not, in spite of what it con-
tains, produce its res. But is the Eucharist not ordered to this
effect of grace, as is every sacrament? This indicates the

capital importance of the part played by faith. Through faith,
and only through faith, the presence—which does not need
faith in order to be the objective gift of himself that the Lord

makes to his Church—becomes no longer just a presence for the
believer but a presence with him in the sense that personalist
philosophy gives to the word presence, which it links to the
interpersonal and mutual relationship. G. Marcel's remark is

well-known: "Presence is more than the object; it exceeds it
in all senses." From this point of view, to be present is not
simply to be placed in front of someone but to be linked with
him by a bond of relationship. One thus finds oneself, with
regard to the Eucharistic mystery, faced with two levels of pres-
ence which are not of the same order but which nevertheless
are closely linked to each other. For on the one hand the ob-
jective presence in the sense of classical theology requires that

ultimate res that contemporary thought regards before all else
as an interpersonal presence; on the other hand, this latter
cannot have existence and consistency unless the sacramental
signs convey the objective truth of the offering of the Lord.40

9. At this point we can see more clearly the significance of Cran-
mer's emphasis upon the association of the presence of Christ
with the eating and drinking. This has become a mainstream
Anglican tradition, expressed not only in the leading divines of

the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but also in the language

of the Prayer Book Communion service: "Grant that we receiving
these thy creatures of bread and wine, in accordance with thy

33



Son's holy institution . . . may be partakers of his most blessed
body and blood." In modern Anglican liturgies the point is made
slightly differently. Whilst there is more preparedness to use the
terms "body" and "blood" for the elements, there is less emphasis

upon a "moment" of consecration than there has been for the
last four centuries. Granted that Anglicans from Jewel onwards

did not believe in transubstantiation, yet they did believe there

was a moment of consecration, and in this the Puritans at the
Savoy Conference were at one with them. The consecration was

regarded as an action whereby God set apart bread and wine for
their holy use, which might be called trans-signification. But it

had reception wholly in view, and was the overture to it. In the

rites of the last decade, it is more usual to see the setting apart

as effected by the Eucharistic Prayer as a whole, and the idea of

a "moment" has passed.

Nevertheless, even if a precise "moment" of consecration
cannot be isolated, yet in logic there are still what we may call
two "moments" in the eucharist. There must be created a theo-
logical context within which we can safely affirm that we are
celebrating the Lord's supper, carrying out his command, and
not simply having a secular meal of bread and wine. The con-

textualizing is done by the Thanksgiving, or Eucharistic, Prayer.

This, in quite objective terms, enables the elements to be treated

as the sacramental means of conveying the body and blood of

Christ to the worshippers, and does so independently of the

state of heart of the particular individuals gathered. The bread

and wine thus "become" the appointed means, i.e., his body and
blood. And within the liturgical context, and with a view to re-
ception, it is proper to call them by these terms, as our Lord did . 41

It is without doubt at this stage of our description of the

Roman Catholic view that several of our Anglican brethren will
feel uneasy—less at the stating of the presence as we have pre-
sented it than at our insistence on the need of what we have
termed (in order to avoid any misunderstanding) the objective

presence. With us they accept a true and real presence of the

Lord, one essentially linked with the bread and wine. But, taking

very seriously as they do the part played by faith—which we
have just emphasized—they do not wish to make a dichotomy
between the offering made by Christ the Lord of his Body and
Blood in the sacramental signs and the welcome given by the

34



believer. To them it seems preferable to link the presence of the

Kurios with the global movement of the eucharist which cul-
minates in the act of sacramental communion, without seeking
to detect with precision a moment at which the bread and wine
already bear the gift which the Lord wishes to make of his paschal
humanity. The Lord's words at the Last Supper: "Take and eat,

this is my body" impels them not to dissociate in a way which
to them seems artificial the coming of the presence and the act

of sacramental eating. This they do without necessarily falling

into receptionism pure and simple. The Body and Blood become
really present and are really given. The elements are not mere

symbolic signs lacking objective content. But there is a refusal to

remove them from the integral dynamism of the memorial.

Roman Catholic theology considers that this position pays
insufficient regard to certain points that it finds stressed in the

revealed texts, notably in the tradition of Paul and Luke, which

carefully dwells upon the broken bread identified with the body.
Roman Catholic theology therefore replies by putting a further
question: does not the above-mentioned Anglican attitude tend

to obscure the fundamental fact, which governs the whole mys-

tery of Jesus, that God makes the first step, that his gift not only
comes before the human response but awaits and encourages
this response—and in waiting can be disappointed? Here we are
of course in the sacramental universe, in which temporal suc-

cessions express values which have their place alongside the

profound reality of the mystery. On the other hand, the most
serious theology has broken with the excessively shortsighted

view which sought to detect the precise word after which the

presence is accomplished; it rather sees the efficacy of the Spirit

of God and of the Word which brings the presence as pervading
the whole anaphora

,
which is a word of faith uttered by the

Church. At the same time it recognizes that this efficacy has its

source in the narrative of the Last Supper. But surely the very

fact that we are in a sacramental universe and that the presence
itself does not escape the laws of that universe leads one to
admit, when dealing with the progression of the rites, two sacra-

mental moments linked in a single and indivisible dynamism of

Salvation: the moment of the Lord offering himself freely and in
which the initiative of God's hesed we 'emeth is put in clear
relief, and the moment at which the Church approaches this gift,

35



which is welcomed with faith in communion. It seems to us that
the distinction of these two moments, provided it carefully re-
spects the global dynamism of the Celebration and provided it
does not understand the first of these moments in a crudely
physical way, more fully safeguards the great affirmation so
happily defended by the Anglican tradition, namely that here

everything is based on the movement that goes from God to
man and which governs faith itself.42

10. It is at this point (para. 10) that the Statement reasserts that

the eucharist is a liturgical celebration through which the bread

and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ. Reference is to
the prayer of consecration (anaphora), which is the Church's

prayer, and, as many have noted, no assertion is made regarding a
particular point in this prayer wherein we may say in faith that
Christ is uniquely present among us in the Sacrament of Bread
and Wine. This is no denial of the importance of "the Words of
Institution" in all liturgies (though there is one strange exception

in antiquity). The question of "a moment of consecration" is not
irrelevant, but the Commission considered it secondary to its

declaration that the elements become the Body and Blood of
Christ, independently of the faith of the communicant, in the

Eucharistic Prayer.
43

11. We were saying that the content of the eucharistic signs only
found their explanation by reference to the power of the Spirit

who, since the first Easter day, actualizes in the realities of Crea-

tion, of which he is the originator, the dominion of the Kurios.

For the eucharist is essentially an epiclesis. The eucharist thus

belongs to the order of the new Creation which can only be the
work of the Spirit bringing to their teleiosis the different under-

takings of God on behalf of man (the first being the Creation),
by linking them with the Lordship of Jesus. It is never a question

of an artificial addition coming from outside to put, as it were,

a finishing touch to the universe of Creation. On the contrary,
the Spirit of God exercises his power by "accomplishing," fulfill-
ing, that is to say by drawing out the capacities and impulses of

his original work, so that these are surpassed without being

destroyed. The order of grace, despite its radical transcendence,

respects the order of nature and, far from adding itself to the

latter artificially, it carries the order of nature along with it. The

same principle holds, in an analogical way, at all the levels of the

36



economy of Salvation. If the highest expression of the principle
is in the mystery of Jesus, whose humanity remains inviolate and
totally intact although it is that of the Person of the Son, it is

found again in the justification and sanctification of the faithful

believer who becomes through faith and baptism a real adopted
son of the Father, without however ceasing to be fully man.
Sanctifying grace, however we may understand it dogmatically,
represents an habitual case of a profound transformation of being

through the power of the Spirit of the Kurios, while the structures
and imperatives of Creation are fully respected. We should add
that this transformation is not reduced to the simple gift of a

passing efficacy. It brings to the person a new quality, destined
to develop fully in the life of the eternal Kingdom.

Without doubt it is within this economy of the Spirit, gov-
erning the whole Christian vision of ecclesial realities, that the

eucharistic mystery must be situated and that the mysterious

transformation of the sacramental elements must be understood.

At the same time we must take account of the laws of analogy.

The question of transubstantiation then assumes its true

dimensions. The discretion of Eastern thought, and at the same

time its lively insistence on the fact that in the depth of the

bread and wine something happens in such a way that the bread
and wine become in all truth the very reality of the Lord present
to his own in order to give himself to them—these things, it seems
to us, can serve as guiding principles. It is no longer a matter of

the bread and the cup for the life which passes, but of the bread

and the cup for the new Life,—that Life which (and here we meet
once more the law governing the sacramental organism), without
rendering the first vain, takes possession of it in order to lead it

towards the unending joy of eternal communion. Now the nour-
ishment of the new Life can only be that which in truth is Life.
Thus there is carried out in and through the Spirit an act of the

Lordship of Christ in this present creation, in which he manifests

pledges of the eschatological world. Unless we situate the
eucharist wholly in the always transforming economy of the Holy
Spirit we run the risk either of confining ourselves within a too
radical rejection of any profound modification of the elements,

or of becoming involved in explanations of the eucharist which

are too much bound to the philosophical laws of our universe.
We are dealing with a coming of the Spirit of the new times,

37



accomplished in a taking possession of this present creation by

the Lord of the new Creation.44

12. What does ARCIC mean by a "substantial agreement"? The
best commentary on the term is provided by Father Jean Tillard,
O.P.

