NZ Catholic Newspaper

Catholic and Anglican bishops off to Rome

Michael Otto — Sun, 26 Jun 2016 21:52:05 +0000

Cardinal John Dew is to be one of New Zealand’s representatives at an event in Rome at which pairs of Anglican and Catholic bishops from different countries will meet Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The event, which is scheduled for October 5-7, will reportedly involve pairs of Anglican and Catholic bishops from 36 countries.

According to a report on Vatican Radio, the pairs of bishops will pray with Pope Francis and Archbishop Justin Welby at the church of St Gregorio al Celio in Rome.

The head of the Anglican Centre in Rome, Archbishop Sir David Moxon, KNZM, told Vatican Radio that the pairs of bishops will be mandated and blessed “to go out and demonstrate partnerships that are possible” in mission and common worship, to show that “no one of us
has got it all together, but together each one of us can share it all”.

This year marks 50 years since the historic meeting between Blessed Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey in Rome.

That was the first official meeting between a Roman pontiff and an archbishop of Canterbury since the Reformation.

This year is also 50 years since the opening of the Anglican Centre in Rome.

The 1966 meeting between Paul VI and Archbishop Ramsey paved the way for an official dialogue, the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission.

Archbishop Moxon, who is from New Zealand, is co-chair of ARCIC III, the third phase of the dialogue, which met last month in Canada.

The commission is set to publish a book called Towards a Church Fully Reconciled, which Archbishop Moxon reportedly described as a series of essays that “will tackle the tough difficulties”.

According to a report on the Anglican Communion News Service website, ARCIC
has been practising what is known as the method of “receptive ecumenism”, wherein each group reveals its weaknesses to the other.

Archbishop Moxon was quoted as saying this method means having each partner say to the other, “You tell me your worst nightmare in mission and I’ll tell you mine. In other words, show me your wounds.”

This mutual vulnerability in ecumenical dialogue, the archbishop said, “leads to a mutual courage, a mutual partnership to assist each other in overcoming, and healing, and redeeming together”.

Archbishop Moxon is also the Archbishop of Canterbury’s representative in Rome.

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Good things from the West Coast

Michael Otto — Thu, 05 Mar 2015 20:54:13 +0000

GOD KNOWS WHERE THEY COME FROM! — Four Faith Stories from Hokitika (Craigs Design & Print Limited, Invercargill, 2014; www.craigprint.co.nz); $29.90. Reviewed by Bishop PATRICK DUNN.
This is a fascinating account of the lives of four church leaders who all have their origins in the small West Coast town of Hokitika. Hokitika now has a population of about 3000 but, in 1865, at the peak of the gold rush, it was New Zealand’s largest town.
The four church leaders are Allan Davidson (Presbyterian), Ted Schroder (Anglican), Richard
Waugh (Wesleyan) and the new Catholic Bishop of Hamilton, Stephen Lowe.
Rev. Ted Schroder has worked mostly in the United States, has been a prolific author and is based in Florida.
Rev. Dr Allan Davidson is a church historian and in recent decades has taught on the Auckland
scene, at St John’s College and at Auckland University. Rev. Dr Richard Waugh is chairman
of the Auckland Church Leaders and pastor at East City Wesleyan Church at Botany. Bishop
Stephen Lowe is a Christchurch priest who most recently served as formation director at Holy
Cross Seminary in Auckland.
The lovely thing about this book is that it covers four different styles of religion. It starts in Hokitika and lets each of the stories develop independently. As each of the authors tells his story, we also gain a glimpse of smalltown New Zealand as it existed until perhaps the 1960s.
One common feature is that each of the authors came from churchgoing families.
It brought home to me the importance of such families in fostering and supporting church vocations.
None of the families was rabidly religious, but just good people who endeavoured to love God and neighbour through their involvement in their local church and in the wider community.
Interesting, too, is to notice how each of the authors in some way experienced a call from God to become more involved in the life of the church.
This sense of mission was encouraged both within their own families and by friends in their local church.
Stephen Lowe mentions that he always “felt better” as a young boy after serving daily Mass.
He mentions another key turning point many years later when attending Mass in Timaru North, when Fr Kevin Foote challenged the congregation to be more than simply “supermarket Catholics”. Those words prompted him to work with other young parishioners to form a young adult group in the parish.
In the Gospels, Nathaniel expresses surprise that anything good might come from Nazareth. This book demonstrates that good things certainly came from Hokitika.
Although all four writers have now moved from the West Coast, Stephen Lowe wryly observes that “you can take the Coaster out of the Coast, but you cannot take the Coast out of the Coaster!”
Patrick Dunn is the Bishop of Auckland diocese.

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Denominations can learn from each other

Michael Otto — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 03:31:09 +0000

by DAN STOLLENWERK
AUCKLAND — Instead of asking what other denominations might learn from our beliefs, we must begin to ask how we might receive practical wisdom from the way other denominations have faced difficulties within their communions.
“Receptive ecumenism” was the overriding theme of discussion at the latest meeting of the Anglican Roman Catholic Conference of Aotearoa New Zealand (ARCCANZ), held at the Mercy Spirituality Centre from October 4 to 6.
Longtime conference member Fr Paul Williamson, SM, explained that because of confusion surrounding the study, and even abuse, of Scripture, a synod of bishops gathered to consider the Word in the liturgy and life of the Church. That led to the publication by Benedict XVI of the apostolic exhortation Verbum Domini.
Anglican Archbishop David Moxon recognised Verbum Domini as an opportunity for receptive ecumenism. He spoke of Anglicanism’s own challenges with interpreting the Scriptures relating to major decisionmaking over several contemporary questions, including human sexuality.
That has prompted an Anglican international study, The Bible in the Life of the Church.
As chairman of that project and as co-chairman, with Catholic Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham, of the third Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC III), Archbishop Moxon will propose that the two documents be studied side by side.
Ecumenism may have begun in the 1960s and 70s with unrealistic aspirations of hastened structural unity, the members of ARCCANZ agreed, but the present-day ecumenical winter of decreased interest and commitment need not be the last word.
The parallel study of Catholicism’s Verbum Domini and Anglicanism’s The Bible in the Life of the Church may well be a model of a new receptive ecumenism, of how each communion can learn from the other.
A report back on ARCIC III and a renewed interest by both communions in lectio divina will be the themes of the next bi-annual meeting of ARCCANZ, to be held at the Anglican retreat centre of Vaughan Park from March 9 to 10, 2012.

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