On the Church and Christian Unity

I write about Her here at The Anglo-Catholic:

There are some in the Anglican Continuum who say they want Christian unity, too, but in order for it to happen either the Roman Catholic Church must repent and/or be willing to accept into full communion (or "inter-communion") churches that do not hold the dogmata that were defined after split between East and West. We are seeing this point of view also expressed now in the unfortunate backtracking of some of the bishops in the Anglican Church in America.

They perhaps see the position now taken by the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) bishops who are faithful to their solemn declaration in 2007 and their signing of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) perhaps as capitulation or a surrender of Anglican identity.

I see it differently. I think it had everything to do with Archbishop John Hepworth's call for all of us, from the bishops on down, to examine our hearts and minds to make sure there was nothing in us that forms a stubborn impediment to the unity that Jesus Christ prayed for.

What happens when you lay aside your "rights" to any particular doctrine or stance and you approach God with a naked desire for the Holy Spirit to reveal the Truth without the blinders of prejudices or stiff-necked assumptions?

What if you pray that the Holy Spirit will tear down every lofty thought and every imagination that holds itself up against the knowledge of God?

Does He not promise us in Scripture that if we seek, we will find; that if knock, it shall be opened unto us? Will He not shed a light on our path, and show us the direction we must go?

I believe it is in that kind of humility that the faithful TAC bishops have approached Christian unity. They have prayerfully studied what the Church says and how the Catholic Church sees herself. Through the power of the Holy Spirit that have come to see that Her understanding of Herself is true.

They have come to see that She cannot depart from this view of herself as the Church founded by Jesus Christ and on the primacy of Peter, because to do so would be a violation of her mission and her very essence.

Some can only hear the Catholic Church's claims as a kind of triumphalism or prideful supremacy. I see this reaction as similar to the way people react to the Jews being referred to as the Chosen People. Some hate the Jews for that, as if they are lording it over everyone else, but Jews themselves might see that designation as as a terrible burden and responsibility to be lived out.

The Church cannot be except what She is, even if the reaction against this is totally negative, as it was when Dominus Iesus was published 10 years ago. Can you remember the worldwide huffing and puffing as various Christian "ecclesial communities" reacted hotly against being described as "defective"?

But it could have been either Bishop Carl Reid (then Fr. Carl) or Bishop Robert Mercer, who calmly accepted the description of the TAC as defective. "Because we don't have the pope," one or the other said.

And Deacon Fournier at Catholic Online writes about Her here in the context of the Traditional Anglican Communion's approach to the Holy See:

Contrary to some limited understandings of our age, Christianity is not about "Me and Jesus". The Christian faith is about me and you - and the entire world - IN Jesus. The Church is to become the home of the whole human race. She is the new world, the seed of the kingdom to come. There is no real Christianity without the Church. We now live our lives in a participation in the Trinitarian communion through our life in the communion of the Church. She is God's great gift to us in Jesus Christ. The Church is not simply an organization, not "Some - Thing", but "Some -One", the Risen Body of Christ. We are called make our home within her.

Above is a picture of Archbishop John Hepworth that went strangely missing from The Angl0-Catholic blog yesterday.