45

Now it seems to us that the Anglican Communion within the
context of the Christian world fulfills by virtue of its comprehen-

siveness, and despite evident deficiencies, a particular function.

This reminder enables us to divine what the expression sub-

stantial agreement used by the International Commission in its

Statement involves from the point of view of ecclesiological

option. Up to now, in fact, in their efforts to attain unity, the
Roman Catholic and the Anglican Churches have tended to count
almost exclusively on the deep affinity that exists between the

Anglo-Catholic movement in Anglicanism and Roman thinking.
This was true of the Malines Conversations which were badly

received not only by the Roman Catholics of England and their
allies in Rome 4 ' 1 but also by a well-informed section of the Angli-
can Church.47 It had been true already of the efforts made in the
17th century by the Franciscan Sancta Clara in his Paraphrastica

Expositio (1633) which should be read alongside William Laud's

account, and throughout the dialogue (1717-1720) between the

Archbishop of Canterbury, William Wake, and the Gallican

Church represented especially by Louis du Pin. 48 The important

little book of Gerard Francis Cobb, A Few Words on Reunion and
the Coming Council at Rome

,

published in London in 1869 on

the eve of the 1st Vatican Council clearly takes the same line.

The Anglican Communion appears to be summed up from the
Catholic point of view.

It is becoming increasingly clear to us that the search for

unity with the Anglican Church would be ambiguous, founded

on a set of compromises, and that it would even run the risk of

leading to new divisions if it were to neglect—most of all at the
present time—to take the other movements seriously. That would
amount to an explicit rejection from the long sought-after unity
of what is without any doubt the most characteristic prize-posses-

sion of Anglicanism, and its most specific contribution to the

Catholic world, its comprehensiveness. That sort of union which

would swell the number of Catholics bound to one another in

38



an organic body would in the end have contributed rather little

to the aggiornamento of the kind being experienced in the

Catholic world today. It would in fact leave aside the contribu-

tion of a healthy pluralism and, which is more serious, would

transform into division pure and simple the balance of forces

which till now the Anglican Church has made it a point of
honor to preserve and even to promote. It would then be a

union involving an impoverishment.

The objection will perhaps be made that all we have here
is a Roman Catholic judgment of an idealized situation, and that
a union that would take the various tendencies into account ap-

pears utopian. By way of reply we would refer to the efforts
made inside the Anglican Communion itself by the authors of the
report Growing into Union , Proposals for Forming a United

Church in England . 49 Written in the aftermath of the difficulties

raised by the Scheme of union proposed between the Methodists
and Anglicans, this work by two Anglo-Catholics and two Evan-

gelicals, highly representative of the most outspoken views of

their respective tendencies, is an important witness to the serious

and positive nature of the search among Anglicans, not for vague
compromises but for unity attained at the very axis of the faith.

This is the type of searching to which the Anglican Church sees

itself of necessity led by the present-day ecumenical situation, if

it intends to dialogue as a body with the other Christian con-

fessions. Of course, this leads the other Christian confessions to
count in their turn on this kind of consensus, if they wish to enter

into talks hot with such and such a group of Anglicans who are
most akin to them, but with the Anglican Church as such.

And let us be quite clear about this. The experience of dia-
logue, inspired by a desire to be honest and to search for the

truth, compels Roman Catholics to realize very quickly that there
are to be found within their own fold as well the same lines of
division which in the Anglican tradition constitute officially-

accepted movements. The Roman Catholic block has no longer
—if it ever had50—the monolithic character which spontaneously
comes to mind. Hence the debating of questions leads often to a
confrontation not of the two Churches so much as of two ways
of reading the data of the faith or of two ecclesial mentalities
present in both groups. The Roman Catholic may on a particular
point feel more at home with an Evangelical position, for ex-

39



ample, than with another, and vice versa. 51 The polyvalence of
comprehensiveness thus obliges the Roman Catholic side on the
one hand to become more open to a healthy pluralism, admitting
that such does not necessarily destroy the unity of the faith and

life, and, on the other hand, obliges it to recognize that the time

has undoubtedly come to state in the clearest terms that diversity
does exist in its own camp—a fact that calls for a clarification of
the doctrinal position in regard to its own tradition. All this can
only serve to make the Roman Catholic Church more fit to arrive
at a deeper understanding and equitable judgments (beyond the

case of Anglicanism) of the different options present in the Chris-

tian world today.

Such is, from the point of view of the wider context of the

Roman Church's universal ecumenical activity, what is at stake
in this dialogue towards unity with the Anglican Church. It is

forced, under pain of rendering impossible communion with the
nearest ecclesial group of the Western Church, to admit the facts

and to justify theologically the validity of an explicit pluralism

of doctrine and practice within the fold of the Una Sancta. In
these conditions, it is evident that the sole quality of consensus,

not only possible—as a "make-shift"—but positively desirable
with the Anglican Communion, should be what we have described
as a substantial agreement.

When the Statement begins its last paragraph by expressing
its hope that the agreement reached be sufficient for unity, it is

not asking itself in the words of the second sentence whether a

substantial agreement is sufficient. It must be owned that the
way in which these few words have been drawn up leads to a
lack of precision. It asks itself whether what has been established

is a valid substantial agreement.52 This is how we understand it.
This difference is not a piece of scholastic gymnastics. To refuse

that a substantial agreement suffices would be equivalent, it seems

to us, to closing the file once again on the unity of the two

Churches, and in such circumstances that a decision of this sort

would be irreparable and more serious in its consequences than

Apostolicae Curae in 1896. Why? On account of the special
position of the Anglican Communion within the Christian com-
munities. To acknowledge as unsuccessful efforts for uniting with

the Anglican Church, as it defines itself in all its complexity, would

mean a radical incapability of forming deep ecclesial ties with a

40



vast proportion of the Christian world. It would in fact be clear

that progress would have been checked by the presence within

Anglicanism of "Protestant" elements.

The point we have developed shows why and precisely how
its nature of simul catholica et reformata enables the Anglican

Church to serve as a bridge in reconciling the Catholic tradition

with the Reformed tradition. Joseph de Maistre explained this

function when he said that with one hand the Anglican Church
touched Roman Catholicism and with the other the confessions
that the latter could not meet. The dialogue with Anglicanism thus

serves as a test which could lead to real ecumenical possibilities.

How could the "Protestant" world come to appreciate the
validity of "Catholic" traditions, and the "Catholic" world come
to discern the value of "Protestant" aspirations, if both one and

the other appeared incapable of entering into communion with a
Church which seeks in its own life a harmony between Catholicity
and Reformation

?

In fact, especially since the famous Lambeth

Conference appeal of 1920, the Anglican Communion has never
ceased working for a unity which, having nothing to do with

cheap compromise, would allow each main tradition to live with

its own spiritual wealth according to its own past, while consent-
ing to the sacrifices, no matter how demanding they may be,
required by the Lord. The report read by Cardinal Mercier at the

fourth session of the Malines Conversations, and which was drawn

up by Dom Lambert Beauduin,53 simply echoed the noble sug-
gestion of this prophetic Appeal to Christendom.

41



NOTES

1 The Anglican members of the Commission are Bishop H. R. McAdoo of
Ossory, Ferns and Leighlin (Co-chairman); Archbishop Felix Arnott of Brisbane;
Bishop Edward Knapp-Fisher of Pretoria; Bishop John H. R. Moorman of Ripon;
Bishop Arthur Vogel, Coadjutor of West Missouri; Dean Henry Chadwick of
Christ Church, Oxford; the Rev. J. W. Charley of St. John's College, Nottingham;
the Rev. Eugene Fairweather of Trinity College, Toronto; Canon Howard Root
of the University of Southampton; the Rev. Colin Davey of the Church of
England Council on Foreign Relations (secretary). The Roman Catholic members
are Bishop Alan Clark, Auxiliary of Northampton (Co-chairman); Bishop Christo-
pher Butler, O.S.B., Auxiliary of Westminster; Barnabas Ahern, C.P.; Georges
Tavard, A.A.; Jean Tillard, O.P.; Pierre Duprey, W.F.; Edward Yarnold, S.J.; Dr.

J. J. Scarisbrick; Herbert J. Ryan, S.J.; and Canon William A. Purdy of the Secre-
tariat for Promoting Christian Unity (secretary).

2 The London Times, September 8, 1971. There was an editorial in The
London Times, September 12, 1971, in which the Bishop's remark figured
prominently.

3 "No doubt exists in the minds of any of the members that the final aim
of our work is the attainment of full organic union between our two com-
munions." Documentary Service of United States Catholic Conference
[=USCC], January 30, 1970.

