BRITAIN:Reports in some newspapers yesterday on a church unity document being prepared by Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops had been written "in a way which misrepresents its intentions and sensationalises its conclusions", a joint statement from the bishops said yesterday.
Archbishop John Bathersby, the Roman Catholic co-chairman of the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission (IARCCUM), and Bishop David Beetge, its Anglican co-chair, said that "talk of plans to reunite the two communions (Roman Catholic and Anglican) is, sadly, much exaggerated".
The document, Growing Together in Unity and Mission, was being published as an "agreed statement of IARCCUM and is to be published under the commission's authority, not as an official statement of the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion". It was being put forward to foster discussion and reflection, they said.
The document is scheduled to be published by the commission as soon as a Catholic commentary to accompany it has been completed. An Anglican commentary has already been prepared for publication.
The document's text had been made available to the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and the Anglican Consultative Council and to the Anglican primates currently meeting in Tanzania, the bishops said, but Growing Together in Unity and Mission had not yet been officially published.
The first part of the document was an attempt to synthesise the work of ARCIC (the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission) over the past 35 years and it identified the level of agreement which had been reached, but it was also clear in identifying ongoing areas of disagreement, the bishops explained.
"It is a very honest document assessing the state of Anglican- Roman Catholic relations at the present moment."
The so-called "radical proposals" reported yesterday as being found in the document were "the same proposals which ARCIC has been putting forward over the past 35 years", the statement said. "What this document says about the Petrine Ministry (the papacy) is not new . . . talk of plans to reunite the two communions is, sadly, much exaggerated."
Yesterday's reports also speculated about the Catholic Church benefiting from a possible schism within the Anglican Communion. Taking exception to this in their statement, the bishops pointed out that the Pontifical Council for promoting Christian Unity (in Rome) had always emphasised the advantage of Anglicans remaining in a single community.