Anglicans see Vatican out of step on Arcic report

by Christopher Howse
THE VATICAN is on a different wavelength from the members of the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission on church unity, according to Anglican co-chairman Archbishop McAdoo of Dublin, who made a disappointed response at the end of last week to the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's strictures on the report.
Archbishop McAdoo was making a personal response to the SCDF observations and was clearly disappointed and frustrated by their attitude. He says: "It is, of course, satisfactory that the published comments of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith regard the work achieved by Arcic as a 'singular event in the history of the relations between the two communions".
"What is disappointing about the congregations document is that it appears to be on a quite different wavelength from that of the final report. Thii raises the question as to whether the method and objective of the final report have been fully appreciated.
"The Congregation's docu ment appearS to carry an underlying assumption that what is required is not only a complete identity of faith as, for example, in the area of the dogmas of 1854, 1870 and 1950 but in the actual formulation Archbishop McAdoo's comments were substantially endorsed by the Rev Christopher Hill, the Anglican co-secretary of Arcic.
But another member of the Arcic team, Fr Edward Yarnold, SJ, seemed more hopeful in interpreting the Sacred Congregation's observations, which denied that essential agreement between the two churches had been reached on a number of vital topics.
Fr Yarnold denied this week that the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith represented alone the views of the Vatican. He denied that their observations could be said to be the views of the Pope, although what they said is formally endorsed by him. He also felt that the press had failed to put sufficient stress on the positive aspects of the Congregation's remarks.
Letters — page 4.