4 Roman authorities share this same sentiment. "None can deny that this
unity of faith is indispensable. . . ." Jan Cardinal Willebrands in an address

after the Windsor meeting of the Commission and referring to its work at Great
St. Mary's Church, Cambridge, January 18, 1970. Documentary Service of USCC,
January 29, 1970:3, with full text in Catholic Mind

,

April 1970:35-42. On Octo-
ber 25, 1970, in St. Peter's at Rome, Pope Paul VI in his sermon at the canoniza-
tion of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales said: "There will be no seeking
to lessen the legitimate prestige and the worthy patrimony of piety and usage
proper to the Anglican Church, when the Roman Catholic Church—this servant
of the servants of God—is able to embrace her ever-beloved sister in the one
authentic communion of the family of Christ: a communion of origin and of
faith [emphasis added], a communion of priesthood and of rule, a communion
of the saints in the freedom and love of the spirit of Jesus"- (Catholic Herald,

October 30, 1970:3).
5 Among the studies which contributed most to the work of the Com-

mission were J. M. R. Tillard, O.P., The Eucharist: Pasch of God's People (New
York 1967); M. Thurian, The Eucharistic Memorial, Part I: The Old Testament;
Part II: The New Testament (Richmond 1960 and 1961); L. Bouyer, Eucharist.
Theology and Spirituality of the Eucharistic Prayer (Notre Dame 1968); M.
Thurian, "L'anamnese du Christ" in L'EvangUe hier et aujourd'hui: Melanges
offerts au Professeur F. J. Leenhardt (Geneva 1968) 263-276; J. de Watteville,

Le Sacrifice dans les Textes eucharistiques des premiers siecles (NeucKatel-Paris

1966); W. Schottroff, Gedenken im Alten Orient und im Alten Testament die
Wurzel ZKR im semitischen Sprachkreis (Neukirchen 1964); B. S. Childs, Memory
and Tradition in Israel (London 1962); E. P. Echlin, S.J., The Anglican Eucharist in
Ecumenical Perspective: Doctrine and Rite from Cranmer to Seabury (New York
1968); A. Hardelin, The Tractarian Understanding of the Eucharist (Upsala 1965);

G. Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy (Westminster, 1946); C. W. Dugmore, The Mass

42



and the English Reformers (London 1958); A. Kavanagh, O.S.B., The Concept of

Eucharistic Memorial in the Canon Revisions of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop
of Canterbury (St. Meinrad, Ind. 1964); E. L. Mascall, Corpus Christi (London
1965)

;
E. Masure, Le Sacrifice du Chef (Paris 1957); A. Vogel, Is the Last Supper

Finished? Secular Light on a Sacred Meal (New York 1968); E. Lanne, O.S.B., "Les

differences compatibles avec I'Unite dans la tradition de I'Eglise ancienne," Istina

8 (1961-1962 227-253) and "Pluralisme et Unite: possibilite d'une diversite de

typologies dans une meme adhesion ecclesiale," Istina 14 (1969) 171-190.
0
Catholic Herald

,

September 24, 1971:5.
7
Catholic Mind, April 1971:45-50. For the Venice working papers on

"Church and Authority" and "Church and Ministry," cf. ibid., 35-45.
8 The subcommission met at Bishop Clark's residence in Poringland, Nor-

wich, April 12-16, 1971. The members were Bishop Clark (Chairman); Edward R.
Hardy; Barnabas Ahern, C.P.; Julian Charley; Jean Ti I lard, O.P.; Pierre Duprey,

W.F.
9

J. M. R. Ti I lard, "Catholiques romains et Anglicans: I'Eucharistie," Nouvelle

Revue Theologique 93 (1971) 602-656.
10 Quoted in A. C. Clark, Agreement on the Eucharist, Roman Catholic

Ecumenical Commission, London, 1972, 1.
11

Press release from Archbishop of Canterbury's Counsellors on Foreign

Relations, Wednesday, October 4, 1972, 6.
12

J. M. R. Ti I lard, O.P., "The Deeper Implication of the Anglican-Roman
Catholic Dialogue," One in Christ VI 1 1-3 (Summer, 1972), 261.

13 Roman Catholics may well wish to compare the statement with the
Antiphon at the Magnificat of Second Vespers for the feast of Corpus Christi:
A sacrum convivium! in quo Christus sumitur: recolitur memoria passionis
ejus: mens impletur gratia: et futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur, alleluia! Oh
sacred banquet in which Christ is received: the memory of his passion is
recalled: the soul filled with grace: and a pledge of future glory is given to us,
Alleluia!

14
Julian W. Charley, The Anglican-Roman Catholic Agreement on the

Eucharist. Second Edition, Gravoe Books, Bramcote, Notts., 1972, 14-15. This
work is hereinafter abbreviated JWC. Mr. Charley is a Conservative English
Evangelical.

13
Right Rev. Alan C. Clark, D.D., Agreement on the Eucharist. Roman

Catholic Ecumenical Commission, London, 1972, 11. This work is hereinafter
abbreviated ACC. Bishop Clark is Chairman of the Roman Catholic Ecumenical
Commission of England and Wales and the Roman Catholic Protector of the
Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham.

16
Herbert J. Ryan, S.J., "Anglican-Roman Catholic Doctrinal Agreement on

the Eucharist" Worship XLVI-1 (January, 1972), 10-11. Hereinafter abbreviated
as HJR. Father Ryan is Associate Professor of Historical Theology at Woodstock
College, New York City.

17
Ibid., 11-12.

18
JWC, 15-16.

19 ACC, 12.
20

HJR, 12. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Con-
cilium, art. 47. The Documents of Vatican II, ed. Walter M. Abbott (New York
1966) 154. The development of the concept of "memorial" in Roman Catholic
thought after Vatican II and especially the textual changes in the Institutio
generalis Missalis Romani, as well as how this development applies to Anglican
theological thought on the nature of the eucharistic sacrifice, is well brought
out by J. Ti I lard, art. cit., 612-622.

21 ACC, 12-13.

43



22 The True and Catholic Doctrine and Use of the Sacrament of the Lord's
Supper, p. 232 (Thynne 1907).

23
Denzinger 1751, 1753.

21
Heb. 7:27; 9:12, 26, 28; 10:10.

25
JWC, 16-17.

23
Cf. Marie-Joseph Nicolas, O.P., What is the Eucharist

?

(New York 1964)
45-56, and Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae 3.76.5.

27
James F. McCue, "The Doctrine of Transubstantiation from Berengar

through the Council of Trent," The Eucharist as Sacrifice: Lutherans and Catholics
in Dialogue III (Washington, D.C. and New York 1968) 89-124.

28
Session XIII of the Council of Trent (Oct. 11, 1551). Decree on the

Eucharist, chapter 3 and canon 4. Denziger-Schonmetzer 1639, 1654. A clear
and brief treatment of the decree is Joseph M. Powers, S.J., Eucharistic Theology
(New York 1967) 34-41.

20 Sacrosanctum Concilium 6 and 7. Cf. The Documents of Vatican II, ed.
Walter M. Abbott (New York 1966) 140-141.

30
J. M. R. Tillard, "L'Eucharistie et le Saint Esprit," Nouvelle Revue Theo-

logique 90 (1968) 363-387.
31

HJR, 13.
32 ACC, 14-15.
33
JWC, 19. Also cf. P. Benoit, O.P., "Accounts of the Institution and What

They Imply" in J. Delorme et al. The Eucharist in the New Testament, Helicon
Press, Baltimore and Dublin, 1965, 88-98.

34
J. M. R. Tillard, O.P. "The Presence of the Body and Blood of the Lord,"

unpublished manuscript written in July, 1971 #18. Hereinafter abbreviated
as JT.

35
Ibid., #19. The text of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacro-

sanctum Concilium) of Vatican Council II is the following:
47. At the Last Supper, on the night when He was betrayed, our Savior
instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of His Body and Blood. He did this in
order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the centuries

until He should come again, and so to entrust to His beloved spouse, the
Church, a memorial of His death and resurrection: a sacrament of love,

a sign of unity, a bond of charity, as paschal banquet in which Christ is
consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is
given to us.
30

Institutes IV 17.5, 7, 10. Cf. Short Treatise on the Lord's Supper, II, where
this theme is fully elaborated.

37
XXVII.2.

38
Op. cit., 677.

30
JWC, 21-22.

40
JT, #20.

41
JWC, 20.

42
JT, #20-21.

43
In adopting this attitude, the Commission was reflecting a development

in Catholic theology (exemplified by Pope Pius XII 's determination of the matter

and form of the Sacrament of Order in 1947) which sees as the form of a sacra-

ment the whole consecratory prayer, within which certain words are essential.
In the Eucharist such words, in Catholic and other traditions, are "the words of
institution," even though, in the Eastern tradition, for example, the emphasis

is on the epiclesis rather than on the Consecration.

Nevertheless, the underlying question concerns the very precise meaning

given in Catholic tradition to gestures of adoration once these words have

been recited. For some comment on this question cf. ACC, 17-19. This com-

44



mentary on #10 is taken from ibid. 15-16. It is interesting to note in connec-
tion with hesitancy about pinpointing a moment of consecration the more
recent emphasis of the role of the Holy Spirit in the priestly office of the risen

and glorified Christ. Consider this text from Decree on the Ministry and Life
of Priests (Presbyterorum Ordinis) of Vatican II. Cf. Appendix I.

44
JT, #35-37.

45
J. M. R. Ti I lard, O.P., "The Deeper Implications of the Anglican-Roman

Catholic Dialogue/' One In Christ VI 1 1-3 (Summer, 1972), 253-257.
46

Cf. J. R. Aubert, Cardinal Mercier, Cardinal Bourne and the Malines
Conversations, in One In Christ, 1968, pp. 372-9.

