not too much

The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) has released its 'agreed statement' Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ. The report was officially launched at St James' Roman Catholic Cathedral, Seattle, on Monday 16 May and at Westminster Abbey yesterday, Thurday 19 May. Sadly, it has not appeared on the web and at this stage I can't find an online bookseller with any stock (the only way to get it quickly in Australia). The full next was released online here on 1 June. A summary is available here.

Canon the Revd Professor Nicholas Sagovsky has been member of ARCIC for ten years. He will visit St. Mark's here in Canberra on 7th June to give a public lecture on "Justice and Freedom", that will also be published in St. Mark's Review. He will also give a seminar on the work of ARCIC concerning Mary.

Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ will provoke long discussion. The Reformed⁄Protestant point of view is summed up pretty well here. If wonder whether Pope Benedict XVI may have settled one aspect of the controversy in his homily on taking possession of the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, the Basilica of St. John Lateran on 9 May, the Feast of the Ascension of Christ? (An English translation in two parts is here and here.)

The Ascension of Christ means that he no longer belongs to the world of corruption and death, which conditions our life. It means that he belongs completely to God. He, the eternal Son, has taken our human being to the presence of God; he has taken with him flesh and blood in a transfigured form. Man finds a place in God through Christ; the human being has been taken into the very life of God. And, given that God embraces and sustains the whole cosmos, the Lord's Ascension means that Christ has not gone far away from us, but that now, thanks to the fact he is with the Father, he is close to each one of us forever. Each one of us may address him familiarly; each one may turn to him. The Lord always hears our voice. We may distance ourselves inwardly from him. We can live with our backs turned to him, but he always awaits us, and is always close to us.

If Jesus is close to us and we can address him familiarly, as the Pope rightly says, what need is there of any other heavenly intercessor, including Mary?