Membership

The membership of the Commission to be predominantly bishops, to be appointed by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU) and the Anglican Communion Office.

Accountability

The Joint Unity Commission will report to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Inter Anglican Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations.

Mandate

The mandate of the Commission will include the following functions:

• to prioritise the ongoing work;
• to oversee the preparation of a Joint Declaration of Agreement and to plan the signing and celebration of the same;
• to promote and monitor the formal response and reception of the agreed statements of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC);
• to promote the coherence of other bilateral dialogues that Anglicans and Roman Catholics are involved in;
• to examine the range of possible ways, within current canon law provisions, to deal generously and pastorally with situations of inter-church marriages involving Anglicans and Roman Catholics;
• to explore ways of communicating the results of the Toronto Meeting to provinces and episcopal conferences not represented;
• to commission the production of resources (bible studies, videos, CD-ROMs, etc) to assist in making the work of ARCIC known throughout the churches;
• to encourage Anglican provinces and Roman Catholic episcopal conferences to set up national Anglican-Roman Catholic (ARC) dialogue groups where they do not exist;
• to invite one or two national ARCs to study the implications of our common baptism for the roles of men and women in the Church, the results of which to be shared at all levels of the churches;
• to promote co-operation locally on clergy formation, education, and other pastoral matters;
• to promote collegiality through:

- encouraging episcopal participation in each others' meetings at the international, national and local levels;
- encouraging a joint meeting of bishops at the level of provinces and episcopal conferences within 2 years;
- examining ways of ensuring formal consultation prior to one Church making decisions on matters of faith and morals which would affect the other Church, keeping in view the agreed statements of ARCIC;
- planning for a future review consultation of bishops within 5 years.

B. Follow up by Pairs of Bishops

The pairs of bishops from 13 countries present at this meeting will endeavour:

• to report back to the bishops of the province / episcopal conference within 6 months;

• to share the results of this meeting with the clergy and laity at the national and local church level.



C. Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission

ARCIC is invited to consider the following possible agenda items:

• the drafting of a document to link all the agreed statements produced by ARCIC, which would be a coherent summary of the work thus far. The papers produced for this meeting may form the basis of this work;

• a study of the place of Mary in the life and doctrine of the Church.

ARCIC is urged to consider commissioning a volume of the agreed statements produced since The Final Report which would include introductory essays and selections of relevant responses to the texts.

D. Annual Informal Talks

The Annual Informal Talks is a meeting of staff of the PCPCU, the Anglican Communion Office, Lambeth Palace, the Anglican Centre in Rome and the ARCIC co-chairmen. The next meeting in November will consider how the Joint Unity Commission and ARCIC will relate to each other.

E. The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Anglican Communion Office

Staff from these offices will explore the publication in book form of appropriate papers, presentations, sermons, the liturgy Celebration of Common Baptism, and other documents from this Anglican-Roman Catholic Bishops' Meeting.