47
Cf. JWC, 5.

48 On this point, cf. Norman Sykes, William Wake, Archbishop of Canter-
bury, 1657-1737, London 1957, 1st vol., pp. 308-10. Not all scholars would agree
with Tillard on this. Does Sykes exaggerate the importance of Santa Clara? cf.
Georges Tavard, La Tradition au xvii

c
siecle, Cerf, Paris, 1969, 371-396.

49
C. O. Buchanan, E. L. Mascall, J. I. Packer and the Bishop of Willesden,

Crowing into Union, London 1970.
50

In fact, even on a point as central as the theology of grace (and its
consequences in the field of personal behavior the Catholic Church has itself
had the experience of pluralism. One may think as well of the situation created
by the "uniate" movement which joined to the Roman Church eastern blocks
which maintained their own particular vision of the Christian mystery.

31
JWC, 7.

32 We admit that the Commission as such did not discuss this point, but
there is no doubt that this was the thinking of the sub-committee on eucharistic
questions, during its meeting at Poringland (Norwich).

33
Cf. S. A. Quitslund, "United not Absorbed," in Journal of Ecumenical

Studies 1971, pp. 255-85.

45



APPENDIX

From the Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests

,

Vatican II

5. God, who alone is holy and bestows holiness, willed to raise
up for Himself as companions and helpers men who would
humbly dedicate themselves to the work of sanctification. Hence,
through the ministry of the bishop, God consecrates priests so
that they can share by a special title in the priesthood of Christ.

Thus, in performing sacred functions they can act as the ministers
.

of Him who in the liturgy continually exercises his priestly office
on our behalf by the action of His Spirits

By baptism men are brought into the People of God. By the
sacrament of penance sinners are reconciled to God and the
Church. By the oil of the sick the ailing find relief. And, espe-

cially by the celebration of Mass, men offer sacramentally the
sacrifice of Christ. In administering all the sacraments, as St.

Ignatius Martyr already bore witness in the days of the primitive

Church,b priests by various titles are bound together hierarchically
with the bishop.c Thus in a certain way they make him present
in every gathering of the faithful.^

The other sacraments, as well as every ministry of the Church

and every work of the apostolate,e are linked with the holy Eucha-

* Cf. ibid., Art. 7 (pp. 100-101); Pius XII, encyclical letter "Mystici Corporis,"

June 29, 1943: AAS 35 (1943), p. 230.
b
St. Ignatius Martyr, "Smyrn.," 8, 1-2 (ed. F. X. Funk, p. 282, 6-15); "Con-

stitutions of the Apostles," VIII, 12, 3 (ed. F. X. Funk, p. 496); VIII, 29, 2 (p 532).
c
This whole section should be read with the Constitution on the Sacred

Liturgy on hand. The priest is, above all, Christ's minister, presiding over the
worshiping and sanctifying action of Christ in the liturgy. Because he is derived

from and, in all his priestly activity, dependent on the bishop, the priest, in

administering the sacraments and celebrating the Eucharist, makes the bishop

present to his congregation.
d
Cf. Second Vatican Council, dogmatic constitution "Lumen Gentium,"

Nov. 21, 1964, Art. 28: AAS 57 (1965), pp. 33-36.
e
All the priest's functions and the work and life of the community which

he serves have their source in the celebration of the Eucharist—the hub on
which everything centers and in which multiplicity is reduced to unity.

46



rist and are directed toward it.
f

For the most blessed Eucharist

contains the Church's entire spiritual wealth,8 that is, Christ

Himself, our Passover and living bread. Through His very flesh,

made vital and vitalizing by the Holy Spirit, He offers life to men.
They are thereby invited and led to offer themselves, their labors,

and all created things together with Him.

Hence the Eucharist shows itself to be the source and the

apex of the whole work of preaching the gospel. Those under

instruction are introduced by stages to a sharing in the Eucharist.

The faithful, already marked with the sacred seal of baptism and

confirmation, are through the reception of the Eucharist fully 11

joined to the Body of Christ.

Thus the Eucharistic Action is the very heartbeat of the con-

gregation of the faithful over which the priest presides. So priests

must instruct them to offer to God the Father the divine Victim
in the sacrifice of the Mass, and to join to it the offering of their

own lives. 1 In the spirit of Christ the Shepherd, priests should
train them to submit their sins with a contrite heart to the Church

in the sacrament of penance. Thus, mindful of the Lord's words:

"Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand" (Mt. 4:17), the
people will be drawn ever closer to Him each day.

f The Euckarist indeed is a quasi consummation of the spiritual life, and the
goal of all the sacraments" (St. Thomas, "Summa Theol.," Ill, q. 73, a. 3 c); cf.
"Summa Theol.," Ill, q. 65, a. 3.

g
Cf. St. Thomas, "Summa Theol.," Ill, q. 65, a. 3, ad 1; q. 79, a. 1, c, and

ad 1.

11 A small but very significant adverb was inserted here in the revised defini-
tive text

—
"plene" (fully) in place of "plenius" (More fully)—to point up the

truth that it is participation in the Eucharist that fully incorporates us into Christ.

Cf. the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Art. 38, for a
vision of the vast sweep of the Eucharistic action. In it (the Eucharist) the ele-
ments of nature, transformed by the work of man, are changed into the glorified
Body and Blood of Christ and a love feast of men made brothers is celebrated
in anticipation of the heavenly banquet to which men are destined.

‘ In the Sacrifice of the Mass the faithful offer not only their own lives;
they really offer to the Father the divine Victim. This is one of many examples
in the Council's teaching of the influence of the magisterial work of Pope
Pius XII. The bishops who had this written into the Decree invoked Pius Xll's
encyclical "Mediator Dei."

47



Priests should likewise teach them to participate in the cele-
brations of the sacred liturgy in such a way that they can rise to
sincere prayer during them. They must lead the faithful along to

an ever-improved spirit of prayer offered throughout the whole of
life according to the graces and needs of each.j They must per-

suade everyone to the discharge of the duties of his proper state

in life, and bring the saintlier ones to an appropriate exercise of

the evangelical counsels. They must show the faithful how to
sing to the Lord hymns and spiritual songs in their hearts, always
giving thanks to God the Father for all things in the name of our
Lord, Jesus Christ.

k

] The Decree deliberately does not make a distinction between "mental"
prayer on the one hand and "vocal" or "liturgical" prayer on the other, because
genuine liturgical prayer is at the same time both mental and vocal.

k
Cf. Eph. 5:19-20.

48



Doctrinal Agreement
And Christian Unity:

METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS 1

"We are all to come to unity in our faith and in our knowl-
edge of the Son of God, until we become the perfect Man,
mature with the fullness of Christ himself" (Eph 4:13 BJ).

With its call to unity in truth and to living the truth in love,

the Epistle to the Ephesians depicts the Christian life as the growth

of a body to maturity or, in another passage, as the erection of a

building whose cornerstone is Christ. The goal is a completeness,

a perfection, a fullness that lies ahead and toward which each

Christ: an and the Christian fellowship as a whole must grow.

Ecumenical dialogue among separated Christians is a part of
this process of growth. Its aim is not to produce a statement of

minimum essentials by which one Church can measure the
orthodoxy of another, but to deepen, strengthen, and enrich the

life of both. As Vatican II declares in the Constitution on Divine

Revelation: "There is growth in the understanding of the realities

and the words which have been handed down. ... As the
centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves
toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach
their complete fulfillment in her" (Dei Verbum 8).

3

As part of the work of its eleventh biannual meeting held in New York
City, the Anglican-Roman Catholic Consultation in the United States (ARC)
unanimously approved this statement on January 23, 1972. The statement is
made public in the hope of advancing one of the aims of the Report of the
Anglican-Roman Catholic Joint Preparatory Commission written at Malta,
January 3, 1968. The pertinent section of the "Malta Report" is 5: "We agree
that revealed Truth is given in holy Scripture and formulated in dogmatic
definitions through thought-forms and language which are historically con-
ditioned. We are encouraged by the growing agreement of theologians in our
two Communions on methods of interpreting this historical transmission of
revelation. We should examine further and together both the way in which
we assent to and apprehend dogmatic truths and the legitimate means of
understanding and interpreting them theologically. Although we agree that
doctrinal comprehensiveness must have its limits, we believe that diversity has
an intrinsic value when used creatively rather than destructively."

49



Churches coming out of the isolation imposed by the divi-

sions of the past find that they are able to contribute to each

other's growth in the fullness of divine truth. But unless the

origins and purposes of theological discourse are rightly under-

stood differences in terminology and in modes of conceptualiza-
tion, due in part to past isolation, can lead to failure of communi-
cation and even impasses in doctrinal discussion. Theological

discourse must always be interpreted within the horizon of man's

experience of the divine mystery because it grows out of that

experience. From this it follows that no formal or cqnceptual

statement can ever be fully adequate to the religious data. Be-

cause of man's nature, however, his religious experience must

come to expression by every means available to him.

Whenever man speaks about the engulfing mystery of God
he speaks from within a particular situation—geographical, tem-
poral, cultural, sociological, psychological, linguistic. . . . Be-

cause of the transcendence of God's mystery, one must always

speak about him symbolically, but these symbols, taken from

man's experience of the world, always have the stamp of human
particularity. Even statements made by groups of men in repre-
sentative councils bear this stamp of particularity. For example,

when the early councils apply to God and Christ terms such as
substance, person, and nature, they are using the terminology and

conceptual tools available in a given culture. When these terms
in another time and culture take on different connotations their

effectiveness for expressing the truths of faith may be impaired.
Human discourse even under the working of grace is perspectival
and hence also pluralistic.

