Anglicans and Catholics conclude groundbreaking meeting in Hong Kong

SOURCE:  Vatican News

The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, or ARCIC 3, has concluded a week long meeting hosted by the Anglican mission to seafarers in Hong Kong. At the conclusion of the May 4th to 10th meeting, the two teams of theologians and Church leaders issued a joint statement saying ARCIC has carried forward considerably its work in response to the mandate given it by the Catholic Church and Anglican Communion and has sharpened its focus in terms of the two questions of Communion and ethical decision making.

Fr. Peter Galadza during Pascha at St. Elias Church

The communiqué stresses that participants are also very keen to promote the reception of ARCIC work and so they intend to contact national groups of Anglicans and Catholics to share with them the work of the Commission and to hear their ideas about practical ecumenism on the ground. The Commission also invited an outside observer from the Greek Catholic Church who greatly helped with his contribution on the broader aspects of understanding the Church as Communion. The invitation to the Very Rev Dr. Peter Galadza, a married Ukrainian Catholic priest from the Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies in Ottowa, Canada, marked the first time ARCIC has sought experience from outside its mandate to deepen its understanding of the concept of Catholicity.

Phililpp Hitchen spoke to Catholic Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham and Anglican Archbishop David Moxon of New Zealand, the two co-chairs of ARCIC, who both believe the groundbreaking results of the meeting will offer help to the Churches well beyond the boundaries of the ecumenical movement...

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