ANGLICANISM AND ROMAN CATHOLICISM

The Church, Ecumenism and Inter-Religious Dialogue between Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism



The Church, Ecumenism and Inter-Religious Dialogue between Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism

Introduction

The concept of Ecumenism refers to unite the Christians through dialogues between different Christian communities. The dialogues are made with the people of different faiths and even with those who have no faith, in order to convince them that there should be a single church, irrespective of the difference in beliefs. Since 1960, such dialogues have been initiated between Roman Catholics and Anglicans. These dialogues focused on the difference which the communities have their life and worship styles. The major objective of these dialogues was to achieve full and visible union between all the Christian communities; obviously this concept is based on the facts that all communities fundamentally follow the teachings of Christ. This paper discusses the two dialogues and their documents that have been made by Roman Catholic Churches and different communions.

The Churches and Unity

The Anglican Communion consists of an association of churches, which includes Church of England. This association interacts with all the regional and national Anglican churches. More particularly, there is a relation between Anglican Communion and Archbishop of Canterbury which is its principal primate. It is important to note that no single church can be considered as an "Anglican Church" because every regional or national church is fully autonomous. The rise of Anglicanism becomes evident by considering the historical events such as English Monarch rise during the period of 1491-1547, Erasmus' influence, first translation of Bible in English in 1527, Henry VIII until he died, and many more.

The catholic community believes that the Holy Father encourages any Christian group which wants to join their church, and follow in the path which learns from and respects the Anglican patrimony. The members of such new groups who may even have different theological beliefs are allowed to continue their journey of Christianity in companionship with the members of other group, under the supervision of priests of a single church.

Over the period of centuries, the popes and theological scholars have been pressurized as they were not able to hold the Western churches together. The major aims of uniting different churches and Christian communities is to reform the churches, to resolve the existing conflicts, to correct the mistakes in doctrines of different communities, and finally the popes and scholars aimed at creating social awareness. Anglo Catholic wing was established back in the history, during the period 1833-1845. The members of this wing were highly committed to apostolicity, to early church notion, to sacraments and to the creed.

The Second Vatican Council has been embedded with the spirit of finding echo between the hearts of believers; the council has been motivated more since the approaches which were to be made in 2000. The major motive behind attempting to unite all the Christian communities belonging from any community is the belief that Christ wanted all His disciplines to be united. This can only be done if the walls ...