To acknowledge the relativity of theological statements is
not to fall into relativism but to escape it. Because encounter

with God always calls man beyond himself it must be recognized
that all religious expression may itself be transcended. The abid-
ing presence of the Holy Spirit moves communities of believers

to express their life in Christ in ways that may not be abstractly
deducible from their previous statements.

The result of the preceding analysis is to recognize that

Christians who are orthodox in their faith may express it in vary-
ing formulations, as the Bible and the creeds of the early Church

so well exemplify. This does not mean that all formulations are

50



equally appropriate. Some may in fact express, and conduce to,
a misapprehension of God and his relationship to man, and thus
be impediments to the Christian life.

The participants in this dialogue, fortunately, rejoice in the

possession of the same Sacred Scriptures, the same creedal for-

mulations of the ancient Church, and a substantial body of shared

intellectual and spiritual tradition. They also acknowledge the

need for critical scholarship if the meaning of the ancient texts

is to be accessible to modern man. There are, however, some
other doctrinal formulations which, in the course of a sadly

separated history, have been adopted by one communion or the
other and are generally seen as obstacles to full communion be-
tween the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches.

In order to promote the cause of full mutual recognition and

full ecclesiastical communion, the participants commend the fol-
lowing operative principles in the assessment of whether such

divergent formulations do indeed constitute an essential obstacle

to full communion:

1. Paradoxical Tension

As previously pointed out, theological language never ade-

quately corresponds to the reality to which it refers. In revelation

itself there is always an inherent tension between God's self-

disclosure and man's capacity for understanding: human thought
and language can never encompass the divine mystery. For this

reason there is a peculiar ambiguity in theological statements.

The grammatical opposite of a true statement of faith, therefore,

may in some sense be also true. E.g., man is—or is not—saved by
faith alone; the Bible is—or is not—the word of God.

2. Contextual Transfer

It should be recognized that past doctrinal utterances were
made in definite cultural situations that are not our own, and
hence that they reflect the presuppositions, terminology, and

concerns of their times. This means that a Christian today, in
order to be orthodox and to maintain continuity with the tradi-
tion expressed in the language of another day, may need to find
new language and even new concepts to express the same truth;
e.g., the descent into hell.

51



3. Relative Emphasis

It should be acknowledged that some statements made in the
past as "definitions" and imposed under anathema, are no longer

insisted upon because, at least today, they do not seem to be of
crucial importance in relationship to salvation. E.g., the teaching

of the Council of Vienne on the soul as the substantial form of

the human body (DS 902).

4. Doctrinal Pluralism

(a) Within a single Church one and the same formula often
receives different theological interpretations—e.g., the Banesian
and Molinist interpretations of the. Tridentine canons on grace;

the use of the Thirty-Nine Articles in the Church of England. We
see these as instances of the principle of comprehensiveness

which, rightly understood, involves living in tension and does not

admit of easy compromise or superficial syncretism.

(b) Because the same mystery can sometimes be conveyed
more effectively by different formulas in different cultural con-
texts, one may support a variety of theological expressions among
different groups of Christians. In Churches entering into full

ecclesiastical communion, different creedal formulas are some-
times mutually acknowledged—e.g., the use or omission of the
"Filioque" in the agreement between Churches of the East and

West at the time of the Council of Florence.

Both these forms of doctrinal diversity should be taken into

consideration in assessing the possibilities of overcoming ob-

stacles to union among separated Churches.

5. Empathetic Evaluation

Any Church, in deciding whether it can enter into com-
munion with another, should seek to appraise the role played by
the formulations of the other community in the life of that com-

munity. One should not condemn all that one would not per-
sonally wish to say.

In this connection one may apply the principle of St. Ignatius
Loyola, prefixed to the Spiritual Exercises: " . . . It is necessary to

suppose that every good Christian is more ready to put a good
interpretation on another's statement than to condemn it as

52



false. If an orthodox construction cannot be put on a proposi-

tion, the one who made it should be asked how he understands

6. Responsive Listening

Since no Church exists by itself in this world, every Church

should listen respectfully to what the others find unacceptable in

its own formulations, and consider whether its own official doc-
trinal commitments can be re-expressed in contemporary state-

ments that remove the occasion for offense. In this way the
Churches will be of mutual help to one another in their ongoing

expression of the faith.

Mindful of the fact that the revelation once for all given to

man is the person of Christ present in the Spirit, Christians are
called to be faithful to that presence at all times in their living

tradition. The foregoing principles should be applied in con-

formity to that abiding presence, and thus in a way that leads to
an ever richer appropriation of the gospel. "So the body grows

until it has built itself up in love" (Eph 4:16 BJ).

53



Comment on the
“Agreed Statement on Eucharistic
Doctrine” of the Anglican-Roman

Catholic International Commission

The United States Anglican-Roman Catholic Consultation

(ARC) rejoices that the Anglican-Roman Catholic International

Commission (ARCIC) at its third meeting (Windsor, Sept. 7, 1971)

issued an "Agreed Statement on Eucharistic Doctrine." In accord-

ance with the suggestion of the International Commission, the

United States Consultation discussed this statement at some
length at its eleventh meeting (Jan. 20-24, 1972) and again at its

twelfth meeting (June 11-15, 1972) and offers its evaluation.

We recognize that according to the intention of its authors,
the Agreed Statement is not a celebration of a reconciliation

already achieved between our two Communions but rather a
group consensus which, it is hoped, will serve as an instrument

or catalyst for such reconciliation. Consequently, the statement

should not be viewed as a complete and definitive body of

eucharistic doctrine. It is a marker along the way to a fuller and
more embracing consensus.

In its broad outlines, the statement meets with our warm
approval. We accept it as a helpful study document to promote
full communion between our Churches. We especially commend
the expressed intention of the Commission "to seek a deeper

understanding of the reality of the eucharist which is consonant

with biblical teaching and with our common inheritance" (no. 1).
In addition, we welcome the real progress shown in this state-
ment which, in our judgment, expresses positions that may be
accepted by both Anglicans and Roman Catholics in loyalty to
their respective Churches.

In its closing paragraph, we note, the statement claims that
the participants believe that they "have reached substantial agree-

ment on the doctrine of the eucharist." We agree that if all

54



Anglicans and Roman Catholics were to see this statement as an
adequate expression of the essentials of their eucharistic faith,

as the signers evidently did, divergences on eucharistic doctrine

would no longer constitute an obstacle to full unity between our

two Communions. Most of the members of our Consultation,

both Anglican and Roman Catholic, find the Agreed Statement
adequate.

However, as the authors of the statement well know, there

are in both our Communions important constituencies who
would not be satisfied with the Agreed Statement. Even in our

own Consultation there are a few who find the statement, on
one point or another, either too vague or too restrictive for them

to accept it as an adequate expression of the essentials of their

eucharistic faith.

The hesitations voiced in our Consultation have focused on

two main issues—sacrifice and real presence. Regarding sacrifice
some feel that a statement of this kind should clearly affirm that
the eucharist is a sacrifice. While the Agreed Statement can be

read as implicitly affirming this, some Anglicans and Roman
Catholics, even in our own Consultation, feel that this point needs
to be made explicit before sufficient agreement can be said to
have been reached. In this connection some would like to see
greater clarity as to the notion of sacrifice as the word is used in
the statement.

With regard to the real presence, some members of our
Consultation found that the first sentence of paragraph 6, affirm-

ing that "the bread and wine ... in this mystery, become his
body and blood," could, taken in itself, suggest a restrictive

understanding of the real presence. In some future modification,
they suggested, this sentence could be phrased in a more inclusive
way, so as to emphasize those traditions that insist as well on a

more dynamic or spiritual interpretation of the real presence. In
this way the statement might be made acceptable to a wider
constituency who might not be satisfied with its present form.

Recognizing the great progress represented by this important

statement of the International Commission, and the desirability

of extending and deepening the consensus that the members of
the Commission have already found among themselves, we invite
the people of our respective Communions in the United States

55



to join together in studying the statement thoughtfully and prayer-

fully. We commit ourselves to facilitating this process in what-
ever way we can and will prepare a study guide for this purpose.
In this connection we should like to call attention to the state-
ment of principles regarding methodology which our Consulta-
tion adopted on January 24, 1972. 1 These principles, we believe,
are pertinent to the present discussion of eucharistic doctrine.

In view of the ultimately ineffable nature of the eucharistic

mystery, theological reflection will always fall short of the reality

we experience in eucharistic worship.

Anglican-Roman Catholic Consultation U.S.A.

1
"Doctrinal Agreement and Christian Unity: Methodological Considera-

tions"

56



Response to the “Agreed Statement

on Eucharistic Doctrine”

Bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical
and Interreligious Affairs

The full membership of the Bishops' Committee for Ecu-

menical and Interreligious Affairs (BCEIA) of the NCCB of the
U.S.A., wishes to respond to the "Agreed Statement on Eucha-

ristic Doctrine" adopted by ARCIC at Windsor, September 7,
1971, and authorized for publication by the Archbishop of Can-

terbury and by the Cardinal-President of S.P.C.U., December 31,

1971, for "further study and discussion."

