The Archbishop's Advent 2009 Pastoral Letter
To the clergy and parishes and the deaconesses
of the United Anglican Church
As we celebrate
this very special season of Advent, we recall the history of God's people and reflect on how the prophecies and promises of
the Old Testament were fulfilled in the first coming of our incarnate Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ. The
Messiah has come to bring salvation of all. At this time in our liturgical calendar, we annually celebrate
His coming. At the same time, we look forward to the second coming of our Lord. Advent
provides a time for historical redemptive action of our Lord and maintains our expectancy and joyful anticipation of the coming
again of Christ the King in the fullness of His glory. Advent's mood is silence, waiting, and expectation.
It is a time of prayer and anticipation of what God is going to do in the next months as our ecclesiastical year progresses.
In
this double focus on past and future, Advent also symbolizes the spiritual journey of individuals and a congregation, as they
affirm that Christ has come, that He is present in the world today, and that He will come again in power. This
acknowledgment provides a basis for Kingdom ethics, for holy living arising from a profound sense that we live "between
the times" and are called to be faithful stewards of what is entrusted to us as God’s people. So,
as we--the church--celebrate God’s in breaking into history in the Incarnation, and anticipate a future consummation
to that history for which "all creation is groaning awaiting its redemption," we also confess our own responsibility
as a people commissioned to "love the Lord your God with all your heart" and to "love your neighbor as yourself."
Within this is our work with other jurisdictions to bring about cooperation with one another and to bring about unity,
overcoming the schisms within the visible church.
Since our merger forming the United
Anglican Church in 2002, we have maintained a motto of "peace, unity, and reconciliation" particularly focused on
healing the broken relationships within our catholicity--particularly within Anglicanism as well as with the Roman Catholic
Church and the Orthodox Churches.
Our merger of two Anglican
jurisdictions (i.e., the Traditional Episcopal Church and the Anglo-Catholic Church in the Americas plus a number of clergy
and parishes from the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches) was our initial step in intercommunion among Anglican jurisdictions.
We have constantly continued this focus working for cooperation and for intercommunion among Anglicans--with
direct relationship with the Traditional Anglican Communion, the Federation of Anglican Churches in the Americas, and others.
Most recently, we have met regularly and frequently with the leadership and local clergy and parishes of what now is
the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). We have been most hopeful about the ACNA, but the problems
with its ordinance and its Ecclesiology (i.e., its doctrine of the Church and its ministry) have insurmountable problems obstructing
intercommunion--specifically, the ministry of women in Holy Orders. Our canons and traditions will not
allow intercommunion with Anglicans that ordain women, including the internal relationship that the ordinance of the ACNA
has developed. The likelihood of change in this divided altar among Anglican Catholics and the newly emerging
Anglicans leaving the two North American national Anglican jurisdictions is remote in the light of the resistance of the GAFCON
leadership to directly deal with their divisive actions since the 1970s. Cooperation among these Anglicans
is still possible and should be maintained. However, as I shared with you all in a previous message, intercommunion
relationships are blocked and deadlocked, although it will likely be "studied" ad infinitum.
Over ten years ago, +Bishop Jose Delgado along with +Archbishop Louis W. Falk of the Anglican Church in America along
with other bishops met with Cardinal Ratzinger, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Cardinal
Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council For The Promotion Of Christian Unity, during the papacy of
His Holiness Pope John Paul II. In 2001 through 2003, our late Archbishop, ++Gil McDowell, met with His
Holiness John Paul II, Cardinals Ratzinger and Arinze, and two other high ranking cardinals on how intercommunion with the
Holy See could become reality. During this time period, there were meetings between ++Gil and these highest
ranking leaders within the Vatican while +Falk and ++Gil worked on language to make an intercommunion possible.
I was asked to consult on this draft document which the Vatican used to further its internal consideration.
The day that ++Gil died while in Rome, he had met with His Holiness John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger to talk further
about this. The relationship of the UAC and TAC had already become most difficult, but the working interaction
that ++Gil had with the pope and the cardinal was significantly forging ahead. Although I have had a number
of meetings with Vatican officials, I personally felt that this dialogue was a very long term activity which others after
my death would reap the harvest of the current work of planting and cultivating. However, the events since
this past summer moved this ahead with surprising speed and hope. I was notified by some officials in the
Vatican in September that there was exciting movement toward intercommunion underway and eminent. There
were a number of e-mails back and forth starting in October, even though I was traveling for over five weeks at the time.
(It is sometimes wonderful to have e-mail on my cell phone.) The College of Bishops has been communicating
on the recent offer presented by the Vatican to Anglicans.
I have just returned from a few
days with +Bishop Jose Delgado at the monastery in Puerto Rico--Franciscan Brothers of the Divine Providence (Hermanos Franciscanos
de la Providencia, HFP). It was a pleasure to have Fr Jim Rocha from Springfield MO to participate with
us and also serve as chaplain for morning and evening prayers and daily celebration of the Eucharist. Our
discussions centered around the initiative of the Vatican to welcome Anglicans into intercommunion, published as the Apostolic
Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus and its accompanying Complementary Norms for the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus.
The following were our conclusions.
The UAC should proceed with the Vatican's invitation
fundamentally because this invitation and the work already accomplished between the Vatican and Anglicans is aimed at healing
and reconciling the divisions that the Reformation produced on all sides. This is the major and foremost
reason for doing this. This intentional action aims at opening an active dialogue between the UAC and the
Vatican and its regional representatives.
+Jose and I feel that there is a respect
by the Vatican for our Anglican heritage and identity. John 17 can become a reality--"to be one"--among
the rites within the Roman Catholic Church and Anglicans, while each maintains its our identity within this unity.
