Ecumenical bishops' meeting

Accompanied by senior Maltese clergy, six Catholic and six Anglican bishops from nine countries will participate in a historic choral evensong at St Paul's Anglican Pro-Cathedral, Valletta, on Wednesday at 6 p.m., which the public is invited to attend.

During a four-day meeting at Mount St Joseph retreat house, Mosta, starting on Tuesday, the bishops will discuss further steps towards achieving unity between the Roman Catholic Church and the 38 churches of the Anglican Communion of some 80 million members.

The bishops comprise the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission (IARCCUM), established in 2000 by the ground-breaking international meeting of 13 Anglican and 13 Catholic bishops in Mississauga, Canada, representing provinces around the world where relations between the two churches are of critical importance.

IARCCUM's inaugural meeting last year took place at the Archbishop of Canterbury's seat in Lambeth, UK, and Rome - and was received by the Pope in formal audience.

In turn, the Mississagua meeting arose out of the Common Declaration issued in 1996 by Pope John Paul II and Archbishop Carey to seek "full visible unity" between the two churches. A previous declaration 30 years earlier, made possible by Vatican II, led to the establishment of the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC). This body has discussed some of the many doctrinal issues separating the two churches, and has issued some agreed statements, e.g. on ministry, the Eucharist and the Gift of Authority.

However, prospects of resolving the problem of the non-recognition of Anglican Orders by the Catholic Church became indefinitely stalled over with the ordination of women to the priesthood within the Anglican Communion.

IARCCUM's first core task is to establish a Joint Declaration of common beliefs for formal endorsement at the highest level. The second task is to energise the process of review and eventual endorsement of agreed ARCIC texts by both churches. The third task is to identify practical ways in which the two churches can work together on the ground.

IARCCUM co-secretary, Fr Donald Bolen, who is in charge of Anglican-Roman Catholic Relations at the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, told The Sunday Times that "we are in partial, not full communion after 40 years of dialogue. The way ahead is not clear. Our responsibility is to foster a lived ecumenism, faith to shape our lives as churches.

"We can find forms of expressing our progress towards unity so far, so we are revisiting the Lund Principles of 1947" (which undergird the Lutheran World Federation of 60 million Lutherans belonging to 245 churches). "These involve doing everything in common which deep differences do not oblige us to do separately."

IARCCUM's co-chair, Mgr John Bathersby, Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane, Australia told The Sunday Times, "my personal vision of achieving Anglican-Roman Catholic unity is to combine hard, slogging work and trust in the Holy Spirit. As Cardinal Walter Kasper, the new president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity has encouraged us, we must maintain the capacity to be surprised by God."