This Committee is aware of the Commentaries of the Roman
Catholic Chairman of ARCIC, Bishop Alan C. Clark; and of the

Roman Catholic member, Reverend Herbert Ryan, S.J., in Wor-
ship—Vol. 46; and, likewise, those by the Anglican member of
ARCIC, Dr. Julian Charley, and the Anglican theologian, A. M.

Allchin in One in Christ, 1971-2.

This Committee is also aware of the comments of the Theo-
logical Commission of NCCB, USA, and of the statement of the
Roman Catholic National Theology Commission of England.

This Committee (BCEIA) accepts with gratitude the com-
ments of its own sub-committee, ARC—USA, in joint discussion
with the Episcopal members, and especially the reservations of

some of the members of the Joint Committee re: Presence and
Sacrifice.

As a Committee of the whole, the members of BCEIA are
happy to observe:

1. That serious dialogue on the Eucharist as recommended
by the II Vatican Council's Decree On Ecumenism No. 22, has
been so successfully employed at the highest level by repre-
sentatives of the Anglican and Roman Catholic Communion.
And, above all, that this dialogue has issued in the "Agreed State-
ment on Eucharistic Doctrine."

57



2. As Roman Catholics believing as stated in the Proemium
of the new Roman Missal (1970) that "the Church's rule of prayer
corresponds to the Church's unchanging rule of faith/' we are
happy to see in the agreed statement a reflection of "the faith of

the Church" as found, for example, in the antiphon "O Sacrum
Convivium"; for the "agreed statement" paraphrases this cele-

brated summary of Catholic Eucharistic doctrine in its number 4.
But the statement is more than a summary; we find its four salient
points of Catholic faith:

(a) "In quo Christus sumitur." (Cf. Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9 and
10 of the agreed statement).

(b) "Recolitur memoria passionis ejus." (Cf. No. 5 of
the agreed statement).

(c) "Mens impletur gratia" (Cf. Nos. 9 and 10 of the
agreed statement).

(d) "Futurae gloriae pignus datur" (Cf. No. 11 of the

agreed statement).

3. We wish to commend ARCIC for bypassing polemics of
the 16th and subsequent centuries and adopting more contempo-
rary—and more ancient and traditional expressions as found in
recent Roman Catholic documents:

(a) Mystici Corporis of Pius XII, June 29, 1943 (Cf. Sec.

81, 82 and 83).

(b) Mediator Dei of Pius XII of November 20, 1947
(Cf. Sec. 68, 69, 70 and 115).

(c) II Vatican Council Decree "On Priestly Life and
Ministry" (Cf. No. 2).

4. We express the Christian hope that on the principles of
the agreed statement, whatever differences appear to divide the

Anglican and Roman Catholic Communions on this subject of
the Eucharist can be solved.

September 28, 1972

58



Response to the “Agreed Statement

on Eucharistic Doctrine”

House of Bishops of the
Episcopal Church

RESOLVED, That the House of Bishops of the Episcopal

Church meeting at Pocono Manor, Pa., October 29, 1971

(1) Receives with gratitude the Statement on the doc-

trine of the Eucharist issued by the Anglican-Roman Catholic

International Commission and welcomes the substantial

agreement and common eucharistic faith it expresses,

(2) believes that the Statement, if agreed upon by the

Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches, would remove
eucharistic faith as an obstacle to the unity sought by the

churches in God's name; and

(3) commends the Statement, when released for publi-
cation, to the Episcopal Church for study and action at the

next General Convention.

59



.

.

'

-



Prospects for Anglican-
Roman Catholic Relations

A LECTURE DELIVERED BY CARDINAL WILLEBRANDS
AT THE GREAT HALL, LAMBETH PALACE,

ON 4 OCTOBER, 1972

Your Grace, Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ,

The invitation of His Grace, the Archbishop, to speak on the

occasion of this visit about the prospects for Anglican-Roman

Catholic relations provides me with the opportunity to assess, in
the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the present state of our

relations, the stages passed through since the renewal of our

relations, the hope which inspires our holy purpose and guides

us towards the final goal. This assessment should at the same

time be an examination of conscience before God and before
the Church.

I will of course avoid every attempt at or even appearance

of foretelling the future, since we speak here about a subject to
which I would like to apply the saying: "one sows and another

reaps".

In speaking about recent and present sowing, we may easily
repeat platitudes. Nevertheless it seems to me necessary, if we
will consider the prospects for the harvest, to study first what

has been sown.

When Pope John announced the first time, on the memor-
able 25 January 1959, that the Church was to have a new ecu-
menical Council, he expressed the hope that this Council would

serve the holy cause of Christian Unity, the restoration of which,

he said, all Christians desire so ardently. His words stirred imme-
diately the emotions and expectation of the whole Christian

world, because they announced a new attitude of the Roman
Catholic Church not in a platonic phrase, but in connection with

such an important event as was to be the second Vatican Council.

61



Moreover they revealed the personal feeling of the Pope, who
was himself so deeply possessed by this desire. Some months
later, on 5 June 1960, he created the Secretariat for Promoting

Christian Unity, under the leadership of Cardinal Bea. The reac-

tions of the Christian world to the initiatives of the Pope were

generally positive and warm. The then Archbishop of Canterbury,

Dr. Geoffrey Fisher, decided even to conclude his pilgrimage to

Jerusalem with a courtesy visit to the Pope of Rome, thus ending
his service as Archbishop of Canterbury under the sign of the

cross and the resurrection of the Lord, by opening a new period
in the relations between the two Churches. He was the first
Archbishop of Canterbury to cross the threshold of the Vatican

since the Reformation. This fact was in the event more important
than the cautious restrictions expressed, qualifying the visit as a

courtesy visit and recalling the serious doctrinal differences and

prejudices separating the two Churches. The same year Bernard

Pawley, Canon of Ely, was appointed as the liaison officer of the
Archbishops of Canterbury and York in Rome, nearly two years

before observers were invited to attend the Vatican Council. In

this way a link, real and official, between Canterbury and Rome
was created for the first time since the Reformation.

The relationships thus established were multiplied and inten-

sified during the Council, when representatives of different prov-
inces of the Anglican Communion guided by a bishop were pres-
ent at all the sessions. If we compare this regular conversation at
the Vatican Council with the Malines Conversations, we can
measure the difference. In a certain way the conversation at the
Council was a silent one, because the observers had no right to

speak at the sessions, but their presence was highly eloquent and

fruitful in the conversations with the Secretariat. It was also quite

official and the observers were acknowledged and received as

brothers in the faith. It seemed normal and appropriate that

Bishop Moorman, one of the observers who attended all the
sessions of the Council, spoke in the name of all the observers

at the farewell audience with the Pope, and if we study the
writings of several Anglican observers after the Council and on

the Council, we can notice with gratitude the impact of the
Council on our relations, and the increase of mutual knowledge

and love, which was expressed, too modestly even, in the phrase

about the "special place" which the Anglican Communion occu-

62



pies in relation to the Roman See (De Oecum. 13). The com-
memoration of the fortieth anniversary of the Malines Conversa-

tions took place in an atmosphere very different from that of

the period of those Conversations themselves.

Even during the Council the present Archbishop of Canter-

bury expressed his desire to pay an official visit to the Church

of Rome, but he intended to make it only after the Council, in
order to have a clear and solid base for a meeting between the

two Churches and for an exchange of views on their common
desire to find a way, with the grace of God, towards the restora-

tion of full communion between them. This visit laid the founda-
tion for the present state of relations between the Anglican Com-
munion and the Roman Catholic Church and for their further
development. Of course it is not my intention to tell again the
story of the visit. But I would like to pay attention to some aspects
of the visit which seem to me significant in themselves and in
their consequences.

1. The visit had the consent of the metropolitans of the

Anglican Communion, who therefore in some way were all in-
volved in this event. So two Christian traditions, which have a

common origin but had grown asunder in conflict, came together
resolved to overcome the conflict and to restore communion.
From the time of Gregory the Great a legitimate variety within

the one Church had developed; in fact the letter of Pope Gregory

to Augustine of Canterbury had laid the foundation for this. Can

the break be healed and "the unity in truth" of which the Com-
mon Declaration of the Pope and the Archbishop speaks, be
restored, "founded" as the same Declaration says, "on the Gos-
pels and on the ancient common traditions"?

After the visit a preparatory joint Commission was estab-
lished, which had to survey the whole field and make concrete
proposals not only in theological matters but also in matters of

practical difficulty. This Commission was deeply convinced of its
responsibility and declared with decision in its first communica-
tion: "After four hundred years of separation between the Roman
Catholic and Anglican Churches, official representatives from

both sides have taken the first steps towards restoring full unity".

Was it superficial, irresponsible or reckless to use this language?
It expressed doubtless the firm conviction of the Commission

63



which after three meetings in one year drew up a programme of
theological matters and practical recommendations and proposed

different stages through which, with the grace of God, the goal

of full unity could be reached. Rome answered to this work in a
personal letter of the Holy Father expressing his gratitude, and in

a detailed answer from the Secretariat for Unity explaining how
the continuation, on the basis already laid down, should be

planned. This programme is so multiple and varied, that if it
were to be executed in all its details, every concrete and decisive

step would be postponed to an unforeseeable future. But the

strength and the weakness of the programme do not lie in this.
Its real significance is in the readiness to consider every possible

problem, theoretical or practical, with the earnest desire to over-

come it on the basis of the Gospel and the ancient common
traditions. Moreover it is obvious that progress and a positive

result in some central and essential points would carry with it
progress in the whole texture. I would like, however, to remind

you of the first point approved for further study, which was: "A

common declaration of faith between Catholics and Anglicans."
There are some who claim that common declarations have to be
avoided as being necessarily ambiguous and creating confusion.

