Press Release: Catholic Reformed Dialogue Takes Up Question of Ministry and Ordination (2015)

Press Release: Catholic Reformed Dialogue Takes Up Question of Ministry and Ordination

Participants of the Catholic-Reformed Dialogue convened on October 4-6, 2015 for the sixth meeting of the eighth round at the New Brunswick Seminary in New Brunswick, New Jersey.  The general topic for the current round is ecclesiology.  The specific topic for this meeting was the fourth and final theme of this round, namely Ministry and Ordination.  The dialogue is chaired by Bishop Tod Brown, retired bishop of Orange, California, and the Rev. Cynthia Campbell, Ph.D., senior pastor of Highland Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, and former president of McCormick Theological Seminary. 

In the first session, presentations on the rites of ordination in the Catholic and Reformed traditions were provided by Bishop Tod Brown (Catholic) and Rev. Dr. David Gambrell (PCUSA).  The second session was devoted to explicating convergences and divergences in our respective rites and was led by Rev. Dr. Cynthia Campbell (PCUSA) and Rev. Dr. Dennis Tamburello (Catholic). Following these presentations, extended conversation ensued on the general question of the anthropological and ontological effects of ordination and the particular questions of the hierarchical priesthood and its relation to the laity, the congregational exercise of ministry in the Reformed traditions, the meaning of apostolicity in our traditions, the role of the Petrine ministry in the modern world for non-Catholic Christians, and the meaning of the diaconate in the post-Vatican II era of the Catholic Church.

Round-VIII-Meeting-6-Report-of-the-Reformed-Catholic-Dialogue.pdf