The recent conference at General Seminary on holy orders in the Anglican Communion [p. 9] brought together a distinguished group of internationally known speakers, most of them participants or former participants in the Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogues of ARC or ARCIC. The degree of consensus on the substance of the conference was striking: Rome, it was asserted, will not revoke Apostolicae Curae, but it can and should issue a new pronouncement, relevant to present inter-church relations, which would make mutual recognition of order in the two churches possible.

The reconciliation of ordained ministries in these two churches, or other churches, does not mean organic unity, or the resolving of the many differences of belief, practice and church government. It will be a significant symbolic step, however, toward that unity between his followers for which Jesus prayed: "that they all be one ... so that the world may believe that thou has sent me" (John 17:21).