However a result only becomes clear if it is expressed and am-

biguity is only seen as necessary if the desire for real and honest

agreement is absent. A common declaration of faith on points
which have separated us or have been controversial during four

centuries supposes a creative work concerning language and

expression. There is no sense in repeating the old controversial

and polemical formulas. Already the Council declared: "The

manner and order in which Catholic belief is expressed should in

no way become an obstacle to dialogue with our brethren. It is,
of course, essential that doctrine be clearly presented in its

entirety. Nothing is so foreign to the spirit of ecumenism as a

false conciliatory approach which harms the purity of Catholic

doctrine and obscures its assured genuine meaning. At the same

time, Catholic belief needs to be explained more profoundly and

precisely, in ways and in terminology which our separated breth-

ren too can really understand." (De Oecum. 11). And in the

document on dialogue issued by the Secretariat for Promoting

Christian Unity it is said: "Approaching together the mystery of

Christ, men discover the difficulty of speaking the same Christian
language. By language is meant not just the vocabulary, but above

64



all mentality, the genius of a culture, philosophical tools, tradi-

tions and style of life." (Reflections and suggestions concerning

ecumenical dialogue IV, 4, c).

This text may remind us of the profundity and complexity of
the difficulties which surround a dialogue between Christians of

different traditions at the initial stage. Once they have come to
understand each other, and perhaps even to agree, the question

arises: how to convey this shared enrichment to those who did
not share the dialogue and its evolution or are even outsiders to

the whole ecumenical movement but nevertheless belong to the
people of God.

The document on dialogue goes on: "With each one using
the language of his own Communion, the same words may signify
quite different realities in one Church and in another, while dif-

ferent words may express the same reality. Since it is a question
of establishing real and complete communication, of eliminating

the risk of misunderstandings and of not travelling unaware along

parallel ways, it is absolutely necessary that those taking part in

dialogue, even though they be formed by the spirit of the Scrip-

tures and express themselves in a language inspired by the Scrip-

tures should submit the language they use to a hermeneutic, a

critical study." (loc. cit.)

The Joint Commission which succeeded the Preparatory

Commission chose three main topics for further study: Eucharist

—Ministry—Authority.
On 31 December 1971 the Commission published an Agreed

Statement on the Eucharist. I want to express sincere gratitude
for the work done by the Commission. This kind of work is
exactly what we hoped for. I appreciate the difficulty in taking
up this central and essential subject and I respect the efforts and

decision shown by the Commission in giving this arduous service
to the Church. Those who have mixed feelings and reserves about
this Statement, I ask: Had we the right to expect more from the
Commission? Can we ask from the Commission what can only
be done by the Churches themselves? At present the statement
is submitted to further study and discussion by the theologians.
The Commission will examine their suggestions and criticisms.
The official authorities of the Church will not take over the task
proper to the theologians, but follow their further work with

65



confidence. Moreover the work will be completed by the study
on ministry, closely related to the theme of the Eucharist, and

we hope and pray that it will be possible to express also a com-
mon faith on the ministry in the Church. A final judgment on
the result, its implications and consequences can only be given

at a later stage. But we may say that the intention, expressed in
'the Common Declaration of the Pope and the Archbishop has
been seriously pursued, that the work achieved so far has given

new hope and inspires our prayers.

Though doctrinal matters are of great importance on the
way towards unity in truth, "matters of practical difficulty" (to
use the expression of the Common Declaration) are often felt
more directly, are part of the daily life of the Churches, touch
from close by and intimately the people of the Church. The

Malta report listed a certain number of them. With the develop-
ment of the ecumenical movement several of them have been
solved and suggestions have been fulfilled almost unnoticed, such

as common prayer, development of relationships between re-
ligious orders of similar inspiration, consultation on pastoral

problems. But one of the most sensitive points was doubtless the

question of mixed marriages. As in many other cases, the practical
and pastoral problems are here intimately linked with a theo-

logical question: the doctrine of marriage, its sacramental char-

acter, its indissolubility, its relation to Church and State, etc. On
the doctrinal questions, a special joint Commission has been very

helpful in clarifying the positions on both sides; concerning the

practical difficulties one can measure the difference between the

provisional instruction published on the eve of the Archbishop's

visit and the later, final norms, given in the Motu Proprio of 1970.
The latter gives general instructions and norms, founded on Cath-

olic principles, which in practice allow different applications ac-

cording to the local situation and concrete circumstances, on

which the local authority has to judge and to decide.

Practicalities

As practical difficulties I would consider also questions of

psychological and historical heritage in relationships, lack of

knowledge, of understanding, attitudes of mistrust, fear of the

unknown future. It is often said that the desire of the people to
go ahead, to overcome all obstacles on the way towards unity is

66



greater than the readiness of the leaders to go. This may be true
with regard to some aspects, but there are also examples where
authorities or leading theologians are ahead of the situation

among the people. Clarification and honest, responsible agree-
ment on principles and doctrine are basic and necessary also in

this field. Then follows communication in order to establish

general and deep conviction. In this context also the work of

competent, engaged men, in steady contact with the authorities

of the Church, is very important.

What I have said about "a serious dialogue" between the
RC Church and the Anglican Communion concerns one aspect
of the Archbishop's visit and its consequences.

2. The other aspect which I would like to submit to your

consideration is the spiritual nature of our relationships. The

second Vatican Council declared: "There can be no ecumenism
worthy of the name without a change of heart. . . . We should
therefore pray to the divine Spirit for the grace to be genuinely

self denying, humble, gentle in the service of others, and to have

an attitude of brotherly generosity towards them. ... Let all
Christ's faithful remember that the more purely they strive to live
according to the gospel, the more they are fostering and even
practising Christian Unity." (De Oecum. 7).

When the Pope welcomed the Archbishop at the Vatican, he
stressed the ecumenical importance of the visit without dissimu-

lating "the serious and difficult problems" which "remain as dif-

ficult as ever". But he opened a perspective of hope, indicating

the new spirit in which we approach them: "we can study and
meditate upon them together, without any dissimulation or hu-

man pride, without any shadow of earthly interests, and in accord-
ance with the word of Christ and with the help of the Holy Spirit".

And concluding his address of welcome, the Holy Father devel-
oped a motive which underlines his whole talk: "the truly spiritual

and religious value of our meeting. ... Its importance lies in our

seeking together, seeking to profess our common fidelity to Christ
together, to discover prayers, both new and old, which can bring
our hearts and our voices together in celebrating the greatness of

God and of his plan of salvation for the whole of mankind, which
he brought about through Christ."

67



I hope you will forgive me the length of these quotations,
but personally I attach a great importance to the spiritual nature

of ecumenical relationships and of the search for unity. I think it

is characteristic of the way in which the Archbishop of Canter-
bury speaks about Christian Unity, that he puts together the no-

tions of unity and holiness, or the idea of unity in Christ and

unity among ourselves, being all members of the one body of
which Christ is the Head. So did he express himself in Rome,

speaking to Cardinal Bea: "The work of Christian Unity is insep-
arable from the work of Christian holiness. As God calls us all
to unity so he calls us to a closer union with Our Lord Jesus
Christ in the way of holiness." In a sermon on "the recov-
ery of unity", preached at Geneva on 24 March 1966, immedi-

ately after his visit to Pope Paul VI, he said: "Such is Christian

Unity, the only Christian Unity. It is the binding together of men
and women to one another in the common life of the body of
Christ. It is the binding of lives to God himself through the for-
giveness of sins. It is the binding up of each life so that its name
can truly be not legion but one. These aspects of Christian Unity

are properly inseparable. So in the high-priestly prayer at the

supper Our Lord says: 'Father, I pray that as thou art in me and I
in thee, so they may be one in us'. The unity of disciples with one
another goes with their union with the Father and the Son, in

truth and holiness." (One in Christ, 1967, p. 3). I find it highly

significant that the Archbishop, who has emphasised on several
occasions the necessity of having unity in truth, here amplified

and completed this idea, putting together "truth and holiness".

This reminds us of the word of our Lord in his high-priestly
prayer: "Sanctify them in the truth" (Jo. 17, 17). Recently in a
similar way the Archbishop spoke in the episcopal Cathedral of
New York on the text: "No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by
the Holy Spirit."

These principles are beautifully expressed in the prayer for

unity which we find in the accession service of the Book of Com-
mon Prayer and which was said by the Archbishop at the Service
of Prayer in the Basilica of St. Paul Without-the-Walls.

A Spiritual Relation

A spiritual sense has so deeply permeated Catholic-Anglican
relations that an occasion which in earlier days would have stirred

68



up feelings of bitterness and opened old wounds now led to the
warmest expression of respect and affection. I mean the canonisa-
tion of the forty martyrs in England and Wales of the sixteenth

and seventeenth centuries. The words spoken on that occasion

by the Holy Father calling for unity were full of implications, as

we will see, and found fraternal response from the Archbishop
of Canterbury in his Christmas letter to the Pope and in a sermon

in Canterbury Cathedral, during the week of Prayer for Christian
Unity, 1971.

