Dialogue Document
Anglican Roman Catholic Consultation: Anglican Orders A Report on the Evolving Context for their Evaluation in the Roman Catholic Church (1990)
Anglican Orders A Report on the Evolving Context for their Evaluation in the Roman Catholic Church
Long Branch, New Jersey, May 8, 1990
The Anglican-Roman Catholic Consultation in the United States has since 1986 addressed the question of the evaluation by the Holy See of Anglican orders. In 1985 Jan Cardinal Willebrands, using a phrase taken from the ARCIC Final Report, had recognized that 'a new context' is now affecting the discussion of Anglican orders within the Roman Catholic Church because of the development of the thinking in the two Communions regarding the nature of the eucharist and ordained ministry. It has been the purpose of ARC-USA to discuss and to outline the positive dimensions of the 'new context'.
We wish to underline at the outset the limits of this study. We have focused our attention on factors that seem most to encourage the reconciliation of our two Communions. Other observers may point to additional features of Anglican/Roman Catholic relationships in the last century, such as an interpretation of Apostolicæ Curæ as an infallible pronouncement of the Holy See, the encyclical Mortalium Animos of 1928, or the reluctance of some Anglicans to move toward belief in the eucharist celebration as a sacrifice.
And there are recent developments which have been omitted from consideration in this statement, such as the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate within the Anglican Communion. No realistic observer can exclude these events for 'the new context'. Yet we have acted on the suggestion of Cardinal Willebrands in his 1985 letter that it is the negative judgment of Pope Leo XIII in Apostolicæ Curæ (1896) against the validity of Anglican ordinations that is still 'the most fundamental' issue that hinders the mutual recognition of ministries between the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion. Here we stress only the manner in which the themes addressed in Apostolicæ Curæ have been a point of departure for dialogue and debate between our two Communions for almost a century, and we record the progress made on these issues.