Catholics and Anglicans

Dialogue

• Dialogue means living, studying, and working together in solidarity, and overcoming the divisions that separate churches.

• A universal church of Christ will not be identical to any existing church.

• The Catholic Church believes:

• In the Catholic Church, the fullness of the Church of Christ continues to exist.

  • This is a wounded fullness as long as there is division among Christian churches.

  • Important elements are present in other churches.

  • Other churches do not have the Catholic Church’s fullness of the Church of Christ.

• For Catholics, full communion must have:

  • A consensus on the core doctrines as found in the scriptures and the Creed

  • Acknowledgement of the importance of the sacraments, especially Eucharist

  • The ministry of priests, bishops, and pope

• Not all churches see what it means to be church the same way Catholics do, nor do they want to be church in the same way.

• Ecumenical dialogue’s goal is to clarify what it means to be the church of Jesus Christ.