A Chat with a Monsignor

Today I had the opportunity to meet with Mgr. Andrew Faley, Assistant General Secretary for the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales--an intimidating title for a man who is far from intimidating. He wears three hats for his title, and one of them is Ecumenical Officer for the CBCEW. I met with him for my special studies project into Ecumenism into the UK, so we chatted about various things pertaining to Catholic theology on The Church, Anglican-Roman Catholic relations, and Local Ecumenical Partnerships. He was quite candid and well-informed and is a personable man.

The cool part I wanted to share to evoke thought was when I confronted him with a contrast in ecumenism. There is sometimes a tension or disconnect in Christian unity efforts between the things happening on the local level and the talks and conversations happening on the institutional and theological levels. For example, people on local levels see Protestants allowing intercommunion and enjoying the shared services and interaction between denominations within the services. Then they wonder why Catholics can't have it. Well, the Catholic Church teaches that intercommunion/Eucharistic sharing is something to be reserved until full communion is reached among Christians; for now, only those is full communion with the Catholic Church can share communion, and Catholics ought not to receive the Eucharist with those outside of it.

I asked him about the relationship between top-down and bottom-up ecumenism. In the UK, there are many Local Ecumenical Partnerships that combine several Protestant traditions into one parish, and some of those are in covenant with Catholic parishes (like Cornerstone, which I visited-- that is a covenant between Catholics and the four Protestant denominations). He understands well the need for both approaches and talked about ways that these two arenas are in contact, thank God.

1. One of the Catholic-Anglican bodies that meets twice a year spends part of one of those meetings visiting some kind of partnership or coop that exists between their traditions. Mgr. Faley is not a huge supporter of LEPs and such, but he spoke highly of the way that seeing visible unity strikes the members of this joint body. Making time to visit the people there are serving by having these talks seems to have a definite impact on the higher-ups, and he said it helps to ground them in their conversation. It helps to de-abstract the work and remind them of the actual reality within the things they talk about.

2. He explained to me an element of the puzzle that JP2 and BXVI have played up. It referred to as "receptive ecumenism". Catholics are encouraged to ask Christians of other traditions, "What do you see in our Church that resembles unity and communion? What do you think is lacking in our Church that would build greater communion?" It helps to identify the exchange of gifts that should occur between the riches of traditions. [Faley was huge on the lines between denominations not becoming blurred because he finds there to be great riches in each tradition, even if he doesn't agree with every bit of it. He would hate for watered-down Christianity to be how we all unite.] In Durham, they are practicing this in a kind of different way between the institutionals/leaders and the rest of the people. In the kind of dialogue they are fostering, it turns the top-down/bottom-up approaches into a horizontal exchange. It takes the connection and levels it out. The leaders remain leaders but engage the issues and their grassroots people at the level of mutual conversation.

It's hard to try and distill all that I soaked in during those 75 minutes with Faley, but that's an effort at hinting toward the things he described. Once I process it into my research journal, it will make more sense (I hope). And I'm sure his remarks will play a part in my final paper, as he was a wonderful source to interview.