The
head of the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin
Welby, said he hopes to “produce a few surprises” with Pope Francis in
terms of ecumenical relations between the two churches, but declined to
disclose any details.
The archbishop made the comment in an interview with Vatican Radio’s Philippa Hitchen at the 10th Assembly of the World Council of Churches, currently underway in Busan, South Korea.
He
also reflected on the challenges and concessions that need to be made
for the sake of Christian unity. The longer Christians “exist in
different church communities around the world,” he said, “the more our
different communities embed their own institutions and put down roots.”
“Perhaps
we need to reimagine what it means to look like the church and to
surrender some of the things that give us our sense of identity in the
cause of Christ,” he said.
The churches need to be sure they are
working on the important doctrinal and dogmatic differences between
them “in the context of churches and ecclesial communities that say no
sacrifice is too great to be obedient to the call of Christ that we may
be one,” he said.
Read a transcript from the interview below:
Q.: This is your first WCC Assembly. How important do you see the role of the WCC today?
Archbishop Welby: It’s
my first experience, so I’m very much here learning. I think the first
thing that struck me is the breadth and scale of the church and I think
one of the things that the WCC does is bring together every point of the
church, many of which disagree quite strongly, but you get a sense of
the breadth and the depth and the width of the work of Christ across the
world and that’s extraordinarily impressive.
Q.: The WCC is
sometimes criticized for being a celebration of difference and
diversity, and yet you received loud applause when you talked about the
commitment to full, visible, sacramental unity?
Archbishop Welby:
I think the longing for the union of Christ’s church comes from the
work of the Holy Spirit rather than from us generating it. I think it is
a gift of the Spirit and that longing is deepening and growing but, as
you say, the diversity of our world is reflected more and more in a
universal church and it becomes harder and harder to overcome the
obstacles. The danger is that you end up in some kind of soup where
everything goes mushy. But the other side is that we learn what it is to
love one another in diversity, yet holding to the one Lord Jesus Christ
as the centre of our lives, the one we follow, the one to whom we are
disciples.
Q.: You said recently that most of our
disagreements are about power and prestige rather than dogma or
doctrine. What exactly do you mean?
Archbishop Welby: …We
exist in different church communities, different ecclesial communities
around the world and the longer that goes on, the more our different
communities embed their own institutions and put down roots. Some of
them have been putting down roots for centuries and that makes it harder
and harder for us to say, well, actually, perhaps we need to reimagine
what it means to look like the church and to surrender some of the
things that give us our sense of identity in the cause of Christ. There
are very fundamental and extremely important doctrinal and dogmatic
differences that we have between us and they have to be worked on, as
they are with Rome and the Anglicans with ARCIC, and we take those
extremely seriously. It’s absolutely essential that those are worked on.
But we need to make sure we’re working on them in the context of
churches and ecclesial communities that say no sacrifice is too great to
be obedient to the call of Christ that we may be one.
Q.:
… Neither you nor Pope Francis seem remotely interested in power and
prestige. Does this mean therefore that we can expect some kind of
surprising healing or reconciliation in the near future?
Archbishop Welby:
God has given you, and given us all, a great Pope. And he’s a great
Pope of surprises… and I think people are inspired and uplifted by what
they see in Pope Francis, as I am. I think he’s a wonderful person.
Surprises? Yes, I think there’ll be one or two surprises. We’re hoping
to produce a few surprises.
Q.: You announced a few
interesting joint initiatives on that last visit, and you’re due back
again in the spring. Can you give us any hint, any teaser of what we can
expect on this next visit?
Archbishop Welby: No, absolutely not!
Q.:
You’ve also visited Japan and Hong Kong here in Asia – how do you see
the role of the minority Christian churches in this region?
Archbishop Welby:
Christians are a very small minority in Asia, but there are one or two
characteristics of Anglican churches, one of which is they are bridge
churches—they build bridges. Secondly, they educate, there are 150,000
children in Hong Kong being educated in church schools. In Japan, the
church is profoundly and deeply involved with the communities affected
by the tsunami and Fukushima disasters and are working in beautiful ways
in serving those communities at the very grassroots with the people who
others are not reaching out to, so poor church for the poor and I
rejoiced at that.
Q.: Do you see this WCC theme of justice and peace central to your ministry?
Archbishop Welby:
I hope the central theme of my ministry begins with prayer, and my own
engagement with the love of Jesus and our call to be a people of love
who serve the poor – I think all those wind in together. The WCC
Assembly theme is central to Christian ministry but it isn’t the whole
of Christian ministry.
Q.: You’ve also been dealing
recently with divisions with your own Anglican communion. You met with
leaders at the second GAFCON encounter of traditionalist Anglican
bishops in Kenya. How concerned are you about the deep differences of
vision within the Anglican world?
Archbishop Welby: The
trip to Kenya was wonderful. I went principally to express my solidarity
with people and churches in Kenya, following the terrorist attack in
Nairobi. It happened to be the weekend leading into the GAFCON meeting,
and I met their leaders and that was a great privilege. The Anglicans
have always conducted their disagreements very openly, publically,
loudly. I rejoice in groups, like GAFCON, with many other across the
church, with lots of different perspectives, which call us in particular
directions and remind us of the breadth and depth of Christian
commitment that we need. So, I’m grateful that they force me back to
think and I listen to all of them.
Q.: Regarding the issue
of women bishops, you now have new draft legislation that will be
discussed at the General Synod in November. How is this different from
the previous attempt, which failed so dramatically a year ago?
Archbishop Welby: You’ll
have seen the papers. What we’ve got here is a straightforward and
simple measure, which sets out some basic principles of how we operate
as a church, reinforced by an ombudsman scheme, so that people who feel
we’re not living by the principles we’ve set out have a recourse. So,
we’ll have to see if the synod also thinks it’s the right way to go. I
do hope, more than optimism.