Posted on 04/29/2005 10:24:26 PM PDT by sionnsar
Ecumenical delegations from the Vatican and the Anglican Communion Office will launch ‘Seattle Statement’ 16 May
(ACNS) An international delegation of Anglicans and Roman
Catholics will convene in Seattle, USA, 16 May to release a joint statement of understanding on the place of Mary in the doctrine and life of the Church. The document, entitled Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ, represents the first major agreed statement by a formal international dialogue between two Christian world communions on this important aspect of Christian faith and devotion.
The statement draws together the fruits of five years of work by the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), a dialogue officially sponsored by the Anglican Consultative Council and by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
As the work of ARCIC, the text is not an authoritative declaration by the Roman Catholic Church or the Anglican Communion. With its publication, the statement will be offered for study and evaluation by the churches. The book has been attractively published by Continuum/Morehouse Publishing USA/UK.
The document is referred to as the ‘Seattle Statement’ because members of ARCIC completed it in Seattle during their February 2004 meeting. The theologians who constitute the commission include bishops, clergy, religious and laypersons from 10 different countries.
The May 16 event will be hosted by Seattle Archbishop Alexander J Brunett, Roman Catholic co-chair of ARCIC. Archbishop Brunett will be joined by his Anglican co-chair, Archbishop Peter Carnley, Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia, for the statement release. The Revd Don Bolen (Vatican) and the Revd Canon Gregory Cameron (Anglican Communion), co-secretaries of ARCIC will also be present.
A news conference is scheduled for 10am, 16 May, in Seattle at 910 Marion St to announce the publication of the agreed statement.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. +
close, anyway
"[Not sure what this is all about...."
One trusts at a minimum a reaffirmation of the Council of Ephesus on the Most Holy Theotokos. Even at that minimum, it might be quite a remarkable thing for some Anglicans to believe that Mary, a virgin, was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and gave birth to True God and True Man. But we'll see.
Well, Koloko, my brother, please do not be aggrieved at my comment but I am most definitely Anglican and I believe precisely that and always have. So do the vast majority of my fellow Anglo-Catholics, all deriving their commuion and orders from the historic and Apostolic Anglican Communion.
It is quite true that Anglicans have few feast days for the BVM, but you surely recognize that this is reaction against what was growing Mariolatry 500 years ago. Our Ordo Kalendar officially celebrates 'The Purification' (related to the custom of the churching of women after childbirth) and 'The Annunciation' as BCP feasts. We include a feast we name 'The Repose' in our Missals and Breviaries, which is the Anglican wording of 'The Assumption', but it is not a BCP feast. No other saint in the Anglican BCP Kalendar has more than one feast (we celebrate St. Paul on Jan 25th and St. Peter on Jun 29th).
The RC has since intensified the problem with the proclamation of the doctrine of the Imaaculate Conception. Now, I am quite clear that this was a growing belief, apparently stemming from French devotional practice around the prior turn of the millenium, but it is still utterly unScriptural and even damaging theologically, so we don't hold it.
There's issues on both ides, is what I'm saying here.
I am 100% for the proposition that Mary, daughter of Joachim and Anna, was conceived naturally, was selected by God, was visited by Gabriel and overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and gave literal birth to the Incarnate Son, Second Person (hupostasis) of the substance (ousia) of the Blessed Trinity. She was faithful where Eve was rebellious and stands as our greatest human example of womanly obedience and love and fear of God. That is what I, as an Anglican, believe as a matter of saving faith about the Blessed Virgin Mary.
I also hold the pious belief that she was Assumed into heaven and reigns there bodily, through the grace of her Son poured out through the Holy Spirit. I pray for her intercession in many matters.
It is worth noting that Anglicans are among the few Church bodies able and willing to distinguish between the words 'adoration' and 'veneration' and properly apply the two. There are many iconoclastic Anglicans, to be sure, but they are still not the majority, even among Anglicans who are willing and able to insist upon outright heresy (such as female or active homosexual ordination and degradation of the Persons to emanations and/or separate Gods) and glory in the schisms they participate in. I wouldn't agree or hold fellowship with the latter Anglicans.
Now, let me be clear. My Province is not in communion with those comprising the ACC and while we are proud of their current stand against ECUSA and Anglican Church of Canada, many of them accept female ordination which to me speaks to viewing the pastoral ministry as a job rather than a vocation and a call from God. That is to say, if it's a job, then civil rights issues come into play and women can be hired. My own belief is that the ministry is a calling and a vocation clearly instituted by Jesus Christ for the purpose of guiding, reproving and ministering sacramentally to His flock. I suspect you might agree with my position on that.
