Diocesan News
Personal and preliminary response by Archbishop Neill to 'Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ' - the Seattle Statement of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission
MARY: GRACE AND HOPE IN CHRIST
Seattle Statement of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission
Preliminary Reaction by Archbishop John Neill
Please note that this is a personal and preliminary response to the document by Archbishop Neill
This Agreed Statement from the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission will have to be studied carefully by our two Communions. In the Church of Ireland, this work will be undertaken with great care and interest.
Personally I welcome this as one of the most significant Ecumenical documents for some considerable time. Its careful engagement with the Scriptures and its emphasis on the importance of this basis for our common faith is to be warmly welcomed. There is a clear statement of methodology at the outset, and an explanation of the way in which Christians have used the Bible.
The historical account of the development of Marian doctrine and devotion is valuable, though at times it is less than clear in the Patristic period as to what developments can be said to be part of ?common tradition?. The decisions of Councils in the early period are part of a common inheritance, but less so the statements of individual Fathers of the Church.
One detects at times that there is an ongoing dialogue present, even in the tentative conclusions at several points in the document where an aspect of faith is said to be ?consonant? with Scripture, but it is then further stated that it can ?only be understood in the light of Scripture?. One hears two distinct positions which though not irreconcilable require that we engage in this ongoing process of discernment. Some important issues are consigned to footnotes, and the question arises, as it has done in ARCIC documents for over thirty years, as to what is the status of footnotes.
Reading the document, one cannot but help notice that both Roman Catholics and Anglicans need to learn from one another ? one perhaps needing to learn more of the Biblical tradition that it cherishes, and the other needing to address the limits of that selfsame tradition. It is clear from the study that issues surrounding the actual promulgation of the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and of the Assumption have not been resolved, but that a greater understanding can be reached. The theme of the limits to ?allowable diversity? raises its head in this discussion.
My prayer is that the eschatological emphasis of this document, so long a lack in many such studies, will enable Christians to reflect less on what has divided them, and instead to see the glorious future of unity in Christ to which all are called.
Diocesan Communications Officer, Dublin & Glendalough
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Lynn Glanville
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