If ever we deserve the blessed day of grace on which we
will embrace each other "in the one authentic Communion of the
family of Christ", we will need ail the spiritual strength which is
the gift of the Holy Spirit.

My reflections are doubtless based on a choice of facts and
events, which is very incomplete and perhaps arbitrary. I make
no apology for being incomplete, because I had no intention of

giving a survey and moreover facts and events have been so

numerous and significant in all parts of the world, where Cath-

olics and Anglicans meet, that it would be impossible to take

them all into consideration. It is a reason for hope and consola-

tion that whenever we receive in the Secretariat for unity reports
on the ecumenical movement from local Churches, the relations
between Catholics and Anglicans are generally said to be marked

by fraternal co-operation, mutual trust and love. This means that

new and positive developments are not limited to a few persons
and places.

Already in 1968 the Lambeth Conference, in its sectional re-

port on relations with the Roman Catholic Church, was able to
point to a number of fields in which progress was being made
"to varying degrees in various places". That progress has since

undoubtedly been furthered and its front broadened, in some
places quite remarkably; this has sometimes been stimulated by

such official guidance as that given in the second part of the

Directorium Ecumenicum on "Ecumenism in Institutions of Ad-
vanced Learning". But local energy is in the end decisive. One
can point in this country, for instance, to developments at Dur-

ham, at Oxford and in the relationships between Heythrop and

London University—developments which are bound to broaden
and strengthen the solid learned foundations on which official

dialogue necessarily rests.

69



Speaking of the work of the Permanent Joint Commission
then about to be set up, the 1968 report hoped that it would "be
representative of the Anglican Communion as a whole" and that
it would give early attention to "the theology of ministry which
forms part of the theology of the Church". As we know, the
Permanent Joint Commission has now begun the study of this
problem. It is my personal hope that the members of the Com-
mission will not look back to the past for its own sake, but try to
ascertain whether at present Catholics and Anglicans are able to

profess in conscience the same faith about the Sacrament of Or-

ders.

What has been said by the Lambeth Conference of 1968
about episcopacy justifies the phrase of the Decree on Ecumenism
of the Second Vatican Council: "Among those in which some
Catholic traditions and institutions continue to exist, the Angli-

can Communion occupies a special place" (n. 13). This however
does not affect the necessity of the joint theological research now
undertaken by the Catholic-Anglican international Commission

about the nature of the ministry, including episcopacy, and about

apostolic succession. For both Churches, episcopacy is not only

an historical form of organisation of the Church, but a structure

which we have received from the Lord through the Apostles and
which is accepted in faith for our salvation. The documents of

the Second Vatican Council, especially the Constitution on the

Church and the Decree on the Bishops' Pastoral Office in the

Church will help us to discern whether we share really a common
faith about episcopacy. The Lambeth Conference set great value

on the notion of collegiality. In this context it may be interesting

to notice that the Secretary of the Synod of Bishops of the R.C.

Church is a member of this present delegation. The sense of col-
legiality at the same time enhances the sense of the primacy in

the Church, since no college exists without a president or as the

Lambeth Conference said: "Within the college of bishops it is

evident that there must be a president." As we believe that epis-
copacy is a structure within the people of God, given by its

divine Founder, so we Roman Catholics believe, that the primacy
of Peter and his successors within the college of the bishops was

given by the Lord. We therefore see in the Papacy something
essentially more than "a historic reality" and we welcome the
words of the Lambeth Conference when it speaks of a Papacy

70



"whose developing role requires deep reflection and joint study

by all concerned for the unity of the whole Body of Christ". As

the theology of the ministry forms part of the theology of the

Church, so also the theology of the primacy.

I have chosen some significant events in the past, such as the
Second Vatican Council, the meeting of the Archbishop of Can-

terbury with the Pope, the Lambeth Conference, as a basis and

starting point for my reflections. Other facts and events, other
documents could have been chosen. But if my premises have
been solid and true, then my choice has not been arbitrary.

The Future

Looking to the future I would like to develop a consideration

which seems to me important. If ever unity or full communion is
bestowed upon us as a divine grace, to use the words of the

Pope: "one authentic communion of the family of Christ: a com-
munion of origin and of faith, a communion of priesthood and
of rule, a communion of the saints in the freedom of love of the
spirit of Jesus", if ever this full communion is given to us, it has
to be organic but it has not to be a unity of organisation.

There has always been a widespread fear, tacit or expressed,

that union with Rome would mean unity of organisation, the loss
of one's own characteristic traditions, the yoke of uniform, for-
eign rule. The consequence of this was quite naturally an aver-

sion from reunion. I think that it has become abundantly clear
that this kind of unity does not constitute a Church. We know
the phrase of the Malines Conversations: "united not absorbed".

In several places the Second Vatican Council has been much
clearer and more explicit on this point, in the dogmatic Consti-
tution on the Church, in the pastoral Constitution on the Church

in the modern world, in the Decree on Ecumenism, in the Decree
on the Church's missionary activity, in the Declaration on religious

freedom and we can generally find in these documents the con-
viction that the unity of the Church is a reality which transcends

all human power of organisation and is, with its sanctity, its
Catholicity, its apostolicity, a divine gift which belongs to its

mystery rather than being a product of human skill. The Decree
on Ecumenism paraphrases the well known aphorism: "in essen-
tialibus unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas", in this way:
"While preserving unity in essentials, let all members of the

71



Church, according to the office entrusted to each, preserve a

proper freedom in the various forms of spiritual life and discipline,

in the variety of liturgical rites, and even in the theological elabo-

rations of revealed truth. In all things let charity be exercised"

(N. 4). In an address given during the Week of Prayer for Chris-
tian Unity in 1970 in Great St. Mary's Church, Cambridge, I de-

veloped the notion of a typos of a Church and the possibility of

a plurality of typoi within the communion of the one and only
Church of Christ. In this context I quoted the Second Vatican

Council, which provides us authoritatively with a basis for this

idea when it says: "By divine Providence it has come about that
various Churches, established in various places by the apostles

and their successors, have in the course of time coalesced into

several groups, organically united, which, preserving the unity

of faith and the unique divine constitution of the universal Church,

enjoy their own liturgical usage, and their own theological and
spiritual heritage" (Lumen Gentium, N. 23). The idea expressed
in this text, like its more general idea of a typos of a Church, goes
surely beyond the mere notion of organisation, since the idea of

a typos includes not only the external elements of organisation,

but also elements touching the life of a particular Church. I went

on to say: "The life of the Church needs a variety of typoi which

would manifest the full Catholic and Apostolic character of the

one and holy Church. . . . None of us, I fancy, underestimates
what is needed of wisdom and discernment, of strength and pa-
tience, of loyalty and flexibility, of forbearance, of willingness to

teach and to learn, if we are to make progress towards this goal."
The fear of uniformity stretches out beyond mere organisation

and touches all the elements which make up the life and tradi-
tions of a particular Church. I hope that what I have said will

go some way towards dispelling these fears, where they persist.
To go further in the same direction, I can quote the words of

Pope Paul VI, spoken at the canonisation of the forty martyrs:

"on the day when—God willing—the unity of faith and of Chris-
tian life is restored, no offense will be inflicted on the honour or

the sovereignty of a great country such as England. There will be

no seeking to lessen the legitimate prestige and the worthy patri-

mony of piety and usage proper to the Anglican Church." But if
uniformity is not sought and even not desirable, there must be

true unity. Vatican II speaks of "various Churches . . . organically

united" (L Gentium, 23) and the Pope, as we have just seen,

72



speaks of "the one authentic Communion of the family of Christ".
We have our difficulties regarding organisation, uniformity, typ-
ology. I would not say that they are not real, but they are surely

not the greatest or the most serious. Organic unity means the

unity of the body of Christ. "For just as the body is one and has

many members, and all the members of the body, though many,
are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we are all
baptised into one body . . . and all were made to drink of one
Spirit" (7 Cor. 12, 12-13) wrote St. Paul to the Corinthians, and

to the Ephesians: "There is one body and one Spirit" (Eph . 4, 4).

Organic unity is based upon faith, as the same Apostle explained

to the Romans: "since we are justified by faith, we have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5: 1). The root
of our division lies there, where organic unity, the unity of the

body or of the family of Christ should have its origin: in faith.

We are still divided in matters of faith, there is our greatest diffi-
culty and since faith rests "in the power of God" (7 Cor. 2, 5)
there must be our most ardent prayer that we may be restored
to the unity of faith. One baptism should lead into one faith.
Since it is a task of theology to explain to us the content of our

faith, so that we may "always be prepared to make a defence
to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you"
(7 Pet. 3, 15), we are grateful for every effort made by theologians
for the cause of unity. Since faith is before and above all a gra-

cious and merciful gift of the Father in heaven, we will be "with
one accord devoted to prayer" like "the women and Mary the
mother of Jesus and his brethren" (Acts 1, 14) expecting the

descent of the Holy Spirit, and our prayer will join the sacerdotal

prayer of Christ. We are all called to one hope (cfr. Eph. 4, 4) and
"hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been
poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been
given to us" (Rom. 5, 5).

73











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