Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ
The Seattle Statement
INTRODUCTION
- In honouring Mary as Mother of the Lord, all generations of
Anglicans and Roman Catholics have echoed the greeting of Elizabeth:
"Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit
of your womb" (Luke 1:42). The Anglican - Roman Catholic
International Commission now offers this Agreed Statement on
the place of Mary in the life and doctrine of the Church in
the hope that it expresses our common faith about the one who,
of all believers, is closest to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
We do so at the request of our two Communions, in response to
questions set before us. A special consultation of Anglican
and Roman Catholic bishops, meeting under the leadership of
the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, and Cardinal
Edward I. Cassidy, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting
Christian Unity, at Mississauga, Canada in 2000, specifically
asked ARCIC for "a study of Mary in the life and doctrine
of the Church." This request recalls the observation of
the Malta Report (1968) that "real or apparent differences
between us come to the surface in such matters as … the
Mariological definitions" promulgated in 1854 and 1950.
More recently, in Ut Unum Sint (1995), Pope John Paul
II identified as one area in need of fuller study by all Christian
traditions before a true consensus of faith can be achieved
"the Virgin Mary, as Mother of God and Icon of the Church,
the spiritual Mother who intercedes for Christ's disciples and
for all humanity" (para. 79).
- ARCIC has addressed this topic once before. Authority in
the Church II (1981) already records a significant degree
of agreement:
We agree that there can be but one mediator between God
and man, Jesus Christ, and reject any interpretation of
the role of Mary which obscures this affirmation. We agree
in recognising that Christian understanding of Mary is inseparably
linked with the doctrines of Christ and the Church. We agree
in recognising the grace and unique vocation of Mary, Mother
of God Incarnate (Theotókos), in observing
her festivals, and in according her honour in the communion
of saints. We agree that she was prepared by divine grace
to be the mother of our Redeemer, by whom she herself was
redeemed and received into glory. We further agree in recognising
in Mary a model of holiness, obedience and faith for all
Christians. We accept that it is possible to regard her
as a prophetic figure of the Church of God before as well
as after the Incarnation (para. 30).
The same document, however, points out remaining differences:
The dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption
raise a special problem for those Anglicans who do not consider
that the precise definitions given by these dogmas are sufficiently
supported by Scripture. For many Anglicans the teaching
authority of the bishop of Rome, independent of a council,
is not recommended by the fact that through it these Marian
doctrines were proclaimed as dogmas binding on all the faithful.
Anglicans would also ask whether, in any future union between
our two Churches, they would be required to subscribe to
such dogmatic statements (para. 30).
These reservations in particular were noted in the official
Response of the Holy See to The Final Report (1991,
para. 13). Having taken these shared beliefs and these questions
as the starting point for our reflection, we are now able
to affirm further significant agreement on the place of Mary
in the life and doctrine of the Church.
- The present document proposes a fuller statement of our shared
belief concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary and so provides the
context for a common appreciation of the content of the Marian
dogmas. We also take up differences of practice, including the
explicit invocation of Mary. This new study of Mary has benefited
from our previous study of reception in The Gift of Authority
(1999). There we concluded that, when the Church receives and
acknowledges what it recognizes as a true expression of the
Tradition once for all delivered to the Apostles, this reception
is an act both of faithfulness and of freedom. The freedom to
respond in fresh ways in the face of new challenges is what
enables the Church to be faithful to the Tradition which it
carries forward. At other times, some element of the apostolic
Tradition may be forgotten, neglected or abused. In such situations,
fresh recourse to Scripture and Tradition recalls God's revelation
in Christ: we call this process re-reception (cf. Gift
24-25). Progress in ecumenical dialogue and understanding suggests
that we now have an opportunity to re-receive together the tradition
of Mary's place in God's revelation.
- Since its inception ARCIC has sought to get behind opposed
or entrenched positions to discover and develop our common inheritance
of faith (cf. Authority I 25). Following The Common
Declaration in 1966 of Pope Paul VI and the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Dr Michael Ramsey, we have continued our "serious
dialogue … founded on the Gospels and on the ancient common
traditions." We have asked to what extent doctrine or devotion
concerning Mary belongs to a legitimate 'reception' of the apostolic
Tradition, in accordance with the Scriptures. This Tradition
has at its core the proclamation of the trinitarian ‘economy
of salvation', grounding the life and faith of the Church in
the divine communion of Father, Son and Spirit. We have sought
to understand Mary's person and role in the history of salvation
and the life of the Church in the light of a theology of divine
grace and hope. Such a theology is deeply rooted in the enduring
experience of Christian worship and devotion.
- God's grace calls for and enables human response (cf. Salvation
and the Church [1987] 9). This is seen in the Gospel account
of the Annunciation, where the angel's message evokes the response
of Mary. The Incarnation and all that it entailed, including
the passion, death and resurrection of Christ and the birth
of the Church, came about by way of Mary's freely uttered fiat
– "let it be done to me according to your word"
(Luke 1:38). We recognize in the event of the Incarnation God's
gracious ‘Yes' to humanity as a whole. This reminds us
once more of the Apostle's words in 2 Corinthians 1:18-20 (Gift
8ff): all God's promises find their ‘Yes' in the Son of
God, Jesus Christ. In this context, Mary's fiat can be
seen as the supreme instance of a believer's ‘Amen' in
response to the ‘Yes' of God. Christian disciples respond
to the same ‘Yes' with their own ‘Amen'. They thus
know themselves to be children together of the one heavenly
Father, born of the Spirit as brothers and sisters of Jesus
Christ, drawn into the communion of love of the blessed Trinity.
Mary epitomizes such participation in the life of God. Her response
was not made without profound questioning, and it issued in
a life of joy intermingled with sorrow, taking her even to the
foot of her son's cross. When Christians join in Mary's ‘Amen'
to the ‘Yes' of God in Christ, they commit themselves to
an obedient response to the Word of God, which leads to a life
of prayer and service. Like Mary, they not only magnify the
Lord with their lips: they commit themselves to serve God's
justice with their lives (cf. Luke 1:46-55).
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