c. 2000 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops from 13 regions throughout the world will gather in a historic meeting next month in an effort to add a new dimension to three decades of ecumenical dialogue.

Although Anglican and Catholic prelates have held local or regional meetings in the past, the weeklong consultation in Canada will be the first international gathering of bishops from all the 13 regions where both churches are active.

The bishops from New Zealand, Canada, England, the United States, Ireland, India, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Southern Africa, Uganda, Australia, Brazil and the West Indies will meet in private sessions May 14-20 at the Queen of Apostles Renewal Center near Toronto.

They will be joined by archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, spiritual head of the worldwide Anglican communion, Cardinal Edward Cassidy, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the co-chairmen of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), Frank Giswold, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States, and Archbishop Alexander Brunett of Seattle.

A joint announcement said the prelates will seek “to review and evaluate the accomplishment of 30 years of ecumenical dialogue between the two traditions and to reflect on how the special relationship between them has been developing in different parts of the world.”

“This high level meeting is happening at a time when Anglicans and Roman Catholics around the world are exploring the possibilities for further steps toward visible unity,” the announcement noted.

John Baycroft, director of the Anglican Center in Rome and former bishop of Ottawa, said the purpose of the meeting is to assist that process, not necessarily by deciding on concrete action but by building closer relations with each other.

“The idea is that we need to get together in order to review more generally than just the theological dialogue what has been going on over the past 30 years or so and to see if there are any special opportunities or challenges that are coming up now at the beginning of the new millennium,” Baycroft said.

But, he said, “the meeting is not to cut a deal about something. We are not going there to make decisions. If the Holy Spirit should guide us into some new thing, then let’s all praise the Lord.”

Baycroft said the prayer and reflection that will start each day’s session will be an important part of the meeting.

“Churches don’t just get together to talk,” he said. “They say prayers, sing hymns and reflect with each other. Discussion is only part of why we are meeting. If you want the churches to grow together you have to get to know each other, be comfortable with each other, build up relations with each other.”

The meeting grew out of talks between the archbishop of Canterbury and the pope during Carey’s visit to Rome in December 1996. “It may be opportune at this stage in our journey to consult further about how the relationship between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church is to progress,” they said in a Common Declaration.

The churches, divided since King Henry VIII renounced papal authority in the Act of Supremacy of 1534, opened official dialogue in 1966 after the groundbreaking meeting of the then archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, with Pope Paul VI.

In the following decades, theologians from the two bodies reached agreement in key areas, including justification by faith, the issue that led to the Protestant Reformation. That agreement helped to pave the way for a similar understanding between Catholics and Lutherans last year.

A series of ARCIC documents also established that the basis for communion exists between Anglicans and Catholic, came to terms on the nature of the eucharist and tackled differences on birth control and divorce.

The most recent ARCIC report, “The Gift of Authority,” issued last year, concerned a basic issue, and its recommendations are still under consideration by both churches.

The world’s 1 billion Roman Catholics are subject to the pope’s supreme and sometimes infallible authority while the 70 million Anglicans belong to a communion of 36 self-governing provinces over which the archbishop of Canterbury exercises only moral authority.

The 1999 ARCIC document asserted that there is no turning back from progress already made toward eventual unity and set the stage for the May meeting by urging bishops of both churches to “find ways of cooperating and developing relationships of mutual accountability in their exercise of oversight.”

And, difficult as the question of the universal primacy of the bishop of Rome may be to resolve, John Paul has said he is prepared to reconsider the papal role in the light of ecumenism.

But the churches have yet to come to terms on what is probably the most divisive of all the issues before them _ the Anglican ordination of women as priests and bishops. The pope has repeatedly ruled out women priests on the grounds Jesus created the ordained priesthood among the apostles, all of whom were men.

DEA END POLK