In Christ and with every brotherly love to you,
Deacon Paul+
I think he was commenting on how too many anglican leaders act like they no longer believe in the miraculours birth of Jesus, or that he is true god and true man. Just a man.
"I think he was commenting on how too many anglican leaders act like they no longer believe in the miraculours birth of Jesus, or that he is true god and true man. Just a man."
Thanks...beat me to the keyboard KC! Its also, Deacon, why I said "...some Anglicans."
ping to #9
It is probably irrelevant, but it is my understanding that the Nicene Creed was established to once and for all eliminate heresy of Christ's direct incarnation as holy through the BVM in the last statement of the first declaration.
I understand and I thank Knitting for weighing in also, but the tone sounded so doubtful as to eliminate 'some' in the statement. "Some" of just about any group believe something odd and even contradictory to the belief system they allegedly adhere to for any number of reasons. I wonder if we unjustifiably extend the irreligion of US and Canadian 'Episcopal' leaders to their brother archbishops worldwide. If the others really did doubt such a normative Christian belief, then one fails to see how the Romans in the conversation would even participate. It can surely serve no constructive purpose to issue a statement which is firmly asserted by one group and just as firmly denied by the other.
In Christ,
Deacon Paul+
Catholic Answers is always a good place to start. Here is the URL:
http://www.catholic.com/library/mary_saints.asp
Also, the book by Fr. John Trigilio is quite marvelous. Pardon the title but he called it "Catholicism for Dummies." It is condensed but easy to read. The 2nd Edition of the Catechism is also replete with Scriptural references. These are all good places to start. Personally, the Church Fathers are mentioned over and over again as the thing that influenced people on the journey on the "Coming Home Network" with Marcus Grodi. I highly recommend them as well.
Frank
Forgot the excellent Dave Armstrong site!
http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZINDEX.HTM
With all due respect, I think Anglicanism, at a minimum on account of the liturgical and theological compromises which its bishops have accepted over the centuries, that is to say the internal heterodoxy which seems to to be emblematic of the AC now and for centuries past, leaves the entire communion open to doubts about just how "orthodox" its beliefs are. The Fathers and the Councils are quite clear, he that does not declare heresy anathema, let him be anathema and he who is in communion with heretics is an enemy of God. Now of course, the Holy Roman Church and the Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches have a rather different notion of communion than that which seems to prevail in the AC but so far as I know, it is the notion of the Fathers.
With all due respect, I thought I made my own doctrinal position crystal clear. If that is not an adequate denunciation of the heresies surrounding the Blessed Virgin, then I am at a loss for words.
I will gladly enunciate each and every doctrine I support in the precise theological language, if that will help your disbelief in my Orthodoxy. I wouldn't want you to hang in doubt.
In Christ,
Deacon Paul+
"I will gladly enunciate each and every doctrine I support in the precise theological language, if that will help your disbelief in my Orthodoxy. I wouldn't want you to hang in doubt."
I'm not hanging in doubt about your Orthodoxy at all. You have said in the past that you are in a group which is not in communion with ECUSA or the ACC. Are you in communion with Rome or the Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox Churches? If not, why not? +Benedict XVI has written that outside of the Holy Roman Church and Orthodoxy, there isn't anything that can be properly called "The Church" or even "a Church", but rather are "ecclesial assemblies". By the way, personally I'm sure you are doing what you believe is right; I don't doubt that either.
It is my recollection that my Archbishop concluded letters of communion with the Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church, but I do not know the date other than it was before 1995. We are not in communion with Rome because our congregations are not uniformly High Church and there remains much clearing away of prejudice built up over the centuries.
In Christ,
Deacon Paul+
Thank you all for direction and I will read your suggestions carefully. I do have Catholicism for Dummies but sometimes I think I need Catholicism for Real, Real, Real Dummies! Just missed Web of Faith...I love Fr. Levis and Fr. Tragilio. I still get chills when I remember Fr. Levis telling the story of how his Mother came to America from Ireland. She wanted and planned to come over on the Titanic but had to take another liner instead. Had she taken the Titanic, we would have been cheated out of having Fr. Levis in our midst!
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