Call for churches to work together

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32800, 28 December 1971, Page 10

Call for churches to work together

If the Church was to be a living factor in the community, it must be able to show to those outside the Church that it could work interdenominationally, said Mr J. C. Cottrell, Anglican diocesan registrar for Canterbury, yesterday.

“Although I have some personal reservations about the New Zealand plan for church union, I think perhaps it must be embraced by us with all our reservations for if it is God’s will, He will use it to his purpose,” Mr Cottrell said. Mr Cottrell has recently returned from London where he attended the Anglican Consultative'Council’s standing committee meeting. Set up at Lambeth in 1968, the council first met in Kenya early this year, and the standing committee, comprising five lay and four clerical members with a lay chairman (Sir Louis Mbanefo, the Chief Justice of Nigeria), was set up to advise the council on domestic matters of the Church. The ordination of women into the Church was one of the subjects discussed at the committee meeting, and the ordination of two women in Hong Kong on November 29 was taken into consideration. However, no definite action would be taken on this issue until all the, provinces had considered the subject and met at the next council to be held in July, . 1973, he said. Mr Cottrell said that While there was a> need for diver-

sity in the Anglican communion, the ordination of! women in some cultures might be acceptable and proper, but cohesion was still needed in the Anglican communion and not unilateral action. The committee had also discussed recent negotiations with the Roman Catholic Church on the Eucharist and other theological factors. “By this, I don’t mean the possibility of union between the two Churches, but simply the realisation that if the Church is to be of any significance, it must see what points the two denominations have in common, where they meet and where they can work together,” Mr Cottrell said. On his way to London, Mr Cottrell said he had attempted to see the work of Churches in other countries, and while he was in Kuala Lumpur as the guest of the Bishop of West Malaysia (the Rt Rev. R. Koh), he had watched the celebrations of the Moslem New Year. ’ “Through the recognition of their festivities we hope to strengthen understanding and co-operation between faiths,” said Mr Cottrell.