Sharing in Eucharist Talked at Anglican-Roman Catholic Meeting
Diocesan Press Service. February 8, 1966 [40-4]
Albert de Zutter, Managing Editor, (Kansas City) Catholic Reporter
KANSAS CITY -- Anglican and Roman Catholic representatives felt they were on the verge of a breakthrough leading to a sharing in the Eucharist at the close of a three-day meeting here Feb. 4. Participants said at a news conference that "we are already members of one body" through a common baptism and faith.
The occasion was a meeting of the joint commission on Anglican - Roman Catholic relations, composed of official representatives of the two communions.
Members of the joint commission raised the possibility of Eucharistic concelebration -- joint celebration -- by priests, of both communions and the reception of the Eucharist by a congregation made up of Episcopalians and Roman Catholics even before full structural union is achieved.
Though participants in the talks refused to predict when this might occur, Bishop Charles H. Helmsing of Kansas City- St. Joseph, chairman of the Roman Catholic subcommission for talks with the Episcopal Church, said, "The timing is in the hands of God who can move us faster than we can imagine."
The prospect of common participation in the Eucharist before full organizational reunion was based on agreement among commission members that the Eucharist is not only a sign, but also a means, of unity.
A position paper prepared by Father Bernard J. Cooke, chairman of the department of theology of Marquette University, challenged the joint commission to face the question of an immediate Eucharistic sharing.
After examining the notion of the Eucharist in biblical times and during the first two centuries of Christianity, Father Cooke said in his paper:
"One conclusion seems undeniable in the light of the evidence we have seen; We cannot expect Christian unity to take place apart from the influence of the Eucharist. This would seem to suggest that some common celebration of Eucharist will have to precede our hoped-for reunion...
He went on to propose: "Why cannot we, in the private and controlled situation that is ours in this conference, celebrate together the Eucharist? If we can, such common celebration will help immeasurably in establishing the consensus of faith we seek. If we cannot, let us delineate the precise barriers that exist--these barriers it would seem to me would tell us rather definitely the agenda that lies before us in future meetings. "
A position paper by the Rev. Arthur Vogel, professor of theology at Nashotah House, made a similar point:
"If the nature of the Eucharist, the fact of Christ's presence in it, and the means of its production can be essentially agreed upon ... might not their common reception at the Table of the Lord.. be the primary means by which God wills to bring about ever increasing unity among His people?"
However, the consensus at the news conference was that sharing in the Eucharist would have to wait on a clarification of what was called "the whole problem of the ministry."
Participants said they would pursue this question in coming meetings. The next one will be held in Providence, R.I., in June.
It was stated at the news conference that though members of the commission attended Mass at one another's cathedrals in Kansas City, there was no sharing in the Eucharist.
The Rt. Rev, Edward R. Welles, acting chairman of the Episcopal committee and Bishop of West Missouri, said the problem of the ministry included questions on the functions of the minister and the community in the eucharistic celebration, the nature of the sacramental presence and transubstantiation.
A part of the problem, though it was not felt to be a major part, is the question of recognition of Anglican orders by the Roman Catholic Church.
Among other points discussed during the meetings, Bishop Welles said, were the primacy and infallibility of the pope and authority in the Church. He said the place of the Virgin Mary was not a big problem.
Bishop Helmsing said he thought the problems of papal primacy and infallibility boiled down to semantics: "It's a matter of explaining terms."
Bishop Helmsing said the Eucharist is the "key issue" of unity and Bishop Welles quoted one participant in the discussions as having said:
"We are too provincial in our approach to the Eucharist. More is up for grabs than we realize. We have the opportunity for a real breakthrough today. "
Father Vogel said that though some disagreements remain, "we agree more with one another than we do with our own pasts," on many matters.
A member of the Roman Catholic subcommission, Father Lawrence Guillot of Kansas City, added: "We talked of barriers, but felt there was a new climate allowing for new approaches to the solution of problems, The way they were discussed in the past does not apply any more. "
He said there was an attempt to see problems in the light of the Church in the world. Peter Day of New York, ecumenical officer for the Episcopal Church, said, "There was a sense of urgency about this."
On the question of the Eucharist as a means toward unity, Bishop Helmsing said this is hinted at in the Second Vatican Council's Decree on Ecumenism. He said the document warns against "indiscriminate use" of the Eucharist as a means to unity, but added, "We hope to arrive at a discriminate use."
Regarding the validity of Anglican orders in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church, Bishop Welles reported that the Rt. Rev. George Luxton, Anglican Bishop of Huron, with its see city in London, Ont., Canada, had broached the question in an audience with Pope Paul. The Pope asked Bishop Luxton to send him material on the question, Bishop Welles said, and promised to give the matter his personal attention. The Pope was then quoted as saying that the actual communion of Old Catholics and Anglicans presents new evidence for reviewing Pope Leo XIII's stand that Anglican orders are invalid.
Asked what would be the force of any agreements reached by the joint commission on Anglican-Roman Catholic Relations, members said it was not a legislative body, but nevertheless had been commissioned by their respective Churches to explore the possibility of union.
Father Guillot called its role "prophetic," and Bishop Helmsing said " This is not and intellectual exercise."
Participants in the Kansas City meeting were:
Anglican-- the Rt. Rev. John N. Allin, Bishop coadjutor of Mississippi; the Rt. Rev. John Higgins, Bishop of Rhode Island; Bishop Welles, acting chairman; Father Vogel; Peter Day; Clifford Morehouse, New York, president of the House of Deputies; Prof. George Shipman of the University of Washington. The Rt. Rev. Donald H. V. Hallock, Bishop of Milwaukee, chairman, and Dr. William Wolf of the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Mass., were unable to attend because of illness.
Roman Catholic-- Bishop Helmsing, chairman; Bishop Cyril J. Vogel of Salina, Kans.; Bishop Aloysius Wycislo, auxiliary of Chicago; Msgr. William Baum, executive secretary of the U. S. Bishops' Commission on Ecumenical Affairs; Father Cooke; Father Guillot; Father George Tavard, professor of theology, Mount Mercy College, Pittsburgh; Prof. Thomas P. Neill, St. Louis University.