St. Mark's (Anglican) Church

The challenge to the Church of England, and by extension to all of Anglicanism, issued by Cardinal Kasper in May of 2008 regarding our ecclesial identity remains one that is worthy of serious and prayerful consideration. Speaking, not only as the highly reputable theologian that he is, but also in his office as president of the Pontifical Council of Christian Unity, he expressed the need within our communion for a new clarity. In an interview with the Catholic Herald, he made the following statement.

“It is a question of the identity of the Anglican Church. Where does it belong? Does it belong more to the churches of the first millennium – Catholic and Orthodox – or does it belong more to the Protestant churches of the 16th century? At the moment it is somewhere in between, but it must clarify its identity now and that will not be possible without certain difficult decisions.”[1]

It had been my hope that all who gathered later that summer, the pilgrims and conferees of GAFCON, the General Synod of the English Church, and finally, the Lambeth Conference of bishops, would humbly receive this challenge as a prophetic cry for faithfulness to the Body of Christ in which we profess faith in the historic creeds. The Church, in which we believe, according to the clear proclamations of our Baptismal and Eucharistic liturgies, is Catholic. Surely then, our unequivocal response to the question of our ultimate identity must be an alignment with such churches as profess the same creeds, who maintain a recognizably similar apostolical church order, and who have a like understanding of the centrality and significance of the sacraments.

This is no innovative or original thought within Anglicanism. Those of us who have continued to stand for “the doctrine, discipline, and worship of Christ as this Church has received them,”[2] in our provinces, dioceses, and parishes, often in the face of opposition from many of our reputed leaders, have been formed and instructed to think of ourselves as members, not of a particular denomination or sect or “national church,” but as “very members incorporate in the mystical body”[3] of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one Body whose unity transcends all merely human distinctions. To this St. Paul points. “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”[4] This is the identity for which we and all baptized Christians are called upon to work, pray, and give of ourselves, “all one in Christ Jesus.”

Such unity is professed consistently within the Catholic understanding of the Church. It is the means by which we are conjoined with God as our Father and with one another in that love which is the love Christ himself bears us. It is the fulfillment of our Lord’s High Priestly prayer, “that they all may be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe.”[5] Obviously, this unity is obscured by the divisions of the baptized into separated fellowships and sub-groups. Indeed, it is nearly entirely overshadowed in the continuing fragmentation of the Anglican Communion as well as in the proliferation of new groups professing to be non- or post- or trans-denominational.

Apparently, there is a tendency to separate believers one from another that is part of the unfortunate heritage of the tragic breakdown of the Church in the 16^th century. As long ago as 1909, Bishop Charles Gore, wrote of how it was then beginning to be perceived, “by the slow evidence of experience, that there was something fundamentally wrong about the Reformation movement.”[6] He went on to explain, “The Reformation on its revolutionary side broke the visible structure of catholic Christianity… and these original separations have been the prelude to a whole world of sects; each of which has justified itself by the conviction that the body from which it broke was corrupted by some abuse which conscience did not allow it to tolerate.”[7] How terribly familiar this description sounds in our present controversies! Must we not want to see this breaking apart and ongoing separation cease?

The times in which we seek to love and serve the Lord are filled with historic significance. It appears that developments that continue to emerge will impact the Church either in ways that are consistent with the strengthening of Catholic unity or in ways that find us continuing to be part of the Protestant tendency toward separation and structural reformation. In precisely this milieu, Cardinal Kasper’s words resonate in tones that are not dissimilar to the cry to faithfulness issued by God’s chosen servant, Joshua, to his ancient people, Israel. “Choose this day whom you will serve… as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”[8]

Catholics within Anglicanism are in a privileged position to affirm and uphold identification with “the churches of the first millennium.” This is not merely an Anglo-catholic assertion; it is an extension of what was expressed in the Vatican II document, Unitatis Redintegratio. “Among those in which Catholic traditions and institutions in part continue to exist, the Anglican communion occupies a special place.”[9] We who dedicate ourselves to uphold Catholic faith and practice are uniquely suited to lay claim to the “special place” that so many within the Anglicanism of the present day are willfully abandoning. This position is the one to which Pope Benedict XVI spoke in the Apostolic Constitution last November, which invites us into the fullness of fellowship in the Catholic Church while retaining much of our Anglican heritage.

In recent years, many of us have grown weary with the misuse and abuse of the language of the Baptismal Covenant in the 1979 Prayerbook.[10] Nevertheless, humbly and prayerfully considered, the first commitment worshipers are called upon to make, immediately after proclaiming the Apostles’ Creed, is one that outlines a pattern by which our identity as Catholic Christians may be faithfully expressed. In words that are taken from the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, we are called upon to promise, “with God’s help” to “continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the
breaking of bread, and in the prayers.”[11] Thus shall we hold fast to the identity God has in mind for us as members of the Body of Christ. Thus we confirm our belonging to “the holy catholic Church” in which we unreservedly believe.

[1] Quoted in “Cardinal’s warning over Anglican disunity,” by George Conger in Religious Intelligence, Saturday, 17^th May, 2008. <http://www.religiousintelligence.co.uk/news/?NewsID=2011>

[2] The Book of Common Prayer, 1979, pp. 526 and 538.

[3] Ibid., p. 339.

[4] Galatians 3:27-28.

[5] John 17:21.

[6] Charles Gore, Orders and Unity (New York, E. P. Dutton & Company, 1909), p. 186.

[7] Ibid., p. 187.

[8] Joshua 24:15.

[9] Vatican II; The Conciliar and Post ConciliarDocuments, Austin Flannery, O,P., ed. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmamans Publishing Co., 1992), p. 463.

[10] See “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” by The Rt. Rev. Keith Ackerman in Forward in Christ, Volume 1, Number 1: June 2008, p. 3.

[11] BCP, 1979, 304.