We discussed at length whether or not our Anglican ethos will be maintained if an intercommunion with the Vatican exists
under this Apostolic Constitution. We concluded that His Holiness (who by the way has been involved personally
since Vatican II with work dealing with intercommunion with the Anglicans) wants to maintain our Anglican ethos.
There is another criterion for +Jose and me, namely, "If this makes people of God,
then we do it; if this does not make people of God, then we do not do it." This involves the work
of the Church in making disciples of Christ and building Christ's Church. Our lengthy discussions were
about what the Vatican leadership wants we Anglican to bring to them. Our conclusion was that we Anglican
Catholics take very seriously our liturgy, our worship, our theology, and our ministry--and we are a conservative voice in
all of this. We do not bring a lot of numbers in comparison to the Holy See internationally, a lot of wealth,
or a lot of buildings, et al--we do bring a deep spiritual commitment that is alive and well, and it has been consistent.
And like the junk yard dog in Jim Croce's old song, we have been and are tenacious about it.
There
are still a number of questions to forge ahead in this intercommunion. These will be articulated and will
contribute to whatever action results.
I have included three attachments. The first is
"Anglicanorum coetibus 9Nov2009 press release.pdf." This gives a quick overview of the Apostolic
Constitution and the Complementary Norms and a overview by the Vatican. The second is "Benedict XVI
Anglicanorum Coetibus with commentary Nov09.pdf." This contains the complete documents with the material
noted in their footnotes--i.e., the full text of the footnoted references. The third is "Releases
Vatican statement to receive Anglicans 20Oct09.pdf." This starts with an index of its contents.
The releases are from various sources. The materials on pages 35 through the end are very significant
and bring specific material to the forefront from those involved in the specifics of these recent developments.
Although it appears that the Bishops of England and Wales are ahead of the US House of Bishops on how they will proceed
with the details. As of this writing, I have not seen the US HOB plan, etc. We have
a unique situation in the UAC in that we are a small jurisdiction that is located in North, Central, and South America.
Interestingly, our largest parish (St James) is located in Argentina! [Recent photos of this new
UAC parish will be attached to a second e-mail to you all]
I am sure that for some this raises
many questions. You are not along in this. We share this concern. +Jose
and I have harkened back to St Augustine through John Wesley and John XXIII. "In essentials, unity;
in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity." His Holiness Pope John XXIII writes about this
in his first encyclical Ad Petri cathedram of 1959, paragraph 72. This quote is often used to argue whatever
the arguer wants to include as "essential." Regarding biblical essential theology, +Jose's paraphrase
of it in our discussions was: "In what is essential [to salvation], be in unity; what is not, have
cooperation" (agreement to disagree, yet work together where possible).
In 2003
on the day he died during his sleep, ++Gil send a message to some of us by post card. His message was:
"The doors are open." It has taken six years for us to see the reality of this.
One of my close friends who works in one of the Congregations in Rome recently wrote in an e-mail that the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith is really serious about finding a way to make this work.
Please pray and reflect on this. Please communicate your thoughts as well as your concerns and
questions.
With this in mind, I return to Advent and its duel themes of anticipation.
Advent is marked by a spirit of expectation,
of anticipation, of preparation, of longing. There is a yearning for deliverance from the evils of the
world, first expressed by Israelite slaves in Egypt as they cried out from their bitter oppression. It
is the cry of those who have experienced the tyranny of injustice in a world under the curse of sin, and yet have hope of
deliverance from a God who has heard the cries of oppressed slaves and brought deliverance! We pray
especially for today's Christians-at-risk in various parts of the world.
It is this hope however faint at times, and God however distant He sometimes seems,
that brings to the world the anticipation of a King who will rule with truth and justice and righteousness over His people
and in His creation . It is this hope that once anticipated, and now anticipates anew, the reign of an Anointed One, the Messiah,
who will bring peace and justice and righteousness to the world.
Part of this expectation also anticipates a judgment on sin and a calling of the world
to accountability before God. We long for God to come and set the world right! As the
prophet Amos warned, the expectation of a coming judgment also brings the penetrating light of God’s judgment on sin
and will shine just as brightly on God’s people.
Because of this important truth, especially in the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Season of Advent
has been a time of fasting and penitence for sins similar to the Season of Lent. However, a different emphasis
for the season of Advent has gradually unfolded in much of the rest of the church. The season of Advent
has come to be celebrated more in terms of expectation or anticipation. Yet, the anticipation of the Coming
of the Messiah throughout the Old Testament and Judaism was not in connection with remembrance of sins. Rather,
it was in the context of oppression and injustice, the longing for redemption, not from personal guilt and sin but from the
systemic evil of the world expressed in evil empires and tyrants. It is in that sense that all creation
groans for its redemption as we witness the evil that so dominates our world (Rom 8:18-25).
We celebrate with gladness the great promise in the Advent, yet knowing that there is
also a somber tone as the theme of threat is added to the theme of promise. This is reflected in some of
the readings for Advent, in which there is a strong prophetic tone of accountability and judgment on sin. But
this is also faithful to the role of the Coming King who comes to rule, save, and judge the world.
Because of the dual themes of threat and promise, Advent is a time
of preparation that is marked by prayer. While Lent is characterized by fasting and a spirit of penitence,
Advent’s prayers are prayers of humble devotion and commitment, prayers of submission, prayers for deliverance, prayers
from those walking in darkness who are awaiting a great light!
The spirit of Advent is expressed well in the parable of the bridesmaids who are anxiously
awaiting the coming of the Bridegroom. There is profound joy at the Bridegroom’s expected coming.
And yet a warning of the need for preparation echoes through the parable. But even then, the prayer
of Advent is still: Come, O Come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel!
In Christ's service,
+Bob
The Most Rev. Dr. Robert D. Parlotz, FOHS
Archbishop and Primate
The United Anglican Church
