Anglican/Roman Catholic International Commission (Arcic)

The Counter Reformation commenced formally with the Council of Trent (1551-1563), and continued through the First (1869-1870) and Second (1962-1965) Vatican Councils. It is represented today by the less formal Anglican/ Roman Catholic International Commissions (ARCIC). Though these Commissions do not speak with ecclesiastical authority, members are appointed by the Vatican and the Archbishop of Canterbury. ARCIC has been described by its Roman Catholic co-secretary as “the official instrument of theological dialogue between the Catholic Church (sic) and the Churches of the Anglican Communion”. Reports are submitted to the Roman and Anglican authorities as a basis for a consensus which is intended to result in “the restoration of full ecclesial communion” between these bodies.

The first ARCIC began work in 1970 at the instigation of Pope Paul VI and Anglican Archbishop Ramsey, and its final report On Eucharist, Ministry and Authority was published in 1982 just before the Pope visited Britain. The statements on Eucharist and Ministry were accepted by a majority of the Church of England’s General Synod as substantially consonant with the Thirty-Nine Articles and the statement on Authority was considered sufficiently acceptable to be the basis of further study. The outstanding problem was how the primacy of the pope would fit in with collegiality in the structures of the Church, the proposal being that the Bishop of Rome should be the head of a reunited church.

A second ARCIC, with Evangelical Anglican participants, was established in 1983 as a result of the Pope’s visit to Archbishop Runcie, and still exists. It reported previously on salvation in relation to faith, justification, good works and the Church. It concluded that each side, at the time of the Reformation, misunderstood and caricatured the views of the other, that there is no fundamental difference and that both views can be amalgamated. In these reports the compromises are all on the side of professed Protestants. Roman dogma (with the practices implicated in it, including penance, masses, indulgences and purgatory) emerges unscathed even when presented in deceptively conciliatory terms. ARCIC uses what a commentator in 1987 described as “its recontextualising methodology as a means for minimising the theological differences of the Reformation”. The “spin” of a current participant is: “The ‘ARCIC method’, which is by now well tried and tested, is to go behind entrenched positions or statements of doctrines which have proved divisive and to see, as much as we can, what, as Anglican and Roman Catholic Christians, we hold in common. Often ARCIC has used new language or perspectives, or revisited old language and perspectives, to bring out what we have in common and what we can say together”.

ARCIC II has just published its latest report, entitled “Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ”, officially launched in the UK on May 19 in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey, where the Westminster Assembly laboured over our Confession of Faith. This document affirms that “it is impossible to be faithful to Scripture without giving attention to the person of Mary” (para 77), whom it regards as being, of all believers, closest to the Saviour, having a distinctive place in the economy of grace and typifying and embodying the elect of whom Paul speaks in Romans 8:30. It professes to show that the claims that Mary was sinless from her conception and that, at the end of her life, she was taken soul and body into heaven – and also the practice of praying to Mary – are “consonant with Scripture”. Rome and Canterbury are said to be “heirs to a rich tradition which recognises Mary as ever virgin, and sees her as the new Eve and as type of the Church” (para 51).

In support of the 1854 papal proclamation of the Immaculate Conception of Mary it states: “In view of her vocation to be the mother of the Holy One (Luke 1:35), we can affirm together that Christ’s redeeming work reached back in Mary to the depths of her being, and to her earliest beginnings. This is not contrary to the teaching of Scripture” (para 59).

In support of the 1950 papal proclamation of Mary’s bodily Assumption into heaven it states: “We affirm together the teaching that God has taken the Blessed Virgin Mary in the fullness of her person into His glory as consonant with Scripture, and only to be understood in the light of Scripture” (para 77).

In support of praying to Mary and the saints it states: “Asking our brothers and sisters, on earth and in heaven, to pray for us, does not contest the unique mediatory work of Christ”, which operates through human beings (para 68). It is claimed that “asking the saints to pray for us is not to be excluded as unscriptural, though not taught by the Scriptures to be a required element of life in Christ” (para 70). “Affirming together unambiguously Christ’s unique mediation, which bears fruit in the life of the Church, we do not consider the practice of asking Mary and the saints to pray for us as communion-dividing . . . we believe that there is no continuing theological reason for ecclesial division on these matters” (para 79).

The Roman Catholic co-secretary of ARCIC anticipates “that a third phase of work for ARCIC will be initiated in due course”. No doubt this will result in concluding that, if something is allegedly not denied in Scripture, it can be accepted on the basis of tradition or papal pronouncement and so open the way to full accord.

Whatever deluded Anglicans involved may think, ARCIC is an instrument whereby Rome seeks to regain control of their Church. The Anglican Canon Sagovsky, speaking at the UK launch of this document, asserted that “as Anglicans and Roman Catholics, we believe that through our baptism into Christ we already share a deep unity and we look forward in prayer and hope to the day when we shall no longer be separated at the eucharist. . . . We are now one more significant step along the road to unity and that is something truly to celebrate. But we must recognise that this is only a step and we cannot and should not pretend we yet have all the answers or have fully addressed the questions in some very difficult areas. . . . We think ARCIC is pointing a way forward, when we suggest to our authorities that, though diversity of Marian doctrine and understanding exists and will doubtless continue to exist within and between our Communions, the breadth of that diversity is not such as to justify continued separation at the eucharist.”

This note cannot provide an in-depth critique of the falsehoods which ARCIC endeavours to clothe with Biblical authority. Its purpose is merely to alert readers to how far down the road to incorporation in the Roman system the Anglican Church has travelled, with all the sad consequences for our nation. Calls for disestablishment and agitation for abolition of the Protestant constitution of the Throne combine with subtle means such as ARCIC to prepare the Church of England for complete capitulation. While we do not trust in princes or men’s sons for the preservation of truth among us, we cannot but mourn over how the foundations are being destroyed.

H.M.Cartwright, Edinburgh
Taken with permission from the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland Magazine July 2005
www.fpchurch.org.uk