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Joint Pastoral Letter Issued

Diocesan Press Service. January 3, 1973 [73004]

MOBILE, Ala. -- An Episcopal bishop and a Roman Catholic bishop in the Mobile area have issued a joint pastoral letter about the Eucharist of the two churches.

The Rt. Rev. George M. Murray, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast, and the Rt. Rev. John L. May, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Mobile, asked that the letter be read in all congregations of both dioceses on the second Sunday in Advent, December 10, 1972.

The bishops said that as far as they know, this pastoral letter is the first ever issued jointly by the bishops of the two dioceses.

The pastoral letter affirms "a central statement of faith shared by both our churches, namely that the Eucharist is the representation of our Lord's saving act on Calvary in which He is really present and really given in Communion. "

The letter refers to the "Agreed Statement on Eucharistic Doctrine" drawn up in September, 1971, by the Anglican -Roman Catholic International Commission.

The pastoral letter asks the communicants to "read and study" the text of the Agreed Statement, which the bishops called "the most important statement of agreement between our two churches in the last 400 years. "

An all-day workshop will be held after communicants of the two churches have studied the document. Two participants in the workshop will be the Rev. Herbert Ryan, professor of historical theology at Woodstock Theological Seminary (Roman Catholic) in New York City, and a member of the international commission which drafted the Agreed Statement, and the Rev. Albert T. Mollegen, professor of New Testament language and literature at Virginia Theological Seminary (Episcopal) in Alexandria, Va.