The Church as sacrament

Abstract

In 1967 Pope Paul VI acknowledged that the papacy is a major obstacle on the road to Christian unity. More recently, Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical on ecumenism, invited non-Roman Christians to contribute to a revisioning of the papal office. On the basis of this acknowledgement and invitation, this essay explores related issues from an Anglican perspective. These include a consideration of both positive and negative aspects of the ARCIC statement The Gift of Authority with regard to the papacy; a view of the evolution of Anglican attitudes toward the papacy from the time of the Reformation; and, finally, issues related to the model of the papacy which has been in place since the pontificate of Pope Pius IX and the First Vatican Council. The pontificate of Pius IX was a turning point in papal theory toward an absolutist model of papal authority functioning apart from other sources of authority within the life of the Church. The revisioning of the papacy which Pope John Paul has invited would seem to require, if it is to become a sign of unity for all Christians, the setting aside of this model. Yet such a development would violate the now established understanding of the office among conservative Roman Catholics.