What the archbishop and the rabbi said

Have you been to the celebration of Christian Unity Week at the Scots Church led by Fr René Camilleri?

Unfortunately, I couldn't, because I was committed to attend the Baroque concert with which the former Methodist church in Floriana, subsequently renamed the Robert Samut Hall, was inaugurated as the very fitting seat for the Philharmonic Orchestra.

Incidentally, Michael Laus, himself playing the harpsichord as well as conducting, made the occasion really historic. He managed to extract from a relatively small group of the members of the orchestra a genuinely Baroque sound. However, there is still a good way to go before it can be said that performing Baroque music, in which genre Maltese composers such as the still relatively unknown Michelangelo Vella have excelled, is their speciality.

I am sure that if Laus is allowed to continue the excellent work he has begun to carve out a niche for us on the European music map, they will get there. Actually, with the performance of works by Bach, Vivaldi and Handel, the evening had an ecumenical spirit.

You did not express unqualified enthusiasm on the news of the Apostolic Constitution by which Pope Benedict authorised Anglicans to be received in the Roman Catholic Church while keeping their liturgical and cultural traditions, including married clergy. How have matters evolved?

The most significant development was perhaps the lecture that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, gave at the Gregorian University in Rome before his audience with the Pope. Many were surprised at the equanimity the archbishop showed.

Some attributed it to the fact that only a small fraction of the number of Anglican clergy originally anticipated to respond positively to the Pope's welcoming gesture has in fact done so.

It is worth remembering that in 1994, when the Anglican Church decided to ordain women as priests, 260 out of the roughly 12,000 Anglican priests became Roman Catholics, including the Bishop of London, but some 30 of them reverted to Anglicanism shortly afterwards.

In fact, Anglican parish priests are appointed for life, and deep personal links are forged with the community on whom the clergy depend for their domicile and livelihood. Priests would want to carry out a change of denomination only with the consensus of their parishioners.

I myself think the best fruit of the episode might be the renewed reflection on the nature and function of the priesthood that is being stimulated in this Year of the Priest, such as Williams himself provided in his lecture at the Gregorian. (To Hans Kung, it seemed that the Pope had shifted the Church's organisation from an Empire model to a Commonwealth).

He stressed that there is a big difference between essential tenets of the Christian faith, such as the Incarnation, and others of lesser status such as sexual morality and the ordination of women. He also emphasised a favourite point often made by Fr Timothy Radcliffe, former Master General of the Dominicans and a great personal friend of his, that an argument from authority is always weak in the perspective of St Thomas Aquinas.

The archbishop seemed to be implicitly suggesting that it would have been altogether happier had the Catholic hierarchy joined with the Anglican hierarchy in open re-consideration of the role of women in the Church, rather than closed the lid with a bang on the matter.

It may be that his equanimity was also due to the reciprocal understanding between him and Cardinal Kasper, the head of the Roman Catholic ecumenical commission. The deep spirituality of the Archbishop of Canterbury is obvious in his works, such as his study of Dostoyevsky that I have quoted several times in this column.

It may also not be irrelevant to recall that, in 2002, Williams is said to have vetoed the nomination of Freemason priests to the high ranks of the Anglican hierarchy.

There is a wider ecumenism than that between Christians. What do you think of Pope Benedict's visit to the synagogue in Rome?

The Chief Rabbi of Rome, Riccardo di Segni, did not display the sense of humour for which Jews are famous and with which, for instance, the English Rabbi Lord Sachs beautifully speaks.

He seemed to be impeded from smiling because of the heavy weight on his mind of two problems. The first is that of Pius XII. The second, in his own words, "is the theological role of Jews in the Catholic vision: Must we be converted or can we arrive at salvation calmly?"

Perhaps the answer that could be given to the rabbi is that the alternatives he gives are not exclusive. There may well be a third way. This was suggested by Bishop Krister Stendahl when he wrote about St Paul that, "rather than being 'converted', Paul was called to the specific task... of apostleship to the Gentiles". Paul never renounced being a Jew when he responded to Christ's call. Jews and Christians worship the same God and it may well be that there is no contradiction being Jew and Christian at the same time.

The point of ecumenism is to seek to move towards a point of convergence. It is as if a number of climbers were moving upwards on different paths in such a way that they eventually meet together at a higher level or plateau where diversity would still subsist within a unified conviviality.

It is perhaps a similar point that is made by a classic Jewish joke:

A rabbi, a Protestant pastor, a Catholic priest, and a Buddhist monk were discussing about God. The pastor said: "God is in Heaven". The priest said: "God is on earth". While the monk said: "God is in us". The rabbi said: "God is wherever one lets Him enter".

Fr Peter Serracino Inglott was talking to Miriam Vincenti.