c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Roman Catholic and Anglican leaders on Monday (May 16) announced newfound agreement on the Virgin Mary, putting to rest disagreements on her role in salvation that had simmered for almost 500 years.

The 81-page booklet, released in Seattle by the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), said the churches now see eye-to-eye on divisions that helped spark the 16th-century Protestant Reformation.

However, the statement said the only two Catholic dogmas that carry the weight of papal infallibility _ that Jesus’ mother was born without “the stain of original sin,” and was “assumed body and soul” into heaven at the end of her life _ remain an obstacle for some Anglicans.

Traditionally, Anglicans have rejected the pope’s power to proclaim any doctrine as infallible, and have been skittish about the Marian dogmas.

“Anglicans generally are a bit wary about definitions of dogma,” Anglican Archbishop Peter Carnley, co-chairman of ARCIC, said in an interview.

The booklet, “Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ,” said both churches now agree that the Immaculate Conception, proclaimed in 1854, and Mary’s Assumption, proclaimed in 1950, are “consonant” with Scripture. Neither should be a cause for division between the two bodies, the statement said.

“The question arises for Anglicans, however, as to whether these doctrines concerning Mary are revealed by God in a way which must be held by believers as a matter of faith,” the document said.

Carnley said both sides agree on “the meaning of” the two dogmas, but “the question of how the dogmas are defined still needs to be addressed.”

Still, the document represents a landmark agreement for both sides, as well as a step forward for Anglican-Catholic talks that were temporarily derailed by some Anglican churches’ embrace of homosexuality.

The Anglican Communion, which traces its roots to the Church of England, has 77 million members in 38 national churches, including the Episcopal Church in the United States.

In 2003, Episcopal Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold resigned as ARCIC’s co-chairman after he presided at the consecration of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire. On Thursday (May 12), the Vatican said the statement on Mary represents “new hope” for ecumenical relations.

The two churches have engaged in official dialogue since 1965, and the statement on Mary grew out of a 2000 request from leaders of both churches. It was released in Seattle because it was finished during a previous meeting there.

The statement called Mary “a model of holiness, faith and obedience for all Christians” and looked to her as “Christ’s foremost disciple.” The statement also:

_ Endorsed the practice of asking Mary and other saints to pray to God on behalf of believers. “Asking the saints to pray for us is not to be excluded as unscriptural, though it is not directly taught by the Scriptures to be a required element of life in Christ.”

_ Affirmed the special devotion given to Mary by many Catholics and growing numbers of Anglicans, so long as “the honor paid to Christ remains pre-eminent.”

_ Downplayed any notion that Mary has the power to save sinners. The churches said she “has a special place in the economy of salvation” but said the power of redemption lies only with Jesus Christ.

Catholic Archbishop Alexander Brunett of Seattle, the Catholic co-chairman of ARCIC, said Mary remains especially important for Catholics, but “if you were talking about the hierarchy of dogma, (the Marian dogmas) would not be at the very top of the list.”

During the first 1,500 years of Christian history, Anglicans and Catholics shared a common faith. But in the political and theological tumult of the 16th century, the Church of England split from Rome. Anglicans kept the pomp and pageantry of Catholic worship, but also embraced the Protestant ethos of relying on the Bible as the sole guide for Christian belief.

Excessive devotion to Mary and other saints was a major concern for Protestant Reformers. Indeed, the statement conceded there were “real and perceived abuses” that resulted in “excessive exaltation” of Mary’s role.

“Catholics were believed to have, as it were, invented a whole series of beliefs about Mary that didn’t have a proper place in Christian faith,” said the Rev. Gregory Cameron, deputy secretary general of the Anglican Communion, in an interview.

For their part, Catholics often accused Anglicans and other Protestants of overlooking Mary and grew defensive of their devotion to her. “What this document does is lay to rest both of those caricatures,” Cameron said.

On the Immaculate Conception, the two sides said, “We can affirm together that Christ’s redeeming work reached `back’ in Mary to the depths of her being, and to her earliest beginnings.”

And though “there is no direct testimony” in the Bible about how Mary died, the two sides affirmed the scriptural roots for the Assumption, that “God has taken the Blessed Virgin Mary in the fullness of her person into his glory.”

Both sides have asked how sensitive issues like the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption would be applied to Anglicans if the two churches were ever able to totally reconcile. “Roman Catholics find it hard to envisage a restoration of communion in which acceptance of certain doctrines would be requisite for some and not for others,” the statement said.

The document said both Anglican and Catholic understandings of Mary would be “authentic expressions of Christian belief.” In a footnote, it suggested that Anglicans might not have to follow the “explicit acceptance of the precise wording” of the two dogmas since they were not in communion with Rome when the dogmas were proclaimed.

AMB END ECKSTROM

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