The biennial SEARCH colloquia on the various subjects we have chosen have always been rewarding. This spring’s colloquium on the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65, considered fifty years after the event from an Anglican perspective, has been exceptional in that, thanks to sponsorship from Trinity College Dublin chaplaincy and Ecclesiastical Insurance, we were able to recruit speakers from three countries other than our own, and both Archbishops of Dublin spoke eirenically to introduce and conclude the proceedings in TCD.
We are grateful to the Bishop of Woolwich, Michael Ipgrave, for coming to contribute his insights on inter-faith matters as these were affected by the Vatican II documents; to Dr Kevin Moroney of The Episcopal Church in Pennsylvania for attending to cast light on the liturgical contribution and influence of Vatican II; and to Dr Clare Amos of the World Council of Churches for coming from Geneva to cast light on the Council’s influence on biblical scholarship over the past fifty years. We are no less indebted to our own home-grown expert on Inter-Church theology, Dr Andrew Pierce of the Irish School of Ecumenics, to Archbishop Michael Jackson, who in his opening reflections considered current sensitivities and opportunities, and to Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who in his closing remarks spoke of “out common sense of mission and our common witness to the message of Jesus Christ” in the context of the culture of today. May we all come through to united Christian witness to the Gospel of Christ.Also in this issue, the Ven Gordon Linney considers a matter currently of grave concern to all Irish citizens – that of the medical care of pregnant women and of respect for their right to life, which must never be less than the right of the child in the womb. The word “abortion” has become too emotionally loaded to allow objective discussion; but this is not a matter of wilfully curtailing the life of the unborn. It concerns protection of the life of their mothers, who care for and hopefully will continue to care for all the children they bear.Finally, a word of thanks to all those who have renewed their subscription to SEARCH for the current year. There remain too many who have not done so. We value your support and trust that you will do so without further delay. Please don’t let us down!
Contents
Introductory Reflections - Introducing the Colloquium
One of the basic insights of inter-faith engagement is that one should not compare the best of oneself against the worst of another. It is a perennial temptation; but its seductiveness in no way justifies it. This makes me particularly reticent about commenting in today’s Colloquium about the reception of Vatican II fifty years on. I say this because I know my own Church of Ireland tradition all too well. First, it is a complex of disparate raditions; secondly, it is far from homogeneous; thirdly, it is slow to take the responsibilities which risk demands and change requires. So how could I expect the miracles of liberalism in a church tradition which has perforce been subjected to the same historical mauling as has my own, leaving us reluctant to believe that change can bring anything but institutional bereavement?
Lumen Gentium, Unitatis Redintegratio and Ecumenical Catholicity
One of the key achievements of Vatican II was its fundamental rethinking of Roman Catholic engagement with other Christian churches. Half a century before the Council, Pius XI had issued a clear papal statement on cumenism in his encyclical Mortalium Animos with a view to curbing the rather limited enthusiasms of Désiré Cardinal Mercier at Malines. According to Pius XI, the purpose of ecumenical dialogue, or even of conversation, was to be directed to one end only, that of ensuring the return of heretical or schismatic sheep to the one true flock. Ecumenism meant simply a return and an end of wandering. After Vatican II, the Catholic Church articulated an understanding of itself as a pilgrim people of God, which, together with God’s other people, was on a journey into God’s future.
Christian theology for inter faith relations: Vatican II and Anglicanism
The area I wish to explore is the theology of Christian response to people of other faiths. I first look at two key Vatican II documents, Nostra Aetate, “The Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to non-Christian Religions” (October 1965) and Ad Gentes, “The Decree on the Church’s Missionary Activity” (December 1965). I then ask how these relate to Anglican thinking on inter-faith relations, analysing statements from recent Lambeth Conferences, particularly those of 1988 and 2008. I then conclude with a consideration of Roman Catholic and Anglican theologies in this area.
Sacrosanctum Concilium as a Companion and Catalyst for Anglican Liturgical Reform
Fifty years is a short time in the life of the Church, but for liturgists these
have been the best fifty years in the history of the world; or at least the busiest. Sacrosanctum Concilium was approved on December 4th, 1963 as the first document of the Second Vatican Council, and I do not consider it an exaggeration to say that since 1963 more liturgical texts and resources have been published than in every other era of the Church combined. For years it seemed like the liturgical party would never end. Many studies have discussed the importance of placing the reform of the Roman Catholic liturgy first among the Council’s concerns, but the purpose of this paper is to explore what relationship the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy had to the explosion of liturgical revision work throughout the Western Church in the years following its publication and, more specifically, how it related to Anglican liturgical reform during these fifty years, using Irish Anglicanism as the primary example.
Between 1973-75 I was privileged to study at the Ecole Biblique et Archeologique Francaise de Jerusalem. This is a Roman Catholic institute founded and run by the Dominican order, based in Jerusalem and devoted to the study of the Bible, taking account of its physical and geographical setting in the Holy Land. The professors at the Ecole were largely French Dominicans, although there was also an Irish Dominican friar on the faculty, Jerome Murphy O'Connor, universally and affectionately known as Father Jerry. The Ecole had been the nursery of the well-known Bible de Jerusalem, published in 1956, which had spawned an English equivalent – the Jerusalem Bible. While I was studying there the second edition of La Bible de Jerusalem was published – considerably different in some ways to first edition, though still distinctively using the word Yahweh to translate the tetragrammaton.
Looking back, looking forward, at the close of the Colloquium
I am pleased, not just to have been invited to speak at the conclusion of this Colloquium, but above all that it is taking place. One of the speakers concluded his remarks asking whether this gathering could have happened at all before the Second Vatican Council, the implication being that it could not. I would add to such an Anglican assumption, this time almost with a touch of Catholic infallibility, that it certainly could not have taken place here in Trinity College Dublin!
The tragic death of Savita Halappanavar in a Galway Hospital last October exposed for all to see the ineffectiveness of the Irish political establishment. For thirty years successive governments had failed to provide the necessary legislation to give clarity to the 1983 amendment to the Constitution which it was claimed would prevent abortion in Ireland.
