Archbishop Nichols at Churches Together in England Forum

Archbishop Nichols with delegates

Churches Together in England met at Swanwick last week celebrating 25 years since their first meeting and examined the theme “What does Love Require of Us?

Three days of intensive dialogue was inter woven with shared worship by 270 delegates, including representatives from affiliated bodies such as The Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Housing Justice .They concluded that Love requires listening to each other, sharing and learning from each other's traditions, celebrating and accepting the gifts which each brings. It was recognised that there are divisive issues in ethics and faith and order,but that they were called to continue dialogue and working together and especially to pray together.

Thirty eight churches are members of CTE and this year Greek Orthodox Archbishop Gregorious of Thyateira has become an additional President . Archbishop Vincent Nichols, joined the Presidents panel on Wednesday dialoguing with other members and answering questions from the floor. The Archbishop of Canterbury, who was visiting Papua New Guinea, had prerecorded an interview with the Forum's Moderator which was broadcast to the gathering .He said that ecumenism is at its most effective when Christians deepen their praying together.

Archbishop Nichols referred to the New Evangelisation in the Catholic Church and the challenge to meet people's religious sensitivity inherent in most people despite secularisation. He mentioned that he had recorded a programme for the BBC about Catholic Social Teaching to be broadcast on 5 November. The Archbishop sees Catholic Social Teaching as providing a helpful framework to engage the middle ground in the current meltdown in the economic and social stratosphere, although he said that the BBC were a bit negative about anything incorporating the word Catholic!

The discussion was followed by a book signing of a new book launched at the Forum , Unity in Progress ,Reflections on Ecumenism by 23 contributors including Archbishop Nichols and Dame Mary Tanner,President of the World Council of Churches .

Archbishop Nichols later attended a late night prayer vigil co-ordinated by Sister Diane Reynolds,a Catholic religious of the Ignatian congregation of the Sisters of St Andrew. Sister Diane said that the Forum gave us space to express in prayer the diversity and richness of gifts in each tradition.

Reverend Dr.David Cornick ,General Secretary of CTE ,addressed the Forum saying that “the problem with ecumenism is not that it has failed but that its success had gone unheralded” as the churches had failed to celebrate what they had achieved, “the replacement of enmity with friendship, competition with fellowship in Christ,” which was a very considerable achievement.

Speaking of the ecumenical service at Westminster Abbey during the Papal visit, he referred to Pope Benedict's words as ,“a gesture of deep spiritual friendship, of a continuing if different relationship. ..... a living parable...., Pope Benedict , he said “asked us to entrust the '...blessings, the disappointments and the signs of hope which have marked our ecumenical journey' to God, confident that '...the friendships we have forged, the dialogue which we have begun and the hope which guides us will provide strength and direction as we persevere on our common journey.'

Dr Cornick also highlighted the cooperation of the churches during the Olympics as“ a huge harnessing of new church energy.”