The twenty-fourth Colloquium of Anglican and Roman Catholic Canon lawyers: canon law and confession

The subject of the sixth meeting of the Colloquium of Anglican and Roman Catholic Canon Lawyers in Rome 2005 was the Roman Catholic position that Anglican orders are invalid. The meeting employed a canonical framework to explore the status and terms of Apostolicae curae (1896) and the modern applicability of the canonical issues of intent, matter, form, and minister to the question of Anglican orders. The meeting did not examine pneumatological aspects of ordination. This article seeks to set alongside each other the ritual elements of the liturgy for the ordination of priests in both the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches in their respective canonical contexts. It proposes the value of a pneumatological approach for possible Roman Catholic recognition of the vitality of Anglican orders. A draft of this paper was presented to the seventh meeting of the Colloquium of Anglican and Roman Catholic Canon Lawyers in Johannesburg in February 2006, where it was favourably received.

The Formation and Ordination of Clergy in Anglican and Roman Catholic Canon Law Edited by Norman Doe The Acts of the Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Colloquia of Anglican and Roman Catholic Canon Lawyers, Rome 2005, Johannesburg 2006, Rome 2007 Centre for Law and Religion, Cardiff, 2009, 161pp ISBN: 978-0-9558097-3-6 - Marriage in Anglican and Roman Catholic Canon Law Edited by Norman Doe The Acts of the Ninth Colloquium of Anglican and Roman Catholic Canon Lawyers, Malta 2008 Centre for Law and Religion, Cardiff, 2009, 119pp ISBN: 978-0-9558097-4-3 - Volume 12 Issue 1

Readers of the Journal will recall the Ecclesiastical Law Society's long tradition of serious ecumenical engagement, embodied in the biennial Lyndwood Lecture with the Canon Law Society of Great Britain and Ireland, and recall that a number of members of the Society are regularly engaged with the Colloquium of Anglican and Roman Catholic Canon Lawyers. Moreover, ecumenical agreement and disagreement have canonical consequences, as, for example, in the debate about Anglican orders. In moral theology, particularly Roman Catholic moral theology, the relation between moral teaching, the confessional and canon law is obvious to any practitioner. My own interest in the Ecclesiastical Law Society was a direct consequence of my involvement in Anglican–Roman Catholic dialogue as successively co-secretary, member and consultant of the various embodiments of the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) from 1974 onwards. An ecumenical conversation with Canon Graham Routledge, a founder member, led me to seek membership of the Society in its early days.

The Ninth Colloquium of Anglican and Roman Catholic Canon Lawyers took place from 3 to 6 April 2008, at Bishop's House, Sliema, Malta, and the meeting was graciously hosted by the Anglican contingent. The ten participants (five Anglican and five Roman Catholic) were: on the Anglican side, Norman Doe (Chair), Bishop Paul Colton, Mark Hill, Anthony Jeremy (all from the Centre for Law and Religion at Cardiff Law School) and Stephen Slack (Director of Legal Services at the Archbishops' Council, Church of England); and, on the Roman Catholic side, James Conn, Michael Hilbert, Aidan McGrath (all from the Faculty of Canon Law at the Pontifical Gregorian University), Robert Ombres (Procurator General of the Dominicans) and Fintan Gavin.

The Twenty-Third Colloquium of Anglican and Roman Catholic Canon Lawyers: Canon Law and Synodality

The Second Colloquium of Anglican and Roman Catholic Canon Lawyers took place at St George's House, Windsor Castle, from 31st May to 3rd June 2000. The Colloquium was hosted by the Centre for Law and Religion at Cardiff Law School under the leadership of Professor Norman Doe, whose recent appointment to a personal chair at Cardiff University was a cause of much celebration amongst the participants. The Colloquium was designed to build upon the pioneering work of a similar venture convened last year in Rome by the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas which, together with Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, USA, cosponsored the event. A report of the first Colloquium appears at (1999) 5 Ecc LJ 281.

The latest colloquium took place in London, and had as its theme ‘Counsel and Consent’, a clear echo of Eric Kemp's book of that title. On the Anglican side, the participants were Will Adam, Norman Doe, Mark Hill QC (in whose Inner Temple chambers we met), Anthony Jeremy and Stephen Slack. The Roman Catholic canonists were Andrew Cole, James Conn SJ, Fintan Gavin, Aidan McGrath OFM and Robert Ombres OP.

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This article examines the internal regulation of religious organisations in terms of their law, order or polity. It offers a systematic comparative analysis of how different Christian traditions structure and regulate themselves. The resultant legal frameworks are expressive of the institutional self-understanding of particular churches and, as such, are a form of applied ecclesiology. The paper draws upon two ongoing research studies: the Colloquium of Anglican and Roman Catholic Canon Lawyers and the Christian Law Panel of Experts, the latter having submitted a detailed submission to the World Council of Churches’ Faith and Order Commission giving a legal critique of its recent document ‘Towards a Common Vision’. Through a detailed methodical and comparative analysis of the various structural and regulatory formulae adopted by the different branches of the Christian family, profound similarities are discernible that are redolent with deeper theological significance. This research represents an emergent platform capable of being utilised within the ecumenical endeavour to give traction in the movement towards greater visible unity in the 21st century.

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