Monday, October 10, 2016

Francis and Welby show that disagreements don't have to be a paralysing


Francis and Welby show that disagreements don't have to be a paralysing 

The Tablet

16 September 2016 | by Christopher Lamb | Comments: 0

Catholic and Anglican leaders can work together to heal the divisions in each other's churches

When the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, joins Pope Francis in Assisi next week to mark the 30th anniversary of the first World Day of Prayer the similarities between the two religious leaders will be brought into sharp focus. They are both conflict resolvers who prefer to roll up their sleeves rather than talk theology and both were surprise choices when selected for their roles, which they started within a week of each other. 
Since then Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury have looked for common causes to work on, such as tackling human slavery. All this will be on the agenda when the pair come together for two successive meetings in the coming weeks. 
But what is likely to be at the forefront of their encounters is how denominations can work together to resolve global conflicts while helping one another heal divisions in their own churches. 
The first meeting between them is next Tuesday at a prayer gathering for religious leaders in Assisi. The Pope and the Archbishop will take part in discussions about global conflicts, have lunch with victims of war and sign an appeal for peace. It marks 30 years since John Paul II famously brought 160 religious representatives together to fast and pray for a colourful event where then Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, chatted with the Dalai Lama while Muslim prayer mats were laid out next to a Zoroastrian sacred fire.  
This infuriated conservatives but was a bold statement on religions working together and started a tradition that continues to this day (although not on such a grand scale as in 1986).
Next Tuesday’s event will be focussed on conflict resolution something both Archbishop Welby and Pope Francis are passionate about and are willing to take risks over: last year Francis ignored security advice and flew into a war zone in order to assist peace efforts in Central African Republic while Welby has negotiated with Al-Qaeda operatives and was captured by rebel forces in Nigeria while on a mercy mission. 
But it’s not just war-torn countries that require the Pope and the Archbishop’s mediatory skills: there are growing internal disputes within their respective churches over Christian teaching on sex. For the Anglican Communion the row is over same-sex relationships and gay bishops, with Welby just about managing to avert a schism during a meeting of Primates in Canterbury last year. 
While the situation is less serious for the Catholic Church, Pope Francis faced opposition from senior cardinals during two synod meetings in Rome due to his plans to offer communion to divorced and remarried Catholics. And the rows continue to rumble on. This question of maintaining unity despite divisions are likely to be a theme of the Archbishop Welby’s 5-6 October visit to Rome where he will have a private meeting with the Pope
Joining the archbishop will be 17 Anglican primates from across the world who will also meet Francis before spending time in prayer with Welby at the tomb of St Peter, located underneath St Peter’s Basilica. While Francis’ meeting with the primates is a sign of Christian unity it also demonstrates his concern for maintaining the Anglican communion: this Pope sees divisions in one Church as having a negative impact on Catholicism. And there is nothing he is more worried about than a schism within his own. 
The Pope’s concern for Anglican unity was demonstrated earlier this year by sending the crosier of St Augustine of Canterbury to a landmark gathering of primates in Canterbury Cathedral earlier this year. The ivory-headed hooked staff, belonging to the first Archbishop of Canterbury, was put on display in the cathedral and is said to have had a calming effect on those unhappy prelates who had arrived at the meeting with the intention of leaving soon after it began. After spending some time praying in front of the crosier they opted for a different course. 
It will, however, take more than kind gestures by the Pope to stop Anglicans from falling out. So far Archbishop Welby has been able to keep the peace with sanctions for the American branch of Anglicanism which officially recognises gay marriage: this is something conservatives, particularly in Africa and Asia, are appalled by. At the same time the archbishop has apologised to gay people for the hurt caused to them by the Church and had no difficulty when Bishop Nicholas Chamberlain became the first member of the Church of England hierarchy to say he was gay and in a long-term - albeit celibate - relationship. 
For Catholic and Anglican dialogue the problem is not so much gay people but women, with the Vatican deeply opposed to female ordination which is the major stumbling block to full, visible unity between the churches. Nevertheless, Francis might have opened a crack in the door by his decision to set up a commission to look at the ordination of women as deacons, and those in the Anglican church with long memories will recall how this was the first step to female priestly ordination in their communion. Yet if the Pope agrees to ordaining women as deacons then he will face yet more criticisms from the traditionally minded. 
Welby’s visit to Rome next month will be a powerful demonstration of Anglican and Catholics working together. At a vespers service bishops from the two churches “couple-up” into seventeen pairings and will be sent out on a joint mission by the Pope and the Archbishop.  
This move - symbolic of the Francis and Welby approach - is a sign disagreements don’t have to be paralysing. This was something Archbishop Welby pointed out ahead of the Anglican primates gathering this year, when he said being reconciled was not the same as everyone complying with the same position. 
“Reconciliation doesn’t always mean agreement,” he explained. “In fact it very seldom does. It means finding ways of disagreeing well.”
And that’s a message both Catholics and Anglicans can agree on. 
Christopher Lamb is The Tablet's correspondent in Rome

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