Malines Conversations Group: another instrument working towards a common future for Anglicans and Roman Catholics
Dr Ben Gordon-Taylor of Mirfield presents items related to Bp Walter Frere CR a participant in the origial Malines Conversations. Many people know of the two official instruments of the international dialogue between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church: ARCIC, (the theological dialogue) and IARCCUM (the episcopal commission on unity and mission, of which I am privileged to serve as the Anglican Co-chairman). There is another interesting and informal dimension to our international dialogue which takes its inspiration from a unique initiative in the 1920s, long before Vatican II, and not long after Pope Leo XIII declared in the 1896 Bull Apostolicae Curae that Anglican Orders were "absolutely null and utterly void" - the Malines Conversations, 1921 to 1926. Fr Thomas Pott presents a gift to Professor Gordon Lathrop. Fr David Richardson looks on. In 2013 the Conversations began again with theologians from each Communion taking up the task began